There r some really pissd off kids out there because they cudnt see the stage from there seats.
I know how ya feel, genrally I get free concert tix but as this is in London I paid and went down there, got bad seats AND the screen didnt work

THIS IS NOTHING 2 DO WITH PRINCE !!!! He is paid to turn up and perform. Thats it.!
Seating allocations is the promoters responsibilty and they are in the business of getting as much money as possible so will stick a seat anywear they can, plus they would not have been aware of how high the stage was when they decided how many seats to put in.
Its nowt 2 do with ticketmaster either, as much as it pains me to say this, They r completeley blamless ! All they r requird 2 do is prosess a booking and deliver your ticket, even if they put info on thier site which turns out to be bollocks, that info has come from...You guessd it, the promoter.
I Have been stiffed by them and hope it doesnt happen again on Sept 9th but if it does i WILL NOT BLAME PRINCE

If they wanted as much money as possible they should have had a standing area too. I much prefer that at concerts. That way truly loyal fans who are willing to queue for hours on end get to the front, not just those who happen to have more money or happen to get in at the right time on the ticketmaster website. Eeh take me back to the Gold Tour days.....


Although I'm certainly not compaining, I've been waiting to see the man again for 12 years.

kevos said:

It might not be upto ticketmaster to allocate the seats, but they are responsible to deal with their customers, who have paid £100's pounds for tickets, ticketmaster should deal direct with the promoter and then liaise with the fans who bought tickets, they should not be palming us off to AEG Live and saying its nothing to do with them ! when you buy a Ford car from a dealer, do you go direct to Ford if you have a problem or your local dealer who you handed over your cash to ?

Prince did decide to play in the round .... allot of the view problems are due to the location of band/instruments, height of the stage and Prince not truly playing in the round, he is staying more centre stage and out to the front, if your behind the stage in the E/F blocks he isn't visiting your area enough, thats is Princes responsibility, he should asses the impact of his stage performance on the fans.

Also, Prince is directly responsible for the aftershow fiasco, he decides if he plays or not and what entertainment is there for the fans, all he has to do is turn up and jam for 30 mins with the band, play guitar, play keyboards abit, doesn't have to sing, its not a big deal, most fans at the Indigo are not expecting a 2 hour aftershow, I'm sure they would be happy with him doing something abit special for them, like a 30 minute jam at 1am, thats not to much too ask for paying £27.50, queuing outside for 2 hours then waiting 2 hours inside the venue?

I will happily blame Prince where Prince is to blame.
[Edited 8/28/07 13:06pm]

Kevos you are right - bad seats are NOT Prince's fault.

However, he is a powerful man and we know he reads HQ (if not Prince.org as well) so he knows how unhappy we are. He does have the power to make some sort of difference.

Quite what he could do now I don't know, but when the whole fiasco started to unravel, he could have stepped in and made some sort of difference.

I don't blame him, but he could be more supportive to his extremely loyal fanbase who have paid a lot of money to see him.

themellowone said:

You may also be interested to know that when I complained to the O2 directly about some tickets I had for block F1 purchased using the NPG fanclub code, I was told by them that they/AEG are only responsible for the seating around the arena itself and NOT the floor seats at all. Sound like a copout? Well when I received aftershow tickets recently they were in an O2 folder and the standard arena seating plan printed inside of it did NOT show the floor seats at all. So there may be some truth in what 02 told me in that the floor seats are the responibility of Prince's "people" and not O2/AEG or Ticketmaster, who have only been given tickets allocations to sell on their behalf. That's what I was told anyway.

DoMeBaby69 said:

I'm guessing that the floor plan depends on the artist/type of show, so AEG/O2 and Prince's people will work together to arrange floor seating, as Prince is in the round, the seat plan for the floor will be radically different than an artist who has a stage at the front and everyone facing it. I cannot see them just leaving a floor plan to Prince's people, there's allsorts of health and safety legislation for a start that would be a mindfield for the event organiser/building owner if they left it to the artist's people !

I got the same seating plan with my tickets from the O2, just looked like a generic plan for the O2 that will be sent for any event you attend there, the lower tier/upper tier and suites are non-moveable from what I could see..

