what are "production tickets"?

Swa said:

i didn't ask what kind of seats it was, but i was told how many, and it was a CONSIDERABLE amount, certainly not a conservative amount, and it's MANY thousands. it's a particularly high percentage of seats. this has nothing to do with the excuses of reorganising seats to fit more people in, which is just another excuse normally. they simply held back loads of tickets so they could "sell out" all of the nights and create demand when the extra tickets went on sale

whilst it's been pointed out by a few people on various sites that this is common practice, it's not really, not on this scale. there are a number of reasons why tickets appear back on sale for "sold out" events, such as the VIP ticket deals where you pay say £500 for a preshow party etc and a ticket in the first 10 rows or so, they don't normally sell out, so they put those tickets back on sale at normal price, which is why it's not uncommon to get excellent seats for normal price the day before the show or the day of the show. that is a limited amount of tickets however, you also have tickets kept aside for things similar to a presale, such as american express customers privilidges, this doesn't affect things so much these days as most of them sell these tickets as presales only, so any not sold before the main show are put on sale later, but before the days of presales becoming common for most large shows, these companies simply had an allocation of tickets sold at the same time as the normal tickets, some of the old school companies like amex sometimes still do it the old way however. this normally only counts for a reasonably small percentage of ticket sales however, and most of them sell out which is why just a few go onsale late on

with the prince tickets, the promotors released tickets at various times, but they didn't hold back thousands of tickets to say the shows sold out like the did with MJ, they just waited until crap seats in the uppier tier were sold out before putting more lower tier on sale. this is organised by the promotor and not the ticket sellers, so TM don't sell the bad seats first, they just sell what they are given, just like a shop can only sell whatever goods the supplier gives them. the tickets that were available late on or went on sale over time were cancelations and VIP tickets that weren't sold. there were people who bought more tickets than they should have (ie. limit was 6, but there were ways to beat the system, and it took manual checking to find them, they found someone bought a load of final aftershow tickets and cancelled them on the day itself and they went back onsale at TM)

what they did with the MJ tickets was very different to other shows, and it was simply because they put so many dates on sale. they never would have all sold out on day one (which should give you a clue to how many were held back) which would have resulted in "flop sales" headlines and put people off buying, but by selling a few and saying they were sold out it creates demand, so when they go back onsale people clamour to get them, including people who wouldn't have bothered otherwise

with the amount of tickets unsold, and considering they did sell uppier tiers, there must be plenty of good seats left, they wouldn't sell the good ones and leave the crap aside, in fact they probably sold most of the crap seats so the second batch of good seats will be snapped up. like with the prince fiasco, you will probably have the same people rebuying tickets with better seats, so there will be a flood of unwanted upper tier seats floating about

btw, production tickets are usually what they call seats down the front rows when they either shrink the stage back a bit or replan seating so they can squeeze an extra row or two in. they don't make the extra rows at the back of a sold out show, they put them at the front so they will sell faster, and they can usually charge a higher price. this is usually planned from the outset, as all venues have plans that tell you exactly how many seats you can fit in, so any stage manager will know all this from the outset. they don't normally plan to change the size of the stage to fit in an extra row or two of seats

Swa said:

they don't normally hold back comp seats like that, they plan things in advance so they have friends and family nights and things like that where they will keep a block aside. they won't sell the unused tickets as they don't want the riff raff hanging out with friends and family, so you don't get late sold tickets that way. for less important people they will be given a bunch of tickets to do as they please, and if the more important people don't take them, the secretaries or people lower down the ladder will usually snap them up. i've been to gigs like that were we've been given a pile of tickets to do what we want with. i've even stood outside gigs handing out free tickets as i've been left with spares

ehuffnsd said:

that's not true at all. every venue has a detailed set of plans and specifications, detailing everything down to power point locations, this is required for health and safety etc. when planning the venue, architects need this information and stick it together on CAD software. likewise when planning tours, the designers get these stats and plan the stage on CAD software, so they know everything in advance and when they turn up in trucks they aren't fucking around trying to find where they can plug the amp in. they need to know all this in advance so they can put seats on sale. in a lot of bigger venues they have a choice of seating layouts, such as in theatres if you don't use the band pit you can either have a bigger stage or an extra six rows of seats, or if you play in the round the seating is different, or likewise playing sideways in an arena instead of longways. there is a measurement for fire regulations of how many people can fit in a cubic space, so you can calculate how many bodies you lose per square metre of stage for example. it's just simple planning and mathematics. when your teacher at school asked you to calculate weird shit with protractors and stuff and you wondered WTF would ever do this, well know you know

in the 70s they might have just turned up with a load of planks of wood and just nailed together a stage, but it's a big professional business, and to be quick and efficient they have to plan everything in detail, down to how the stage gear be shipped efficiently to be loaded and unloaded in the most efficient way. usually they have to put the stage up one day and pull it down the same day to take to the next city. sometimes they will have two stages for huge outdoor gigs so they can setup one stage whilst the other is at another city. arena gigs are a lot simpler. getting the sound right in short time in various venues is the hardest part, especially when playing in the round

NaughtyKitty said:

I´v e got tickets for the 16, which has not been rescheduled, I hope.

Marrk said:

add midnight mover to that list. he calls anyone a loon who disagrees with anything he says.

