Elton John tickets scooped up in an hour
Ticket scalpers already looking to make a profit off Elton fans who weren't able to get a ticket
Blink and you would have missed it.
Tickets for the Sept. 28 Elton John concert at the Moncton Coliseum were gone within about an hour of going on sale Saturday morning.
By the time the dust had settled, about 8,000 people had secured an autumn date with the Rocket Man himself. Others were left holding nothing but their copies of 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road'.
According to a city spokesperson, the Moncton show sold out about an hour after tickets went on sale at both the Coliseum ticket counter and online at 9 a.m. Saturday.
When news broke last week that the multi-Grammy award winning artist would be coming to the area to play a solo show, the City of Moncton encouraged people to go online to buy tickets and forego standing in line at the Coliseum. The city even put a ban in place preventing people from getting in line at the Coliseum until at least 24 hours before the ticket booth was scheduled to open.
"We just didn't want it get out of control," says Jillian Somers, spokeswoman with the City of Moncton.
By the time the ticket booth opened Saturday morning, about 100 people were waiting outside.
As for people who followed the City's advice and went online to pick up tickets, Somers says the website, for the most part, worked fine without any major snafus to report.
"Obviously with anything I think there were some minor glitches," says Somers. "Some people called in and they had questions about the system which we were happy to answer, but overall from an administrative tactical level the system worked great and I'm really happy with how things went."
In Saint John, tickets went on sale an hour after hitting the market in Moncton. The port city show also sold out but not as quickly as sell out times reported in Moncton, Halifax and St. John's. However, it may not have been for lack of enthusiasm. Tickets didn't sell out for about five hours in Saint John, but several phone calls received at a local radio station suggested problems with Harbour Station's online ticket buying technology.
For the group of people who got their tickets (a maximum of four could be purchased by each person) the smiles on their faces upon receiving them at the Coliseum box office Saturday morning pretty much said it all. For the later group who weren't as lucky, well, they're obviously not as pleased, but several aren't ready to give up on seeing Sir Elton in person just yet.
Shortly after tickets for the Moncton show sold out, online auction and selling sites such as EBay and Kijiji filled up with both offers to buy and sell the gotta have tickets.
Scalpers who were able to snag tickets have jacked up their asking price from the $163.00 for lower bowl, floor and balcony seats and $109.00 for seating behind stage and the upper balcony they paid for the tickets.
Yesterday two Elton tickets on the Coliseum floor, eighth row, were going for an asking price of $1,000 on EBay. If the seller is successful in making the sale they'll make a profit of $675, but as of press time there had been no bids.
The scalper should try to contact an interested buyer on the Kijiji site who's offering $1,000 in cash for two lower bowl seats. The asker, going by the name Len, says their offer will expire by the end of the month.
Another offer on the Kijiji website Saturday evening -- gone by Sunday morning -- tried to barter a trade of two VIP tickets to the Eagles concert on Magnetic Hill Aug. 2 in order to pick up four Elton tickets. It's unclear whether a successful trade was made before the ad disappeared.
In what might be the strangest offer of all for Elton tickets in Atlantic Canada, Halifax's Chronicle Herald reported over the weekend that an anonymous seller on Kijiji vowed to give up their ticket to one of the Halifax shows in exchange for the right to name the newborn child of the trader.
"You agree, I decide the name and then you show me the birth certificate and the tickets are yours," read the ad, which also offered the alternative to just buy the ticket for $450. The offer was gone by Saturday night. What's not known is whether the ticket was bought with currency or if a child is destined to get a first name based on mother or father needing to see certain musical performer in person.
Elton John's first Atlantic Canadian tour will begin in Halifax September 26 and 27, move to Moncton Sept. 28, Saint John on Sept. 30 and wrap up in St. John's October 2 and 3.
* With files from the Canadian Press.
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Comments (11)
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However "ticketnow.com" an online scalping site in southern US. had 80 tickets for sale an hour after they went on sale.
We "Monctonians" are not competing with just locals for tickets, but all of North America.
Something must be done to Prevent these On line Scalpers from getting their hands on so many tickets.
I do accept that I was not able to get a ticket; however, it is the process behind the sale of those tickets that was so infuriating. Who lets you buy tickets online based on your “screen refreshing” skills? Apparently, it’s not enough that I was logged in at 7h45 and patiently waiting until 9am for the Elton John link to become active…since I had to be in the “virtual queue”.
This experience was very painful and frustrating, and in my opinion, defies all logic. It does, nevertheless, reaffirms that Moncton can only pretend to be a concert destination of choice. For my part, I will continue to choose to travel to “real” concert destinations when I want to see an artist I like, because I cannot go through another headache and waste of time like this again.
I am feeling angry, as the public was told that the best way to get tickets was online, then the phone and the least effective method was to line up. After staring at the screen and seeing all the scalper's tickets posted online I went to line-up at Coliseum at about 9.40 and there were still tickets being sold. Sold out when I got to near front of line. Still unable then to get through on phone.
Now it seems that anyone genuinely wanting to attend will have to pay scalpers big bucks. I hope they boycott them.
We had 2 computers logged into the internet system at 8:30, and when 9:30 hit and the link to buy still wasn't active we tried refreshing one which was put in the queue. 10 minutes later, we refreshed the other. The second computer was then sent into the ticket purchasing system only to find that they were sold out. The first computer was still waiting in the queue for another hour after.
If tickets go on sale at 9am. log into the website at 9:05 and
you should get tickets this way no problem.
Why moncton is not using ticketmaster.com like every other city in north america?
wise up!