I do believe ticketmaster had little control over allocation of VIP seats, but they shouldn't have agreed to sell VIP packages without knoiwing the seating locations at the time, now ticketmaster should be handling the complaints and dealing directly with AEG, equally, we were stupid (me included) for putting our faith in AEG/Ticketmaster/Prince and handing over £235 per ticket without knowing a seat block/row/seat number ! we fell for 'the best seats in the house' statement.
[Edited 8/28/07 14:39pm]

ecnirp98 said:

What I'd really like to know was who was responsible for selling F block seats to former NPG fan club members. They're the worst seats in the house!

DoMeBaby69 said:

I would guess 3121.com, thats where you bought them from wasn't it? 3121.com would have been given an allocation from AEG for the former NPG people, 3121.com should refused them on the grounds there poor tickets and got a better allocation, either they didn't know that or they didn't care ...

ecnirp98 said:

I already had a full quota of tickets which I'd bought through Ticketmaster. I hadn't planned on buying any more. Then I got the email from 3121.com saying that as a former NPG fan club member I could get tickets using a special code. I vividly remember my hands shaking at the keyboard thinking I was going to get fanclub seats so bought another four tickets which I could ill afford. Although the link came through 3121.com, it led straight through to the Ticketmaster website who obviously had been given the ticket allocation to sell to former NPG fan club members. So yes perhaps you're right, 3121.com may have been involved in this. But if they were, how could they do this to the "real" fans? Put them in seats behind the stage where they'll only get a glimpse of Prince if/when he decides to put in an appearance round the back of the O.

I remember the last time Prince was in London at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2002 and I was in the front row of the balcony seats and all of the fan club members where in the floor seats and Prince walked through the floor seats and said up to us non-members on the balcony "now if you were a member of the NPG you'd be sitting down with these people"! It was then that I joined the NPG so you can imagine my joy at being given the opportunity by 3121.com to get fan club tickets. What a disappointment it turned into to find that they were really crap seats.....

Not surprised to hear that I am not the only one who is a bit fed up with the ticket allocation. I have just been to my third Prince performance and the only decent tickets I really had were for the opening night, BLK 101. What really ticks me off was the fact that I got in nice and early, I bought some tickets using the O2 code and the others were purchased in the general sale. I would have thought that getting in early would have meant some good seats but this does not appear to be the case. What does amaze me is when I see on this website that Ticketmaster release some more tickets and in some good locations, i.e BLK 116 but I never seem to be lucky to get some. Is it just me or have I missed something along the way. How did people manage to secure decent tickets in the lower tier especially for BLK 105 to 108.
[Edited 8/29/07 6:17am]

ace1967 said:

Its partly luck of the draw but those perticular blocks are used as production seats which means press and guests get them first and as there quite desirible touts and scalpers will buy them in large amounts.
I phoned up and got 116 10th row but it was pure luck.

My advise wud be wait till the nite of the show and you are very likley to get these seats at box office

kevos said:

So how do you know it has nothing to do with Prince? Do you know something, or did you make it up?

Also, who forced 3121.com to sell the worst floor seats??

kevos said:

Just wondering why you think Blk 116 is good cos as far as I can see it's behind the round bit and the band. I also managed to secure tickets for last night in this block, row C but I got the impression they weren't very good but I don't care as long as I'm there for his last night! Was in blk 102 for 1st night which was fantastic. Please explain!

Many thanks for the reply. Seems like I mis-read the seating chart as the seats I should have made reference to were in Blk 105-108 as that is towards the front. I would be interested to find out if people got tickets in Blk 105-108 and how they got them. I did ask at the Box Office but all they had were Upper tier available.

The tickets I had for the opening night were actually in BLk 110 and were not too bad. As you say perhaps I was just unlucky with the other tickets I got.

When you go it might be worthwhile going to the Customer services desk within the arena and ask if they have got anything better. When I went last night I asked if I could get moved to a better seat and was sent to the Customer Service desk. When I arrived at the desk it looked like a couple in front of me had kicked up a fuss over there seats and a supervisor had been called as they were then given tickets to one of the lower tier Blk's at the side of the stage and towards the front. After they went I then explained to him that this was my third show and in two of those shows the seats were not too good. He told me that all the spares had pretty much gone (not sure I actually believed him but maybe I should have kicked up a bit more of a fuss or got there earlier). When you go on the last night it might be worth your while asking. If you don't ask.....

NikkiJC said:

Oops I mis-read the seating charts. Apologies all round. I meant the seats in BLK 105-108, how did people get seats in that section. I will edit my initial post as well.

ace1967 said:

Kevos thanks for the response, I got the BLK numbers wrong as they should have been BLK 105-108.

