I am the ticket master.
While en route to visit family, I had to make the tough decision: do I call a TicketBastard # to try and buy REM tickets or should I hope to find a free wi-fi location somewhere along the way? I packed up my stuff and kept my laptop handy in shotgun. With about 10 minutes until the tickets went on sale, I got off at the closest exit and found myself right in a Starbucks parking lot. Wow! Total awesomeness.
I pulled up alongside the building, started up my ‘puter and connected to the “Starbucks” wireless connection. With about 7 minutes left, I was well on my way to successfully pulling off this purchase. I connected and went ahead to go to the purchase page, but then was greeted with some AT&T splash page informing me I needed to $ign up for an account. Screw that. No way was I planning to spend $ just to use the internet for 5 minutes. Seriously, why doesn’t Starbucks offer free wi-fi? If Panera Bread can, Starbucks certainly can as well.
With only 2-3 minutes left, I just started dialing the few customer service numbers I had stored on my phone. Eventually, I got through and went through the automated process to request tickets (which BTW is a bitch. Why can’t I talk to someone live?) At 10:02, was the proud owner of pretty damn good seats! Sure, this wasn’t as exciting as my first REM concert experience, but the payoff was so much better. Instead of having seats behind the stage as in 1995, these tickets were on the first level directly opposite of the stage. No need for squinting or constantly turning my head to one direction to see the stage. Should be a pretty rockin’ show.
And Modest Mouse is opening. Double score!
