This combination of four separate photos shows members of the Irish rock band U2, from left, lead singer Bono performing in Washington on June 17, 2018, The Edge performing in Chicago on May 22, 2018, Larry Mullen Jr. and Adam Clayton, both performing at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn., on June 9, 2017. Live Nation and Sphere Entertainment announced Monday the dates for U2’s upcoming “U2:UV Achtung Baby Live At Sphere” shows starting Sept. 29. The band’s special five-night run of shows will be held until Oct. 8 at The Venetian’s MSG Sphere. (AP Photo).
U2 and Ticketmaster had months to prepare for the on-sale dates for their fall residency at the brand-new state-of-the-art MSG Sphere in Las Vegas. Despite everything that was riding on a smooth consumer experience, it did not happen. And U2’s hardest hardcore supporters are not happy.After a period of pre-registration and signing up for Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan system, fans had a reasonable expectation that ticket request distribution would be carried out as promised.At the front of the line should have been two groups of fans who pay an annual fee to U2.com for things like…getting early access to tickets. The first group, the ULTRAs, have been paying their dues for years. The second group features the more recent joiners.Yet when ticket requests were processed, many ULTRAs and their junior fans were denied that shot at tickets. Social media exploded.What happened? Let’s deconstruct this.
The Sphere holds 18,000 people. Twelve x 18,000 = A maximum of 216,000 tickets. That’s not a lot of tickets for a limited run from a band as big as U2. That’s the equivalent of a little more than four 360 Tour shows. And The Sphere production could potentially be as spectacular as anything U2 has ever done.
U2 has a global fanbase that would buy up all the seats for all 12 shows by itself if it could. There’s certainly more than 216,000 of them on the planet.
But that number is misleading. You have to deduct the number of “holdbacks” required. These are the tickets held back for use by the venue, the promoter, the band, the label, products like American Express’s Front of the Line, and so on.
This is Las Vegas. Hotels, concierges, and various fixers all over the city need tickets so they can comp the whales. The number of those tickets would have been carved out right off the top.
This is The Sphere’s first engagement, it’s coming-out party. It will attract the Danny Ocean crowd and the see-and-be-seers.
In conclusion, if there is space for 18,000 people, I’d be shocked if there was 10,000 tickets available to the punters, super punters, and super-duper punters per show. That means 100,000-ish tickets were never, ever going on sale.
At the heart of all this is a supply-and-demand issue. That the shows would sell out was a foregone conclusion. The question is how that supply was managed in the first place.This doesn’t make things any easier for the faithful. They now have an idea of how Taylor Swift fans felt back in November.Meanwhile, tickets are being offered at insane prices on the secondary market. How did scalpers get their hands on so many tickets?
Scalpers have multiple fan club accounts– MANY accounts–that puts them in direct competition with actual fans. Remember the advance code ticket situations that happened with theFancl Elevation and 360 Tours
Some fan club members were no doubt tempted by offers from scalpers. “Hey, do you really want to go to the show or would you like to make some big money?”
As pointed out above, there are thousands of holdback tickets. They can end up anywhere.
At the heart of all this is a supply-and-demand issue. That the shows would sell out was a foregone conclusion. The question is how that supply was managed in the first place.This doesn’t make things any easier for the faithful. They now have an idea of how Taylor Swift fans felt back in November.Meanwhile, tickets are being offered at insane prices on the secondary market. How did scalpers get their hands on so many tickets?
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