Many nights I have joined a line at a 24 hour USPS facility with a white #10 envelope in hand. In the envelope were a second, a stamped self-addressed envelope, a 3x5 index card, and a U.S. Postal money order. The index card had my name, address, and phone numbers printed carefully in the upper left corner. In the center, on one line, was printed a location, a date, and the number of tickets requested for that show. If I wanted tickets for other venues, those were requested on lines beneath the first request. Also in the envelope was a money order in the amount of the total cost for the requested tickets and additional money to pay for the tickets to be returned by registered mail. Everything was double checked, before being put in the mail slot as soon after midnight as possible.
If everything worked as planned, if fortune gazed upon me, after an interminable, seemingly endless wait, the self-addressed envelope would arrive in my mailbox, containing tickets to a Grateful Dead show. Grateful Dead Ticket Service filled hundreds of thousands of requests for tickets over the years T The Grateful Dead toured. The most I ever paid for a ticket to see The Grateful Dead was $35.00 in 1995. That price bought a stadium floor seat, beside the sound booth, 19 rows behind the taper section. We had folding chairs to sit on. The band played what was a great show by 1995 standards and I’m happy we went through the ritual and were there at what was the last Grateful Dead show Gloria and I attended.
A friend of ours taped the show and within two weeks I had an astoundingly clear pair of audience tapes, decorated and personalized by the taper. Those tapes cost me $4.00 and another $4.00 in postage paid for getting my blank tapes to him and his filled tapes back to me.
We just paid for the most expensive concert tickets we’ve ever purchased. We’re going to see Leonard Cohen in Asheville NC in November. Each of us will be listening to a week's worth of groceries. The really unsettling thing about this is we will be occupying cheap seats, orchestra seats off to the right. The center seats were never made available for the average fan to buy.
Ticket Master has distribution privileges rather than the performer or the venue. Ticket Master has reserved its own block of seats to scalp to those fans that are eager to give them more money for a few trinkets. These are the elite fan packages for the Leonard Cohen world tour 2009. Please note that I have no idea what P1 & P2 location refers to. We’ll be seeing him in a small, ca 2400 seat venue.
The Emerald ticket package is $299 per person
Emerald VIP Package Includes:
- One Excellent P2 Location!
** Please note in New York the Emerald Package is based on a P1 Location
- One Exclusive Leonard Cohen Unified Heart Tour Journal
- One Limited Edition Leonard Cohen Unified Heart Embroidered Tote Bag
- One Premium Leonard Cohen Unified Heart Embroidered Fleece Blanket
- One Custom Leonard Cohen Unified Heart Key Chain & Gift Box
- One Souvenir Leonard Cohen Tour Program
The Diamond ticket package is: $589 per person
Diamond VIP Package Includes:
- One Amazing Ticket in the First Ten Rows!
- One Exclusive Leonard Cohen Unified Heart Tour Journal
- One Limited Edition Leonard Cohen Unified Heart Embroidered Tote Bag
- One Premium Leonard Cohen Unified Heart Embroidered Fleece Blanket
- One Custom Leonard Cohen Unified Heart Key Chain & Gift Box
- One Souvenir Leonard Cohen Tour Program
According to TicketMaster, All Diamond & Emerald packages are to be sold in pairs. Package Ticket Limits: 6 Ticket Limit for presale & public on-sale
In searching for tickets I’ve already seen tickets for some of Cohen’s concerts being offered on EBay and other web sites for up to $1000. I hope no one is that desperate? I really dislike scalping. The Grateful Dead used to smack down parking lot scalpers- anyone asking more than face price for tickets. The only time I sold unused tickets to a Grateful Dead Show, I sold them at face price. It was an unwritten agreement between the band and fans to keep scalping from taking place.
“The Dead,” the remnants of The Grateful Dead toured last year and offered their own set of elite packages which included hotel rooms, parking, bus transportation to the venue, special seating, backstage access and food backstage ( no band access). Some of these packages went for nearly $1000. Far too rich for my blood. And the fact that they, the band, were complicit in this high end scalping deleted any desire I had to see the band at any price.
Music has begun pricing itself out of affordability. Aging rock bands go on tour once a year or once a decade and ask fans to pay outrageous ticket prices before scalping begins. And fans pay it. It amuses me no end that fans will pay $1000 or more per seat to see the band play exactly the same notes with the same vocals that are on the CD or DVD they will buy after the concert for $40 or more. At least, The Grateful Dead provided a different show every night. Today’s fans could stay home and watch the DVD and avoid having beer spilled on them. Or, for the right reimbursement, I’ll be happy to go a fan’s house, hand him a beer, block his view of the television and start his DVD playing, then spill beer on him before leaving.
So we children of the 50s and 60s have reached the point where we not only have to choose between food and medication but also between food and music.
It’s not just music.
We flew to Vancouver in June to attend my older son’s wedding to a very nice young woman named Amy Lee. I’d met Amy only once, Gloria had never met her. Nor had we met her parents or sister, whom we found to be very nice people. It was a beach wedding that went off well, particularly when one considers that Amy had probably suffered hairline fractures of some ribs prior to the wedding.
We had a great time in Vancouver, met my cousin Danny Gelmon, and would have enjoyed more time in
a wonderful city.
But the flight to Vancouver, the leg from Denver to Vancouver was miserable. Packed plane and the cabin crew kept the cabin temperature near 80F because someone in first class was cold. There was insufficient room for me to put my feet into the foot well. Yes, I have big feet, wear an 11 ½ - 13, depending on the shoe or boor. On that flight, if I had needed to exit quickly, I would have been trapped by the seat hardware. Dangerous? Unsafe for passengers? I certainly think so.
The airlines are charging for every bit of service they can name. $20 per checked bag. And because I wanted to have foot room on the flight back to Knoxville, we each wound up paying an additional $50.00 above our ticket price. Something really wrong about charging a passenger to fly, then charging them more for a relatively safer seat. Charge for food? OK, I can live with that and carry my own food aboard. But charging for safety? I’ve got some thoughts about people who think up ways to screw the public like that. You probably do., too. Please join me in reciting them.
Dinner, tonight, is left overs.
It’s windy and partly cloudy today. I think the wind on highway 107 was about 25 knots. Down in our valley, we’ve recorded only a 9.4 gust. The house is sheltered by the valley walls and the trees around us.
We can hear the gusts spilling over the ridge crest and funneling down the valley. Really impressive to hear and to watch the trees bend as the gust roll by. We can’t see the pockets of air that we are hearing but we understand the science behind them. Nice to sit and watch it go by.
Unlike health care, gasoline, music, travel, or food, no one has yet found a way to raise the price of a sunset on your own front porch.
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