As expected in Moscow

Still loads of GA tickets for sale in Moscow.

Accessible quantity of places: 6997

Stats

Some boring statistics for the GA ticket sales in Moscow. Hitting the refresh button over and over:

3216 @ 12.45
3198 @ 12.46
3189 @ 12.47
3185 @ 12.48
3180 @ 12.50
3177 @ 12.51
3168 @ 12.55
3158 @ 12.57
3155 @ 13.00
3138 @ 13.02
3131 @ 13.07
3135 @ 13.08
3119 @ 13.12
3109 @ 13.18
3101 @ 13.23
3093 @ 13.26
3079 @ 13.35
3064 @ 13.44
3046 @ 13.54
3043 @ 13.59
3049 @ 14.22
3028 @ 14.45
2998 @ 14.54

Ticket countdown

At 12.45 PM Swedish local time, this is the first time I've seen a website stating how many tickets are left for grabs. Quite unexpected for the Russian site.

Dancing in Moscow

Speaking of "Dancing sertificate" and "Fan Zone", they actually changed those texts to "Standing tickets" and "Red Zone". Today is the public sale and this is the info available on the website. Also, I'm starting to wonder why the sale hasn't started yet (it's 10.15 am in Moscow).

Moscow - green light

From my "partner in crime":

Good news! I got an email back from the ticket office that the order was o.k. and paid for. Tickets can be picked up from the main office in Moscow, I got the address and all I need is the order number and my credit card. I got the order number so everything is fine now. Pffff......

Fed up

Poor Lia, she's absolutely fed up with this, but "I guess it is the price of love, I know it's not cheap":

Well, I got an email back from the ticket office, telling me that they cancelled my previous orders and that I could buy tickets again with the presale code. So I did, got through, ordered 2 standing tickets, got through to the payment and got through to the confirmation site. I printed the confirmation straightaway so I got that in front of me now but when I logged in again on the site it said, you've got no orders. Before that I saw the cancelled orders but they are not there anymore now as well. But now I can not log in at all anymore....... I am sure I still got my password right but no..... I am getting really tired of this.
I will send them an email again as I got an order number on the print out to see if this time it did go o.k.

Ivan the Terrible

At 7 am (Swedish local time) this morning the presale for Moscow started.
My friend Lia has a horizon code that is intended for Moscow. I don't envy her. Looking at the website kassir.ru, it was poorly translated to English and I could barely understand how to get GA tickets. You would tell by the prices that "Fan sertificate" is "Red zone" and "Dancing sertificate" is GA. Dancing? Sertificate?

Unfortunately, the payment using a credit card didn't work out. Not even after trying two times. Looking at the payment summary, she has obviously ordered 4 tickets now. She never got a confirmation mail and no money has been drawn from her bank acccount. Quite scary. I hope she'll be able to sort things out today.

Also, the "certificated" you buy shall be changed into valid tickets in Moscow between August 21 and August 25. It's more or less the same story as for London 2009.

Lia's Horizon code is no longer valid meaning that we have absolutely no idea if we got tickets or not.


I guess this was very predictable. Lousy translation of the text to English and lousy routines for selling tickets on the Internet. Many questions, no answers.

Now, by lunch, they have changed the word "Dancing" to "Standing" on kassir.ru and also it's Certificate, not Sertificate.


To be continued...

Greecs from Holland

I really enjoy receiving registred mail, there's always something important in the envelope. Today, it's from my friend Lia in Holland. 3 GA tickets for Athens. One is for me and the other two are for a friend and her brother.

Very surprising

At 11 pm last night, I checked the Turkish and the Greek websites for tickets. There were absolutely no signs of capacity problems on the sites, it was a piece of cake logging in and I had all the time in the world to select exactly the tickets I wanted. I didn't buy anything obviously since I used my presale codes. Today, at 2 pm there were still GA tickets available for both Athens and Istanbul. This is quite surprising as GA tickets always are sold out i minutes. Too bad we wasted our 2 presale codes, they're not exactly for free. Also, this probably means that there will only be one show in Athens and Istanbul. On the bright side, we'll have a few days in those nice cities for sightseeing not forced to travel to next city immediately as we're used to. I wonder how difficult it will be for us to sell the spare tickets we have.

