Author: J. Gabrielle

Hi, I'm Joan. I write to voice out my truth, express my musings of the world around me, and of course, to simply kill time. While I am constructing this tiny intro, it's raining heavily outside. I'm on my desk just about to transfer inside my closet because the lightning I'm seeing from my window scares me. Other than writing, I am also a science student with a wide range of interests. I am overall obsessed with space-like aesthetics—galaxies, planets and constellations. Oh, and one last thing, I am a sensitive cutie who worships the sun (aka a Lorde stan!)

Getting Good Seats at Ticketmaster | Lorde’s Solar Power Tour (my story)

On By J. GabrielleIn musicLeave a comment

Good seats = affordable + near the stage

Interrupting life’s normalcy, the COVID-19 pandemic has suspended live events—such as concerts, games, and theatre shows—for quite a while now. Luckily, with the arrival of vaccines, live events are now being made possible (and perhaps, rescheduled) in the next year of 2022. One particular concert I am most excited with, my very first one to attend as well, is Lorde’s “Solar Power” Tour for her new album of the same name. Lorde’s music is one that I grew up with and seeing her live will be an absolute dream.

Ticket details page on TicketMaster

Now, obtaining tickets for in-demand live shows was next to a Hunger Games-like struggle and my dreams of seeing Lorde was almost left to shambles—all thanks to TicketMaster’s crappy services! Praise be to my god-tier IT skills though I was able to find ways to achieve one of my lifelong ambitions.

The following lists some great tips to get good tickets for any of your favourite live events (inc. my “Solar Power” story as an example):

  1. If you’re entering a ticket pre-sale, make sure you have your code already copied to your clipboard and ready to “CTRL + V” once required || I’ve been subscribed to Lorde’s mailing list for a while now and she sent us subscribers the pre-sale code the day before so I was all good with this part (tee-hee!)
  2. Arrive on TicketMaster’s site at least 30 minutes early before the pre-sale’s scheduled time
  3. Sign in and enter your paying credentials right away || I made an account and signed in a day before pre-sale and left my tab open overnight. I also filled in my payment account details to spare some time writing out all the digits of my credit card account. Apparently, TicketMaster does not log you out automatically after some time
  4. Enter the queue ASAP once the link opens, as in RIGHT AWAY!!
  5. Wait for your turn and once you’re in, do not click on the ticket selection at the right side of the page. From that section, ticket availability is not shown accurately. Instead, navigate through the venue seating on the left side of the page. Click on the seat that is available and is within your budget.
  6. The most important step (do not skip this part!!!)
  • Most concerts, and other live events, have their tickets sell out pretty fast
  • Don’t get me wrong! I almost lost hope, and my cool, when I found out I was 1795th in line out of a 3000-seat venue. Think about my probability or at least “luck” of getting front row seats—zero to none!
  • It’s been 20 minutes and I’m still on queue. Beyond disheartened at this point upon hearing Twitter news that the tickets already sold out a few minutes after pre-sale began
  • I still held on to my optimistic and stubborn self though
  • Now I’m in, there was one mezzanine seat available, only ONE! It was selling for $187. I selected and paid for it as the rest were orchestra (front row) seats at a high cost of $400+ which was crazy and waaaaay beyond the price point I’m aiming for
  • I purchased the one lucky seat and paid. Already more than ecstatic with the fact that I’ll be going to the very first music concert I’ve ever been in my entire life, and it’ll be by one of my favourite artists of all time, LORDE
  • We’re not done here yet
  • The skeptical side of me felt that there was something shady going on with this ticketing bamboozle-ness. Like, there’s no way all seats are gone now and the pre-sale goes by that fast like hell no!
  • I REFRESHED THE PAGE!!!
  • Let me repeat that ladies and gents, I REFRESHED THE PAGE!!!
  • This time, the whole seating arrangement diagram crappery restarted and there were more front row seats available at a much lower cost—same price as my mezzanine seat ($187 vs. the $400+ earlier).
  • I purchased one for myself
  • Then again I felt dissatisfied because of feeling bad I’ll be going alone
  • I REFRESHED THE PAGE once again and found a couple of better seats even neared to the stage and are together. I got these two for me and my mom
  • I have four tickets now (yikes!) Not gonna lie though I’m planning on reselling the two of them just in case my dad and bro don’t wanna go with us
  • I yeeted my way out of the site cursing TicketMaster’s shady side of business (and the scalpers and bots)

The key is: REFRESH THE PAGE!

‘Aight imma head out,

J (^_^)>