Ticketmaster rant

I have had the craziest morning.  It was late start at school so I had Avery and her friend Madi here until 10:40 this morning.  What is with all of these last starts?  I don't ever remember having them when I went to school.  There is truly nothing like two free hours of non scheduled activity when you are 5 years old. Truly. Nothing. Like it.  That is all I'm going to say :)

Anyway, today is the day that I get to buy tickets for Avery's dance recital.  I decided rather than go to the box office two hours early and wait in line with a bunch of frantic women that I would order the tickets through Ticketmaster online.  Kudos to my friend Gretchen who waited in line and scored some rock star seats.

The girls finally got on the bus, the twins were parked in front of the T.V. so that I had zero distractions and I waited.  It was 10:47 and my heart was pounding.  The adrenaline was rushing through my system and my stomach was filled with that awful butterfly feeling.  I despise the fact that purchasing tickets has to be so stressful.  Note to self; my attempt at not being one of those "frantic" women waiting in line for two hours was not completely successful.  Yes, I didn't wait for two hours but come 10:57 I was definitely frantic.  

I had been told that you could call an 800 number as well to order tickets.  So, just as a backup I dialed the number at 10:57 and was put into the phone system.  The clock turned 11 and I clicked the link to purchase tickets.  The screen pops up with all of these drop downs.  How many tickets, which type of seating, child or adult, handicapped or regular...ARGH!!!!!  So, I entered 5, best available.  Then, a screen pops up that asks you to type in the magic words separated by a comma.  OMG!  I have zero time for this Ticketmaster!  Someone else is swiping my amazing row C tickets because I am having to decipher your effing magic words that are barely legible.  I type the words in, click enter and boom!  I score my tickets...I think.  Then, up pops the next page which asks how you would like to receive your tickets.  There are a bunch of ridiculously overpriced options(I mean seriously?  A $5 charge to print them now?)and way at the bottom is the "standard mail" choice at no extra charge.  Click.  Enter.  The next thing I see is a warning message stating, "An Error occurred with your purchase.  We apologize.  If you were in the middle of an order, please check your account to see if it went through.  Otherwise, try again."  You have got to be kidding me.

Meanwhile, I am listening to the automated voice(kind of)and asking it to repeat itself since I have no idea what is happening  now.  Back to the computer, I start over.  I go through the whole process again, now I am at Row F and the freaking error message comes up again.  Finally I pay attention to the voice on the phone and get to our event.  I started over on the computer while actually paying attention to the phone call as it has become a priority now.  The computer comes back with Row J, the phone comes back with the same Row F tickets I had on the second try with the computer.  If I thought I was frantic at 10:57, I certainly was frantic now.  I logged out of the computer.  I got my awesome Row F tickets on the phone.  Hung up and just stared at the computer.  That was a complete mind bender and something has to be done about Ticketmaster's computer system.  That was horrible!

Deep breaths have been taken and I am so excited that I got Row F.  They are amazing tickets directly in the center of the auditorium at the perfect viewing level.  The videographer is even in our row(which means it must be the best one :)).  Phew!

I will never attempt purchasing tickets on Ticketmaster.com again.  The phone system, even though it  is frustrating to speak to a non-human proved to be the best option for me.     The only other time I purchased tickets on the website was for Taylor Swift and I clicked in exactly at 10am and it processed for 12 minutes before I was able to view my tickets which were mediocre at best.  Talk about frustrating!  Has anyone else had a similar experience?