Marrk said:

midnightmover said:

unique said:

Not true. She who should not be mentioned almost pulled out of her date in San Diego because the venue was shocked that she was showing up with a catwalk and they told her she couldn't place on the field. When the venue was told well allow the catwalk or tell the people the morning of the event that they refused to allow the stage to be assembled to allow the show to be seen as she wanted the audience to see it.

ehuffnsd said:

well in rock and roll you will always have some idiot trying to do something stupid. stadiums and outside gigs are a bit different as they aren't normally designed for rock concerts, but arenas and theatres are. the o2 concert hall was specifically designed for that purpose and there are detailed specs available to those who want to hire it. the MJ gigs are only in one venue, so they just need measurements for one venue to plan the stage, and it was announced months ago, so only a retard wouldn't know a few weeks before showtime how many rows of seats they can fit in, but i suppose MJ is known for employing idiots, so it could be true

Marrk said:

In fact I started to hate to come on here and post on here , whenever I open the thread I see an awful articles with horrible ridiculous pictures, I no longer see something informative about the man,Its getting really ridiculous .

Well they had a huge range of tickets available this morning for most of the shows. Not just in one section of the auditorium, sounds like typical AEG bullshit to me. "it's a sellout!"...eh, no it's not. The hype seems to be working against them on this one. Just checked a while ago, tickets are not sold out.

Might pick up a couple, I like watching disaster movies.

Rorywan said:

i read on another non music forum that someone got front row tickets this morning without any problems at all. they've really done an outstanding job of pissing of the last few fans he had by putting dates back six months and selling better seats at normal prices after the fans bought shit seats in the upper tiers as they couldn't get anything better originally

and then the poor cunts who bought tickets on fleabay at inflated prices because all the shows were "sold out". the only thing that's been sold out is the fans. thank fuck they didn't do this with the prince gigs

unique said:

I must be confused - I thought you said they pulled the same thing with the Prince gigs, which is why you thought they would with MJ.

Unless I missed your sarcasm.

Swa

Swa said:

I distinctly recall AEG most definitely DID pull the same stunt with Prince. I.e., holding back lots of tickets from the initial sale to claim immediate "sell outs". Later, fans were able to buy better seats than the people who pounced on the initial sale.

I wouldn't be surprised if AEG used the same approach with Mike. I've been offline for a few days but I gather that's what has happened?

matthewgrant said:

Oh man!! Mike, what are you doing!?

bboy87 said:

I must say, that is a pretty cool T-shirt!

Swa said:

with the prince shows they had presales and most of the seats weren't that great, but people bought seats, then on the general sale they released a bunch of seats early in the day, then when they were sold out they released some better seats later in the day, so in the morning people got uppier tier as that's all that was left on sale, then later in the day they could have got lower tier

the difference between the two was that once the prince tickets were announced as sold out, that was it pretty much, bar the returns and vip tix etc. they didn't say sold out, they said tickets not available, and only said sold out when they were really sold out (bar the odd return etc, altho technically you could say they were sold out, it was just returns being sold, tickets that were previously sold). but with the MJ tickets they said they all sold out, and you could no longer buy tickets for weeks or months even, i can't remember how long ago they went on sale, but fans and public genuinely thought everything was completely sold out, and he had sold out 50 shows, thus people looked to places like fleabay for tickets which were probably vastly overpriced considering 50 shows were supposedly sold out

to make matters worse, because of the cancelations/rescheduling pushing shows back six months, i'm sure there must have been plenty of people who had tickets for these shows that turned to places like fleabay to try and see him sooner than waiting six months, especially considering many people didn't think he would last the distance. knowing that they had so many tickets held back, AEG handled the rescheduling particularly badly, as they could have made people aware of the kept back tickets and offered people the chance to swap to another date instead, but what they did means that some of his biggest fans would have turned to touts and fleabay to buy overpriced upper tier tickets so they didn't have to wait six months to see him, and now they find out that front row seats for some of the earliest gigs are being sold on TM for normal price

what they did with the prince tickets was shitty, but this takes things to new levels

Michael Jackson blings up with 300,000 crystals
Got tickets to see the King of Pop at the O2? Better take some sunglasses or else be blinded by a jewel-encrusted Jacko


As anticipation builds for Michael Jackson's O2 Arena concerts, organisers have guaranteed that it will at least have some sparkle. Hundreds of thousands of Swarovski crystals – or, er, "crystallised elements" – will be integrated into the sets and costumes of Jackson's This Is It residency, producers have announced. Jackson may even wear a fancy crystal hat.

"As the King of Pop, it is only natural for [Jackson] to be crowned in crystal," Swarovski said in a press release. As partners of the production, the jewellers will contribute 53 different shapes, 40 different sizes and 27 different colours of "CRYSTALLIZED (TM) Swarovski Elements" – 300,000 crystals in total. According to the Swarovski website, the company has "inspired the human race" with the "mathe-magical effect" of their creations. This means, we surmise, that they are really sparkly!

Together with the crystal announcement, promoters have also released several hundred new tickets, reserved while staging was still being designed. "We were quite conservative in holding back seats to accommodate the footprint of this massive and technologically advanced production," explained AEG Live president Randy Phillips. "Now that Michael Jackson and Kenny Ortega are advanced in the creative process, our production team is prepared to open up those 'holds' to the general public." Tickets were given away in a lottery this morning, to fans who had subscribed at the Michael Jackson website.

Though the first 750,000 tickets, released in March, sold out almost immediately, some fans will not be able to see these performances. Several of Jackson's initial dates were postponed in an announcement in May.

The first of Jackson's 50 gigs will take place 13 July, so long as those pesky lawsuits keep out of the way.

http://www.guardian.co.uk...-blings-up

Remember the child actor Brandon Adams who was in Moonwalker? Well he's all growed up now


[Removed at request of author of the article linked and posted. Please respect copyrighted materials, and ask for permission prior to posting such. Thank you, June7]

the banned version.

the mixtape I'm coming up with

Finally got tickets to january 7th, I didn't read my email until late this afternoon, by then I thought that the tickets were gone, but there were lots of them left.

Aeneiden said:

What seats did you get?

Swa

Hey Swa, it looks like we'll finally see Michael and Stevie's performance of Bad soon

bboy87 said:

Explain?