You Can Always Get What You Want

Wednesday, May 9, 2007 at 05:11pm by Alex Petraglia in Life

It’s time I come clean: I skipped my classes on March 30.

I feel better already. Like a great weight has been lifted off my chest.

It was a Friday and I missed CSE15 and Calc21. The yearning for deeper knowledge of both arrays and derivatives was not enough to stop me from completing a task that I considered infinitely more important: the procurement of tickets to see indie rockers Arcade Fire play in New York City in May.

For weeks, the ‘Concerts Page’ over at the Merge Records website (Merge is an independent record label based out of North Carolina whose artists include Arcade Fire, Buzzcocks, and Neutral Milk Hotel), listed the venues for the New York shows on May 7, 8, and 9 as “to-be-determined.” I checked back diligently, sometimes three times a day, waiting for confirmation of the shows and notification of when the tickets would be going on sale.

Finally, one day in mid-March, the details surfaced. The band would be playing the first two nights at The United Palace Theatre in Harlem and the final night at Radio City Music Hall. Tickets were to go on sale through Ticketmaster on March 30 at 10AM.

I woke promptly at 9:45 AM the morning of March 30 and situated my drowsy self squarely in front of my PC. My browser was pointed at the Ticketmaster page at 9:59. As soon as the clock struck 10, the page was instantly updated and, with a grandiose flourish, I hit the ‘Search for Tickets’ button.

After fifteen seconds of searching the system, Ticketmaster kindly informed me that the tickets I requested weren’t available.

To say the least, I was furious. I’m not an angry person by nature, but let’s just say there were quite a few furnishings in my room, including a speaker set, desk lamp, and wireless router, that were very close to meeting a shattered demise.

I checked back throughout the day for tickets. While my anger did slowly subside, no tickets became available. I did manage to stumble upon the website of an online ticket scalper, Ticket Liquidator, with tickets upwards of $300 to the shows, a mere four hours after they went on sale to the public. This brought about a renewed feeling of outrage.

So, I did what every red-blooded and pissed-off American consumer should do when he feels cheated by a big corporation.

I wrote an angry letter. I Googled the band’s email address, the email contacts for its manager, agent, record label, and whoever else I could find. And I speedily sent it off

The email began:

To Whom It May Concern,
I’m writing to convey my great dismay with regards to the New York City Arcade Fire concerts (May 7-9). The choice to go with venues that use TicketMaster is an absolute travesty. For a band as indie as Arcade Fire, with a label as similarly-minded as Merge, it makes no sense to use TM, a company as crooked as Richard Nixon.

I went on to relay my story (which I’ve already outlined thoroughly for you). If you ask me now why I sent the email, I couldn’t tell you. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I didn’t really expect to hear back from anyone. If anything, it was just an outlet to vent my frustration, but I did truly hope that someone important did get to read it and recognize the opinion of one fan.

That night, to my great surprise, I received back a lengthy reply from someone who works directly with the band; we’ll call him “Roger.” Roger apologized for my experience with Ticketmaster and noted that it’s a common issue. He went on to describe how unjust the current ticket distribution methods are, what alternatives exist, and what can be done to solve the problem.

Finally, at the end of the email, Roger provided me with one happy final surprise:

Please email me directly one week prior to the concerts. We have kept back some tickets for each show until our production requirements are finalized. I expect we will have some additional tickets to put on sale prior to the show and I will make sure you get access to a pair for one of the shows.

I was ecstatic. Not only had I made my point to a person in power, I was getting into the concert!

Roger and I communicated back and forth via email for several days afterwards, outlining again some of the shortcomings of the existing ticket purchasing systems and what it would take to shake things. I informed him that I was an entrepreneur and, after my experience, planned on creating an alternative service that would aim to put Ticketmaster out of business.

So, after reading all that, you’re probably left wondering just what this has to do with you and your own entrepreneurial endeavors. I walked away from this whole experience with a number of lessons that I think are important for both consumers and businessfolk alike.

1.

The Stones were wrong: You can always get what you want: Or at least you can work your ass off trying, which can sometimes be ultimately almost as rewarding. I would have been more than happy hearing back from anyone knowing that someone out there was listening to a customer’s grievances. But don’t settle for anything until you get what you want out of a situation. Never take ‘no’ for an answer.

This leads nicely into the second point…

2.

Put businesses in their place: As a consumer, you must always remember that the business exists to serve your needs. Stand up to the business and remind it who really holds the power. This is an important message to remember as a business owner, too. The happiness of your customer comes above all else, so make sure he knows that you’re listening and make sure you meet his needs.

3.

Let’s get rid of Ticketmaster: Here’s a fun fact! Ticketmaster marks-up each ticket it sells around 33% with a ridiculous number of absurdly named fees. Bands, venues, and managers don’t particularly like them. Nor do consumers. In the music business, they’re right up there with the RIAA on the likeability scale.

There are a number of alternative ticket vendors out there already, but none have yet to gain considerable traction and none show any chance of threatening Ticketmaster’s dominance. It’s a challenge I hope to take on one day.

4.

Write a letter (or email) of complaint: Seriously, you’ve got nothing to lose. It’s your duty as a consumer. Just do it.

You might be as surprised by the outcome as I was.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a concert to get to.

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