With regard to the tickets, I like a lot of people got an e-mail from 3121.com offering me the opportunity to purchase tickets being a former member of the fan club but those tickets were also not that much better.

Although I would not blame Prince for the manner in which the tickets were distributed I do believe that former members of the fan clkub could have got a better deal.

kevos said:

ace1967 said:

SquirrelMeat said:

An artist is not going to arrange seating plans, you have to remember with concerts such as this there will be up to 50 diffrent organisations involved as for 3121 gettin such bad seats that is down to promoters who organise allocations, and with high demand tix such as prince ticket brokers will use a system known as "paying ice" which means they will go to promoters before tickets go on public sale and offer far more than thier face value which is why you always see adverts for these companys offering front row seats.
Its shit and unfair and illegal and I hate it but it will continue to happen until someone sets up an official body to oversee practices of live events.
Somthing I am looking into at preasent

kevos said:

That is rubbish. He has a stage designer. He knows that those stuck behind the band are not going to see a great deal, especially if you are on the floor.

Personally, bands should stick to end stage and also only be allowed to have one price for their tickets, not all this £75 for seats at the back, £100 for seats in certain vblocks in the upper tier and £150 for seats anywhere else in teh arena (ala TRS).....

It is nice though to hear that it's the dearer seats causing the problems at Princes concerts. It makes a change.

My sister paid £150 to see Madonna at Wembley last year and was put right in the top corner to the side of the stage. She would nopt have been able to see anything. Thankfully she kicked up a fuss and was moved onto teh floor, which the prompted other people to complain also in the same situation in the block she was moved from.

At the end of the day, it's all about getting more bums on seats amd more money in.
[Edited 8/29/07 6:59am]

Kevos is spot on although I do agree with what he says I also feel that the fans, especially the former members of his fanclub, could and should have been given some sort of consideration. It is obvious from the many posts I have read that Prince fans will go to multiple shows, why not reward them.

kevos said:

kevos said:

When an artist chooses to manage himself, he has to take responsiblity for the actions of those he puts in charge.

Prince picked the AEG. Pick the management, take the flack.

Besides, AEG didn't decide to put a stage that doesn't suit in the round concerts in the middle of the hall, Prince did. This is where the problems stemmed from.

Prince's vanity in waiting the symbol in the middle, and his fickleness to not show up at aftershows that he has sold tickets for are nothing to do with AEG or Ticketmaster.

Only one person is to blame for his own actions.

SquirrelMeat said:

As much as I hate to admit it, you are right.

kevos said:

I really hope you manage to do that. Are you in that line of work? Good luck with it. Will it help you that Trading Standards have a number of complaints about this series of shows? If you need any evidence feel free to count me in and I will give you details of my experiences. Clare.

Clare said:

Yes thanks Clare
I am in discussion with a few offical people at the moment and will look to set up an online pertition that people can sign in order to try to convince the powers that be we need a govening body for this area of business.

In the mean time I will post a new notice for people to contact me with thier story if they wish to. I will also be contacting the people I know in the medea to help.

Like a lot of other people I would be interested to see how this works out. Please let us all know how you get on. I did feel for those people who purchased VIP tickets only to find themselves at the back of the stage.

Kevos said:

Totally agree with your comments. Like most people I work and do not have the time to keep checking the ticketmaster website evry 10 minutes or so. It's a pity the old fanclub was disbanded as it gave you the opportunity of getting tickets before they went on general sale. I remember going to the ONA tour and standing at the back and being told by Prince that all the fan clubs members were at the front. I think I joined the fan club soon after.

NPGoperata said:

The best thing you can do is complain loud enough at a concert because usually they will find you somewhere better to stand/sit.

A regulatory body is desperately needed for the whole spectrum of live events and considering there has been something of a live issue with EU regulation particularly looking to end pay per view broadcasters monopolising the screening of important cultural events like World Cup matches, I can see no reason why something has not been introduced before now for the live events at stadiums/arenas themselves. Ideally seats with restricted views should not be allowed to go on sale.

On another note, the worst venue I have been to in recent times for bad seats has to be Wembley Stadium. The majority of seats for standard allocation are positioned appallingly - they may be ok for football matches but NOT for live music. The stadium is far too big and the seats are miles away from the stage - crap view and mediocre sound = no atmosphere. At the George Michael concert this year, they had one screen for the entire stadium. Some poor people wouldn't have been able to see it at all from the angle it was positioned. Considering it took so bloody long to build, it is a bit of a let-down.