Maybe only me and Lia will be in the audience. That would be cool :)

4 GA's for Istanbul

Today, I got 4 GA's for Istanbul. Unfortunately they will not be delivered until after June 1, 2010 so there's a long wait ahead of me. 480 TL is roughly 2375 SEK (about Eur 238). That's quite cheap I think. Someone said that it's like I am pregnant with tickets, waiting and anticipating for like 9 months now.

(Click to enlarge)

Life saver

I'm really starting to like those trips to the post office. Thanks P, you've saved me!

You're the owner of

I made a deal with a friend P in Finland. He is in desperate need of a Horsens 2 ticket and I need 2 Ga for Helsinki 2. He promised to get me 2 GA's for Helsinki 2 if I'd give him my GA for Horsens 2. He allready got one Helsinki 2 GA spare via a friend's presale code and he's going for one more in tomorrow's public sale. It's very hard not to fight for tickets in the public sale. What if P doesn't succeed? But, P is a very trusty guy who'd fight for tickets with his own life at stake. If he doesn't succeed, no one will, I'm sure. He told me he'll camp outside the ticket sales office all night. So, I trust P to get me the tickets I need and then I have the ticket he needs. Needless to say, I'll pay for the second Helsinki 2 ticket, even if Horsens 2 tickets are quite ”the rocks hottest tickets”.

Today, 2 days before the public sale, I got this wonderful e-mail:

Från: P
Skickat: den 22 oktober 2009 12:12:32
Ämne: Andreas, you're the owner of TWO Helsinki 2 GA's‏

Hey,

after some negotiations I now have TWO ga's from todays pre-sale for you, so Helsinki 2 is covered :) I'm going for a few more tomorrow so it's a possibility that I can already send out your tix by tomorrow too, that would be nice.

Cheers, P

Morjestaa!

This is what I picked up from DHL at 7 pm today.

2 x Suomi

This means I can pick up the tickets for Helsinki 1 today at the post office. Do note that I just wrote Helsinki 1.

Yes! There is a second show for Helsinki announced.We have no more presale codes and we desperately need to use a code as the public sales have been a disappointment for us so far.

From Finland

I just love express delivery as I can track the path of the envelope travelling through Europe. This means I should get my Helsinki tickets soon.


ANDREAS - tack för att du valt eventim.fi
Vi har skickat din beställning, bokningsnummer xxxxxx, som expressbrev med DHL. Kollinummer: xxxxxxx.
Försändelsen når dig normalt sett inom ett par arbetsdagar efter att du har fått detta meddelande.

Staying in Moscow

Booking of hotel in Moscow is now ok. As you can see, I've booked several nights, just in case there will be more shows added and if not, I'll have a chance to see Moscow up close. Suppose the hotel will raise the price a lot in the beginnning of 2010.

Dear Mr. Andreas!
In enclosed file confirmation booking at the Hotel from 23.08.2010 till 28.08.2010.
It's advance booking.In March will we send you Invoice for accommodation for all period staying at the Hotel.If you have change in period accommodation,please inform us about that.If you like receive Visa support letter you should send copy passport of first page of 2 person.It's free by booking.For Payment will send you Payment Agreement Form for payment with your credit card.You should fill this Form and send to our Office with copy credit card customer in bouth side and first page passport.
Room cost xxxx rur per Night without Breakfast.But in new year price at the Hotel will change.

More Danish gold

Today I got 4 of the hottest tickets so far for 2010, thinking about how extremely difficult it was to get my hands on them.

Precious Horsens 2

I sometimes wonder how I manage to put all that energy and effort into getting the tickets for Horsens 2.

Background
Extremely hard to get tickets for Horsens 1 at the public sale on Saturday 10 am. Tickets for Horsens 2 were  released abuot 10.15 am as tickets for Horsens 1 sold out immediately. Got my tickets for Horsens 1 via presale. No presale for Horsens 2 was offered.

And then...


I tried in every possible way to get tickets for Horsens 2 through dba.dk and blocket.se. There are only a few tickets on sale and prices are outrageous. None of the 5 sellers I've e-mailed have replied. I assume the tickets are gone.


