Buying concert tickets in Europe

Well, this morning was my first experience buying concert tickets in Europe. In short, it’s still not a great process, but not nearly as unpleasant as it is in the United States (hello, Ticketmaster and fellow garbage scumbags). Sadly, there were still vague, invented “convenience charges”, but they were not nearly as huge in scale as they are in the United States. Still shady and crappy, but at least it did not leave me feeling mugged and assaulted by a pack of thugs… perhaps just slightly scammed like a naive tourist.

One glaring difference was that I had to explicitly give permission to the various entities wanting my information to mercilessly spam me. I left those checkboxes blank. That was a pleasant change from the usual process of purchasing anything in the United States, where you have no idea who or what the entity you are sharing your information with is going to also share that information with.

Another positive difference was that reselling of tickets was not allowed. When I looked at a seating section, the price for that section was, well, the price for any seat in that section. None of this “this seat is $120 but the one right next to it is a ‘verified resale’ and is $460” scammery.

So come June, we will be making a trip to San Sebastian to see Rammstein! Our first time seeing them, and Jim’s first metal show! I showed him some videos on Youtube to prepare him but I don’t think he fully understands what he’s in for. Hopefully he will continue speaking to me after the experience.