Alice Touring with Iron Maiden - Summer 2012

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Could contain SPOILERS

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Jaded
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Re: Alice Touring with Iron Maiden - Summer 2012

Post by Jaded » Tue Jul 03, 2012 4:17 pm

:love: chuck towels...
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Re: Alice Touring with Iron Maiden - Summer 2012

Post by RemarkablyInsincere » Tue Jul 03, 2012 5:11 pm

When the "First To The Barrier" people got in the doors the AC band was still sound checking so we had to wait on the steps outside of the actual pavilion.

Then a few minutes before we were let in, Chuck appeared and was handing out his "Blanco Beasto" promotional cards. The next day in Bethlehem, we waited out near the busses for a while and Chuck came by and gave everyone cards and signed them for us. Chuck is the man.

As far as FTTB, I appreciate that Maiden offers this, but it was organized like a cluster****. The fan club trip people were there so there were *way* more FTTB people than normal. The venue also had no information about where to go but there was already a large line of fan club trip people forming so we eventually got in line behind them. When the representative showed up, he declared that line the FTTB line, but then didn't honor the order of it when he let people with paper tickets jump ahead of all of us with paperless tickets. Utter stupidity.

We did make it on the barrier but off to the side. Given everything that went down that day, I consider us extremely lucky to be even there. The show was great though... both Maiden and Alice but you know who I'm partial too.

It was ridiculously hot too. Definitely the hottest I've ever waited out for a show. Felt like I was going to burst into flame at any moment.
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Re: Alice Touring with Iron Maiden - Summer 2012

Post by MrF33n3y » Wed Jul 04, 2012 10:45 pm

RemarkablyInsincere wrote:When the "First To The Barrier" people got in the doors the AC band was still sound checking so we had to wait on the steps outside of the actual pavilion.

Then a few minutes before we were let in, Chuck appeared and was handing out his "Blanco Beasto" promotional cards. The next day in Bethlehem, we waited out near the busses for a while and Chuck came by and gave everyone cards and signed them for us. Chuck is the man.

As far as FTTB, I appreciate that Maiden offers this, but it was organized like a cluster****. The fan club trip people were there so there were *way* more FTTB people than normal. The venue also had no information about where to go but there was already a large line of fan club trip people forming so we eventually got in line behind them. When the representative showed up, he declared that line the FTTB line, but then didn't honor the order of it when he let people with paper tickets jump ahead of all of us with paperless tickets. Utter stupidity.

We did make it on the barrier but off to the side. Given everything that went down that day, I consider us extremely lucky to be even there. The show was great though... both Maiden and Alice but you know who I'm partial too.

It was ridiculously hot too. Definitely the hottest I've ever waited out for a show. Felt like I was going to burst into flame at any moment.
FTTB was only such a mess because of the FC trip - overall the system has really taken a turn for the better this year...Charlotte and Boston ran seamlessly. The issue with offering when there's an FC trip is theres no way to please everybody. The trip people feel entitled to be allowed in first (Rightfully so I'd say...its advertised as part of the trip that they're given FTTB so in a sense they're paying for it), and the people that win it also feel entitled for...whatever reason. Normally the paper vs. paperless thing isn't an issue, but the FC trip people are given paper tickets, not sure why. Also, it wasn't Alex's (The FTTB guy) fault that happened, the venue asked for paper ticket people to step forward.

The simple solution IMO is to not offer FTTB for the shows where theres an FC trip. They don't offer it for every gig anyways, so its not like 2 more without it is a huge deal.

Also, if you thought the heat in DC was bad, you should've been in Camden...MUCH worse! It was 106 in our car as we crossed the Delaware River into Jersey, and it was still 97 when we got back to our car at 11:15! Camden was without competition the worst heat I've ever endured at a gig, ever.

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Re: Alice Touring with Iron Maiden - Summer 2012

Post by RemarkablyInsincere » Wed Jul 04, 2012 11:54 pm

My honest opinion is I don't really feel it's all that good of a thing for the Fan Club to sell trips and fly in hundreds of people into foreign cities who are given superiority over the local fans in general admission venues.

The non fan club trip people who won it have also paid for it, since after all they list it as a key offering when advertising fan club memberships in the first place.

Maybe now you can understand a little bit about why many Alice fans were not overjoyed at the prospect of this tour. After all, aside from the ticket price, there's none of this nonsense going on at most Alice shows.

Alice and management do an even better job of taking care of their fans by offering incredible seats in the front rows at face value with out any memberships or extra fees of any sort. And general admission shows are usually just that... general admission shows... get there early and you're in first. No early entry BS other than perhaps a handful of VIP people and even that doesn't seem to happen much.

Even though I ended up on the barrier, albeit off to the side, and enjoyed the show, if I'd known all of this ahead of time coupled with the 45 minute set time for Alice, I likely wouldn't have bothered to drive 4.5 hours to get to this show and all the other expenses involved. Maybe I'm a little spoiled, but I'm a veteran concert goer and I just don't go to many shows at all unless I can get great seats. It's just not worth it to me most of the time unless I'm up front. The less BS I have to endure in the process, the better.

