I went on the Tickemaster.ca website and read the FAQ about Ticketmaster outlets/centres (they have one in the mall my parents work at!) in Toronto. I’m a little confused about the “First Day Sales” and “Random Lineup Draw”. What are they for? Is it only for events where a lot of people are expected to buy tickets at the same time? I don’t have a credit card and I don’t want to bother my parents (I will if I have to), so I want to buy some tickets in person. What do I have to do at the ticket outlet/centre?
A side question: is there a way I can check ticket availability? I definitely know I won’t be buying tickets on the first day of sale.
I haven’t bought tickets in person at a Ticketmaster outlet for a while, but IIRC they do the random lineup draw when a minimum number of people are in line waiting for tickets to go on sale, and they’ll only happen on the day tickets initially go on sale. So that if, for example, the tickets go on sale at 10:00 am Saturday, anyone who’s at the outlet Saturday morning before ~9:45 am will go in the random lineup draw. They don’t truly randomize the lineup in the draw - everyone who’s in line is numbered sequentially, then they draw a number and that person becomes number 1 in line. It then proceeds to the end of the line from that person and continues with what had been the front of the line before the draw. So if they select number 50 in the draw and you were number 49, it’s time to get to a computer and/or start working the phones.
If you just show up to buy tickets once they’ve been on sale for a few hours or days there won’t be any random draw whether there’s any kind of a lineup or not (and trust me, if it’s anything remotely popular, the lineup at a Ticketmaster outlet on a random afternoon won’t even begin to compare to the lineup when the tickets initially went on sale), so you’ll just have to tell the person working there what show you want to buy tickets for and hand over your money.
If you want to check availability of tickets before going in person, it’s easy enough to check online without going through to the final purchase page. Just search for tickets for your show, and there’s even a link on the ticket page along the lines of “No, I don’t want these”. This also has the advantage of letting you see just how bad the fees are going to be.
That’s a good summary of the random drawing thing above. One of the main reasons for the random drawing (aka “Wristband Sales”) is to prevent people from camping out overnight the night before a big event goes on sale.
Also, most, if not all outlet locations are CASH ONLY (at least they were back in about 1990). We turned a lot of angry people away who showed up with credit cards or checks. Verify the current policy.
We didn’t have internet when I was there, so I can’t say whether internet availability would be any different than outlet availability.
That’s pretty easy to beat. Just bring a few friends with you and space yourselves out evenly in the line. With n friends and good spacing, you’re always in the first 1/nth of the line.
We had sheets of plastic wristbands in sequential order by number. Then, separated the wristbands, put the wrsitbands into a big box, and stirred them all up thoroughly before issuing them to people.
Everyone stood in a line. We started at the front of the line and worked toward the back. Each person got one wristband and was free to leave or do whatever they wanted up until the time of the sale so long as they kept their wristbands on and in good condition.
At the time of the sale, a random number was drawn and the line would form from there. When the customer got to the front of the line, an employee would verify the writsband number and cut and confiscate the wristband before the customer was allowed to proceed with the sale.
If a customer’s wristband was out of sequence, the customer was told to get in line. If a customer’s wristband was stretched or mutilated, it was confiscated and the customer was out of luck. If the same person was found out of sequence multiple times, the wristband was cut and confiscated, and the line jumper was out of luck.