whilst no tours or other concerts have been announced as yet, i think that makes this a good time for this suggestion, as it has to be made before sales

it's a simple suggestion, when a tour or multiple shows are to be sold through the website, put ONE SHOW AT A TIME onsale, with a reasonable break of at least an hour or two before putting another show onsale

this means that if multiple shows go onsale, you don't have everyone trying to buy tickets at the same time. if the shows are different cities it should greatly alleviate any server strain. from my own experiences, and experiences of others, i've seen sites like ticketmaster straining and having big problems when caught unexpected by ticket demand, and it's happened previously with prince tickets too. even if three shows in one day go onsale, it makes it easier for fans to buy one show at a time, instead of having time to purchase one show, and the others sell out by the time the first is completed. there are ways and means around that, but it means it's not fair on fans who haven't sussed out the tricks. certainly, i'd say main show and aftershow tickets should go onsale at seperate times, so you don't lose out on the aftershow tickets because you took too long to buy the main show

and that's it. a simple suggestion, nothing controversial or difficult, and should be able to be implemented with little to no cost, in fact if it prevents server problems it could actually save money

one minor comment would be to think about the time tickets go on sale, and firstly make it clear what local time tickets will go onsale, and secondly think about tickets going onsale at a convenient time when most people would be able to buy online without a problem. such as 7pm in the evening, instead of 9am in the morning when the majority of people are starting work. if it has to be in the morning, how about 11am instead. mid morning when people can get settled in and ready in front of a computer. of course some people will have a problem with any time, but i would say mid morning or mid evening would avoid conflicting with start and end times of most peoples jobs, and most prince fans these days aren't teenagers, so times should be planned around the profile of the fanbase

if anyone agrees with this suggestion, or has any other input, good or bad, please post here, as if there is sufficient interest, they may take notice. and it looks like the lotusflower team pop in this forum from time to time

The way it was done on NPGMC was that you placed your order for tickets up to the maximum allotment (typically 2) and they charged your credit card. The tickets were made available for a few days or, until sold out so you could order throughout the day (unless sold out). On the evening of the show you would present your id and credit card at the will call to claim your ticket and then were ushered inside for sound check or put in a special line to prevent scalping. i think this system worked great and took a lot of the worry out as you didn't even have to fool with the TicketBastard site at all. Even nicer was not having to pay their silly "convenience" fees, it was just a straight face value. The only improvement i can think of is to up the allotment to at least 4 per person.

9am is Good for me-as I work Nights & would have to wait up 1hr to 9am to try to get ticket(s) on any day-during the week is best as every place is not as busy trying to buy tickets everywhere-including the net!

Peace!
Randee

unique said:

completely agree with unique! very logical thinking mate