Luckily, I was able to get front row tickets at face value for Alice's headline show the next night in Bethlehem through AliceCooper.com which really made the entire trip worth every penny.
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Re: Alice Touring with Iron Maiden - Summer 2012

Post by MrF33n3y » Thu Jul 05, 2012 12:46 am

I'm not trying to argue over it; I'm just saying that you shouldn't be so quick to judge the FTTB system as being terrible, because you experienced the single worst FTTB I've been a part of, out of about a dozen over the past 4 years. Most of the time it is a good system that runs smoothly and is a nice way to reward the loyal members of the fan club that travel tens of thousands of miles every single year just for Maiden gigs.

I can absolutely understand why Alice Cooper fans are less than satisfied with this...for me its a great prospect being able to see my two favorite bands share the stage and had Alice not been Maiden's opener on this tour, my number of gigs this tour would be a fair bit lower than it is.

On a sidenote since you brought up Alice's presales...I've always had a bit of trouble with them and maybe someone could clarify what, if anything, I'm doing wrong. Any time I've tried to get Alice tickets through the AC.com presale, it seems to me that you can't actually see what tickets you've got until you pick them up at the box office the day of the gig. Have I just always been doing something really stupid when I try to do the presale, or is there actually no way to see what tickets you bring up?

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Re: Alice Touring with Iron Maiden - Summer 2012

Post by SickThings » Thu Jul 05, 2012 1:25 am

Every time I've bought tickets through AC.com, it tells me exactly what seats I'll be purchasing. One note, though: be sure you're logged into your account before selecting seats. For Dayton this year, I thought I was logged in and pulled up second row. When I clicked "Buy", it took me to a login page. After I logged in, I was back to the page to select tickets---and I had no selection. When I chose again, I got eighth row. I still bought them, and they were still good seats, but they weren't second row.

But in all cases, the seats have been reserved, and the site has shown me the seats before I purchased them. My receipts have also stated the seat and row numbers.

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Re: Alice Touring with Iron Maiden - Summer 2012

Post by RemarkablyInsincere » Thu Jul 05, 2012 1:42 am

The site always shows me my seats. I seem to remember some years back it might not have revealed the actual seat locations, but that's not been the case the last few years. Maybe someone can confirm that.

What I always do when I'm not sure how a ticketing system on a site may work is practice using a show I'm not interested in attending. There you can walk through the whole process without actually completing the purchase.

Hunters suggestion to log in ahead of tme is very important. I had this exact same scenario happen to me once, accept that in my case I was able to log back in and get the same seats.
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Re: Alice Touring with Iron Maiden - Summer 2012

Post by RemarkablyInsincere » Thu Jul 05, 2012 1:48 am

MrF33n3y wrote:I'm not trying to argue over it; I'm just saying that you shouldn't be so quick to judge the FTTB system as being terrible, because you experienced the single worst FTTB I've been a part of, out of about a dozen over the past 4 years. Most of the time it is a good system that runs smoothly and is a nice way to reward the loyal members of the fan club that travel tens of thousands of miles every single year just for Maiden gigs.
Don't get me wrong, in the grand scheme what Maiden is doing is *far* better than what many other big drawing bands are doing. And they are trying to get the die hards up front one way or another, so that's to be commended.

If it was just Maiden and I had gone to the show, it wouldn't have rubbed me quite the same way because I can respect the dedicated die hards being up front, and I certainly wouldn't put myself in that category when it comes to Maiden.

However, when I'm trying to see Alice and jumping through all the same hoops and it's a bit of a disorganized ordeal, I'm less than thrilled.
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Re: Alice Touring with Iron Maiden - Summer 2012

Post by NotSoPerfect » Thu Jul 05, 2012 3:21 am

RemarkablyInsincere wrote:The site always shows me my seats. I seem to remember some years back it might not have revealed the actual seat locations, but that's not been the case the last few years. Maybe someone can confirm that.
Yes, 2 summers ago it was different. That was when you got on, bought your tickets, got a confirmation number and receipt, and a promise you'd know your seats in about 3 weeks....and then it took up to 6 months to find out. I was less than pleased with that system, and actually had two shows where I talked to people and we checked our ticket printouts. I had LOWER order numbers and EARLIER confirmation email times, but worse seats. Boo.

Last year and this year, they've had a new company or new system in place, and it tells you exactly what you're getting as soon as you tell it how many seats you want. This one seems to be working very well.
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Re: Alice Touring with Iron Maiden - Summer 2012

Post by RemarkablyInsincere » Thu Jul 05, 2012 1:57 pm

Certainly a better system now, although we're about 10 days from Pittsburgh and I still don't have my tickets!
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Re: Alice Touring with Iron Maiden - Summer 2012

Post by Jumping Jack » Thu Jul 05, 2012 2:28 pm

Ground Control handled tix for ZZ Top and Coop last month and both came a day or two before the shows. Some ZZ shows were so late they just will called (don't know if shipping was refunded). GC blames it on the Promoters. Maybe they are trying to prevent resales/scalping. Small price to pay for front row.
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Re: Alice Touring with Iron Maiden - Summer 2012

Post by RemarkablyInsincere » Thu Jul 05, 2012 2:51 pm

Jumping Jack wrote:Small price to pay for front row.
Indeed. I think it likely is to minimize scalping.
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