March 8, 2007
Ongoing Dismemberment
As you may have heard, one of the most beloved and, in our opinion, best bands ever to come out of the District, The Dismemberment Plan, are reuiniting next month for the sake of Callum Robbins. The overwhelming, fast sell out of the first show lead the guys to agree to a second night -- April 27, which went on sale last night relatively under the radar — but openly enough to sell out pretty darn quick.
Fear not, devoted DPlan fans. You've got one more chance to buy tickets legitimately before begging to the masses on Craig's List. A tipster let us know that the Black Cat will be releasing tickets to the Friday night show at 8 p.m. tonight. More on this over at After Hours.
Some feathers were ruffled after the first show sold out so quickly, with stories flying about a 50 ticket limit and scalpers eating up all the tickets fans and good hearted charity supporters could have bought. But the Black Cat has assured us that they monitor sales for any sign of scalping very carefully:
We regularly review the ticket manifests for our shows, and for this show, the vast majority of purchasers bought four tickets or less per person. A few (six) people bought more than four tickets, but no one purchased more than 10. Numbers like these are standard for our shows, and our will call ticketing system has multiple checks in place to insure against scalping. That's one of the reasons it takes so long to get in the door at a sold out show here. Had anyone purchased a large number of tickets for this event, we would have caught it on the manifest and invalidated those tickets.
So, neither the Black Cat or Ticketmaster are heartless, and there really are just that many rabid fans looking forward to this reunion and supporting a great cause. That's enough to put a smile on our collective faces on this chilly afternoon. We'll be seeing you in line tonight. Dress warm.
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I saw them a few years ago at Fort Reno.
Not too many people were there.
I doubt it was enough to sell out the Black Cat once let alone twice, and that was a FREE show.
What gives?
I got the same e-mail from Black Cat, but they don't mention that many users could _reserve_ 50 tickets without purchasing them, thereby locking up those seats until they defaulted to purchase or altered the number of tickets they were purchasing. Those seats seeped back out around 5:05 or abouts and were swept just as quickly.
So, no, I guess not cheesy scalping after all, but definitely poor planning and programming on someone's part.
Don't matter now. I got my ticket (actually 4 tickets) and I am superduper grateful to D-plan, (Travis in particular) and the Black Cat for being so cool and accommodating about the whole fiasco.
A tipster? You mean the Black Cat website? Cause I saw it there around 8 am this morning...
Yes, you're right. But a kind friend pointed our attention to the news, so we wanted to give credit where due. Confirmation of tonight's sale is up on the Black Cat's schedule.
www.blackcatdc.com/schedule.html
Great, since I was 5 seconds too late for the first sellout, and left work early and didn't see the second sellout, I'm supposed to stand in line with 500 hipsters for three hours? Maybe I'll just bring a few cases of PBR and bribe my way to the front. This sucks.
hey "tipsters": if you could refrain from notifying dcist of things like this in the future, those of us who check the black cat's website would be grateful not to be 300 deep in line. thx.
oh come ON. For every person that bitches about DCist posting ticket sales like this, there's 2 bitching when they DON'T post.
Thanks for the heads-up, DCist. Sorry you guys can't catch a break from your own commenters.
outtaSoFlo-
I've seen DPlan at Ft. Reno, and I remember it being maybe modestly attended, though I wouldn't go so far as to say "not too many people were there". Plus Ft. Reno can be deceptive, when people are spread out in little groups around the field, it can look like fewer people than it is. Plus attendance can be unpredictable there...if it's one of those 95 degree August days with 95% humidity, or if there are thunderheads moving in, that can keep a lot of people home even for a well loved local act.
Actually, the hard tickets were released last night at 8pm. I saw the notice on Black Cat's website around 9pm, and got my pair around 11pm. No line, no fuss.
outtaSoFlo -
I also saw DPlan at Fort Reno...I bet there were several hundred people there. And remember, that was when they were together - if you didn't see them at Fort Reno (under the oppressive summer conditions described by solo), you could always catch them indoors at the Black Cat sometime down the road for about 10 bucks.
The reason these shows sold out so quickly is that it has been over three years since they broke up and no one knows when or if they'll ever play again outside of these two shows. Add to that, the whole benefit for Cal Robbins aspect, and you easily have two sold out shows worth of people wanting to go.
their last ft. reno show was rained out. There were somewhere between 200 and 300 hipsters/good music fans who stood soaking thru an opening band whose equipment all got ruined. Then the plan cancelled the show. *sniff*
Maybe in 20 years they'll reunite for an arena/stadium tour
Their last show was a sold-out gig at 9:30, to make up for the rained-out Ft. Reno show. I'm a little surprised the initial tickets went in a matter of seconds, but not surprised in the least that they were able to sellout 2 nights at The Cat.