As you may see in yesterday's posting, there are 2 links on u2.com showing there are still tickets available for Horsens 2 if you have a presale code. Don't have the nerves to try that. How can I find out if there are only seats left? Don't want to waste my presale code if there are no GA's available.


I've been thinking a lot about if there are a limited number of tickets available for each presale group. That would be the most logical and to give everybody a fair chance. I'm especially worried about the fact that Billetlugen responds that there are no tickets for postsale. Probably they didn't understand my question.

Also a bit afraid that the info on U2.com is not correct. It would not be the first time they state "tickets available" and when you go to the ticket vendor's site, it's sold out. In this case it would be a catastrophy.

If there are seats in the very back of the arena, U2.com and Billetlugen have done their part in all this and I cannot complain. I had the chance to get tickets, they never promised GA's.

THANK YOU Fredik who posted at u2.se that there still are GA's for Horsens 2 if you use a presale code. So, this morning at 5 am, I did it. I logged in with my Breathe presale code and got GA's. My presale code was intended for Istanbul but it's probably better to use it for Horsens 2 and as a matter of facts, I do have those precious 4 GA's now.

Postsale with presale

 

 Looks a bit strange at U2.com. Are you telling me there really are tickets left for Horsens 2? Too good to be true. I dare not try logging in with a presale code. What if there are only bad seats left and my presale code is concidered as used after logging in? Actually U2.com have fulfilled their obligations if there are any kind of tickets left. GA's are the only kind of tickets I want. I simply dare not try. On the other hand, it would be great if I could get tickets through Billetlugen, 100% genuine and not over priced.

Sent an e-mail to Billetlugen and got a very short reply: "There are no tickets left for postsale"

Helsinki 1 goes public

It's been an unusual and strange morning. The public sale of the tickets for Helsinki started at 9 am in Finland, that's 8 am here in Sweden. It was quite hard to get in on lippu.fi but I managed a few times though the GA's were sold out every time and RedZone were available every now and then. I'd say there were a few seconds during a full hour when it would have been possible to purchase tickets. I should have bought 2 more GA's if there eventually is a second show announced, and then trade for Helsinki 2. So far (it's 12:20 pm in Finland) there hasn't been any second show announced. It could happen any second though. Maybe they will wait to be able to offer a presale for the fans? You can never relax in this business.

Down the drain

There was absolutely no chance of reaching the site billetlugen.dk. So, the hunt for Horsens 2 tickets goes on and I'll probably have to buy spares for a lot of money. Thank God it almost a year from now, there should be a fair chance of getting tickets. Damn, I should have bought 4 tickets for Horsens 1, then I would most likely be able to trade for Horsens 2. Read more about the disaster here:


100 000 fans queuing in vain for tickets

Countdown

It's ok if the tickets for the first show in Horsens are gone when I manage to get on the site as I allready have what I need, 2 GA's. I feel pretty sure they will add one more show right away and that's when I need to be alert and ready to buy. I feel butterflies in my stomach.

No shit Sherlock

"One of the biggest bands in the world"...no shit Sherlock!
I assume that as soon as the tickets for Horsens 1 are sold out, there will be a second show on sale right away. My guess is that both of the shows will sell out in about 15 minutes. Casa Arena is a small place, about 35 000 visitors at concerts.

Danish gold

Postal mail rarely brings you any joy but what a joy it was to find the tickets for Horsens in my mailbox today. Still, it's a reminder of all the efforts I'll go through in August to get to front row. Well, it's almost 1 year to go.

Horsens presale

Listening to "Unknown caller", I got my hands on 2 GA's for Horsens. I wanted RedZone but there were no such tickets up for sale as far as I could see. Maybe they already sold our or maybe you cannot buy those tickets during presale? I just don't get it but I'm very happy with the GA's I have. I guess the tickets for Horsens will be dispatched and delivered before this week is over. That is normally what happens when you buy tickets from Billetlugen.

Helsinki presale

It was too much of a walk in the park getting tickets for Helsinki. The presale code worked like a charm and there was no load on the webserver. Clear and easy-to-understand instructions on the site allowing you to order exactly the tickets you want. Selecting Swedish as the language helped a lot, Finnish is not my cup of tea. I got 2 GA's so I will not have anything up for trade when the second show in Helsinki is announced. That's a lot calmer, not havig to deal with people but on the other hand I'm relying heavily on the open sale for the second show. Ok, now, only 30 minutes til they open sale for Horsens via billetlugen.dk.

