No Rock And Roll Fun

WHILE THE CAT'S AWAY...: With Bono off in Davos licking the soft, gentle hands of the mega-rich, there's been trouble back at the office. U2 have happily been pocketing cash from their fans for ages for membership of U2.com, which offers very little in return for the forty quid fee, except a promise of exclusive first access to U2 tour tickets. Eighty US Dollars might seem a bit steep for little more than a chance to buy something else - like paying to join Sainsburys - but, presumably, the large fee at least shuttles you to the front of the queue and allows you to quickly and cleanly get your U2 tix, right?

Not right. As U2log.com reports, The sale of tickets descended through screw-up to farce and then major, multiple ballsing:

One hour and 15 minutes of the online version of being put ‘on hold’

… then being told we ‘did not come via the right URL’

… then: sorry, page cannot be found

… then that our ‘code is invalid or already been used’

A glance at the U2 Holland mailing list at Yahoo tells us none of its members has been able to get tickets and only one member of the U2 Flanders mailing list has.

Glastonbury were rightly flayed alive when their ticketing system hadn't been properly tested and crunched last summer, but at least they'd not had the cheek to charge people forty quid for the privilege of a system that couldn't cope. It's impossible to know how many people had paid their fee for the service, but since very little of it seems to have gone into the providing the infrastructure to make good the service people were expecting, it looks like U2 have pulled in a handsome profit.

Meanwhile in Davos, Bono leans forward as the ticket arrives - "Don't worry, Mr. Gates, I'll get this... I just got a really good deal on my credit card sales..."

The people who had managed to get tickets aren't entirely happy, either:

I was lucky enough to get through and purchase 2 seating tickets for Glasgow. Which was good.

BUT....

Total price - £190.

"In fact, Bill, why don't we get another bottle of the vintage champagne... and some truffles..."

Most curious of all, while the ticket crisis was happening, the message board service over at U2's website was taken offline for "maintainence"

There's much more on the debacle over on the Interference message boards, including details of people who almost got decent seats only for the service to die on them, and then, when they logged in again, they found that they were being offered scalp-high costs for views where they'd even have trouble making out Bono's ego.

Part of the problem seems to have been caused by the use of some secret code business, intended to stop fans only tickets turning up on Ebay.

That worked, then.