Friday, February 15, 2008

Dear Ticketmaster

Dear Ticketmaster,
I hate everything about you. If you hadn't gained a monopoly (aren't those things illegal anyway?) on the online box office business, I would never give you a cent of my precious income. Everything you do is incomprehensibly inefficient, and your random fees make me want to bash my brain with a sledgehammer. Or better yet, yours.

Love,
Minda

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My ticket order for Phantom of the Opera this coming Tuesday
Placed: February 3
Printed: February 11
Mailed: February 13
Received: Not yet, and possibly never. (Next to baseball, this might be my favorite game. It's called "I give Ticketmaster a ton of my money, and they never actually give me anything in return," or "AARRGH DAMN IT!" for short.)

All right. So let's explain why the fact that I haven't received the tickets is such a problem, and what the heck this numbered map means.
Location #1 is approximately where my billing address is, and thanks to Ticketmaster's outdated policy, it's the one and only place they are willing to ship my ticket (if the ticket actually exists). On any other website, I could have separate shipping address, but that would be too convenient to fit in with TM's policies.

Location #2 is where I actually am. Since I live in a dorm, it's a non-permanent address and I can't tie my bank account to it. Hence, we're back at #1, which is really far from #2. Ticket is shipped to one, I'm sitting in the other. Argh.

Location #3
is Omaha, where the performance actually will be. It's about a 55 mile drive from here.

Location #4 is a different color, because it is a worst-case-scenario location. If my parents (in location #1) get the ticket on Monday, my dad could take it to Location #4 on Tuesday (the day of the performance) because he has to be there anyway, so I could drive allllll the way there, and then alllllll the way back to Omaha, hopefully in time for curtain.

So many locations; my head is spinning! Where does this leave me?

Angry and still ticketless, that's where. Thanks, Ticketmaster!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

You going to see Phantom?

Phantom!?!!!???

Saw it at the Wang Center in Boston several years ago. It... is... blessed... awesome.

Too bad about where you go to school. Yanno. Being Nebraska and all. Give Lara Crofford my love.


meow.

run4chocolate.wordpress.com

Anonymous said...

Are you going with Hales? Perhaps you could get a Seat Upgrade like we did... since you actually need it.

Minda said...

I'm actually going by myself, because by the time I realized I could afford to go, everyone else had already gone or gotten tickets of their own. Which reminds me...can I borrow your binoculars, Brad?

(For the record, I actually enjoy seeing plays, etc. by myself...a lot of times, if I go with someone, they tap me on the shoulder to make a comment right as I'm about to really get into the story, which takes me right back out of it. Going solo pretty much rids me of that, which then gives me my money's worth. Assuming I get a ticket in the first place, that is...)

ChasingMoney said...

Wow, good luck with that.

Mitch said...

I woke up at 6:30 on Thursday just so I could make sure that I got my tickets from Radiohead instead of the dreadful TM.

If you ever do any bashing with sledgehammers, let me know and I will help you out.

PS. By the time you read this, I will be on my way to see Phantom!

PPS. Your captcha is making me hungry for cake. I'm supposed to type in hcakey. If you take off the h, you are left with cakey. And now I'm hungry for cake.

Minda said...

Mitch makes me smile. Hcakey...yumm...now I'm hungry for cake too.

By the way, this is for everyone...sorry about the Captcha. I know they are annoying, but I was getting crazy spam all the time, so it seems to be a necessary evil.

Anonymous said...

So how did it turn out with the tickets? Inquiring minds want to know??

Also, nice win by Nebraska over K-State on Wed. I was surprised and impressed. I gave Nebraska up for dead when they lost at home to Missouri the other week.

Minda said...

royal8085,
Sorry for not updating on that! The kind folks at Omaha's Orpheum Theatre (where I saw the performance) took care of me, even though the ticket never got further than my parents' house. I ended up just needing the order number and a photo ID, and a new ticket was printed for me at the box office right before the show.

The show itself was INCREDIBLE, so it was totally worth the hassle with TM.

I was completely delighted with the NU win over KSU. It was a cute little surprise.