I'm sure it will be a lot more unpleasant on Monday when the Helsinki tickets are released for public sale. Not that I need tickets but as the first night will sell out almost immediately and the second night goes on sale immediately, I have to struggle a lot to get 2 tickets for that second show. So, there will be a lot of pushing and shoving on the web Monday morning at 8.20 AM.

Pay more for less

At last, the Danish ticket vendor Billetlugen has released some information on why there is a category of GA tickets for 800 DKK and one for 595 DKK. Turns out the expensive GA:s give you access to the stands at the side, almost behind the stage. I wonder who would pay 800 DKK for those tickets.

It may seem a bit strange with all this rush for tickets when there's almost 1 year til the shows kick off. Still, it's here and now it's going down and tickets will be gone in minutes.

Finally facts

I checked back again and what I see is great satisfactory. Now we have the hard facts.

Nerves of steel?

I couldn't take the pressure any more so I renewed my membership today. No nerves of steel here but maybe that'll turn out to be a good thing in a very important question like this.

Total confusion

I must admit that the ticket presales (Vienna, Horsens and Helsinki) starting on Tuesday and goes on til Thursday causes a real chaos. I just doesn’t make sense. I had a presale code that I used for a show in 2009. That code should be marked as used. When I had completed the purchase in 2009, the code disappeared from my u2.com account (as expected). Logging on the ”my account” yesterday, there is actually a presale code. How is that possible? I checked the code that I received when I got my membership in 2009 and it’s the same code allright. Does that mean that I can use that old code for buying tickets in 2010 even if it’s used? Seems highly unlikely and it just can’t be that way. I used my code for 2009, so why is it still there?

Also, U2.com has sent an e-mail urging us to renew our memberships (USD 40) to obtain a presale code for 2010. This implies that the 2009 code cannot be used. Still, I’m very tempted to try the 2009 code again, after all, it’s there. Postings on U2.com says that everything will be clarified and be fixed on Monday. It has to be an error in the system. So many questions and no answers. Obviously there are people who renewed and still there is only the code from 2009 visible. Also, many fans have renewed and see a new code on the U2.com page.

There is no rhyme nor reason here. Hoping for better information tomorrow. I admit I’m getting nervous. I’m here with my credit card thinking about renewing right away. I can’t stand the risk of losing out on tickets. The pressure on the ticket sales in Helsinki, Moscow and Istanbul should be incredible. To make things even more complicated, I’m sure there will be tickets for a second show in most cities. Will the presale code be valid for those second shows also (provided you didn’t use the code for a purchase allready)?

To bring some order in all this chaos, I’ll just wait until Monday and hope for official information. There are some indications that you have to renew the membership and that seems logical and fair enough. If it’s the old code that is reactivated or a new code that will appear on the site, I haven’t got a clue. This is what U2.com says:

Q - I have unused code from my 2009 U2.com subscription and now that I have resubscribed to U2.com for another 12 months into 2010, I have a second code with the full four-ticket allocation. How do i tell which code is which?
A - Your new code, against your 2010 subscription, begins with a 2.

My code starts with U2 and that should indicate that it’s not valid. But why is the code there at all? Quite annoying in such an important question. What a waste of money, USD 40 if the old one actually can be used. I can assure you, the forces of capitalism and commerce rule. Of course you have to renew the membership to get a valid presale code for 2010. It would be very odd otherwise.

Hit the road Jack

So it's true then...God, it's time to hit the road again. I simply have to see the shows in Horsens, Moscow and Istanbul for a minimum. This is awesome! I'm sure more dates and venues will be anounced soon (the "holes" in the tour schedule implies exactly that). Probably there will be 2 gigs in each city like in 2009.

10 August, 2010 Frankfurt
12 August, 2010 Hannover
15 August, 2010 Horsens
20 August, 2010 Helsinki
25 August, 2010 Moscow
30 August, 2010 Vienna
3 September, 2010 Athens
6 September, 2010 Istanbul
15 September, 2010 Munich
18 September, 2010 Paris
29 September, 2010 Seville
2 October, 2010 Coimbra