Steve Boughey: Playing the ticket-scalpin' U2 blues

Having the day off work seemed to have been the ultimate serendipity.

I'd be able to get in the queue real early at my local Red Ticket outlet, the Manukau City Post Shop. And no matter how long the whole process took, no worries.

Unlike the other poor souls around me who were nervously glancing at their watches and making calls to the office, as they calculated exactly how late they would be to work.

No, I thought, here I was, nice and early on the scene, and now 12th in the queue. I'd even brought my novel along to combat the ennui of the extended standing around. I was here for as long as it takes.

Everything was just hunky-dory, I thought. We'd been asked to go forward, in turn, prior to the magic hour of 9am, and give them our name and address, and the type and quantity of tickets we wanted.

Any minute now, the transaction would be complete. They'd have my $398 (plus misc. charges) and I'd be clutching my two precious "A reserve" seated tickets.

Yep, U2, I could almost taste it now. It was so close. It's not like I go to many concerts, or anything. Big Day Out passes me by, year by year, without so much as a murmur. John Farnham and Stevie Nicks are coming, and the Foo Fighters have been and gone … but, hey, did I care?

They were all but supporting players, on the stage where the top spot is indisputably occupied by the World's Number One Band (to this 40-something fan, anyway).

I could even forgive the heavy political messages about world poverty, etc, that were inevitably going to be part of the March 17 concert. Yes, Bono is the ultimate showman, and never passes up an opportunity to make world governments as guilty as possible for their uncaring, selfish attitudes towards the less fortunate.

Live, this group rocks, period. This was going to be the event of the summer - nay, the year - and I was here on this drizzly South Auckland morning so I could be a part of it.

So you can imagine my horror when the nice Post Shop lady announced to the waiting throng that they "had no tickets, sorry".

Nada, nix, zilchimundo, nothing.

Something about computers, apparently, but by then I wasn't hearing anything clearly.

I walked back to the car in a near catatonic state, with the air of a student who's just opened his examination notice, to see 'D' written by a subject he thought was a dead cert. Or a guy who's just got a "I think we should just be friends" text message from someone he thought was the Love of his Life.

I got home and joined the army of people trying the phone booking number and their website, but the "sorry, the system is currently overloaded" messages told a grim and repetitive tale.

It was all over - and I had no tickets. In a word, aaaarrrrgggghhhhhh!!

* * *

It didn't take long for the ..er..ahem .."opportunists" to emerge on internet auction site Trade Me.

As I write, general admission tickets ($99) are going for anything between $400 and $1000 each.

Criticism on Trade Me's message boards has been vehement.

One writer's epithet of "Die, evil scalpers, die", seems to just about sum up the general mood of the disenfranchised and ticketless.

Some of the glib responses of sellers on Trade Me deserve their own Tui billboard: "I'm only selling these extra two tickets because I bought them for a friend of mine and he doesn't need them now." Yeah, right.

That's why I've put them on an internet auction which doesn't close for about five days or so, when the final successful bid amount will be … well, who knows?

"Supply and demand", smirks one seller. "Everything they taught me in Stage 1 economics is coming true!"

Shrewd traders, aware of the potential legal snag of on-selling tickets meant for one purchase only, are trying to cover their hides by advertising auctions for "white board marker, starting price $800 (plus - a free U2 ticket)"!

Anyway, some hope has been thrown to the frustrated masses in the announcement of a second concert, the day after March 17.

Will that mean satisfied customers, second time around? Or - God forbid - will it merely signal Round 2 in the Battle of Evil Commercialism and Profligate Extortion?

In the meantime, I remain on my hunt for the unobtainable - two tickets to Ericsson Stadium at a reasonable price. I may as well be in pursuit of Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman, or 20-metre long marine life in Loch Ness.

So, there you go. A tale of greed and loathing in Auckland city. Hmm. I wonder what Bono would make of that?