One hour, 3 cups of coffee,  a half a dozen smokes and still no tickets in hand. Trust me it’s not from a lack of effort. At 12:00 AM EST the first round of Dead tickets went on sale for their spring tour. For the first half hour of this adventure I sat and waited as the ticket server continuously timed out. Again and again I had to refresh the browser only to time out again. Finally at about the 12:30 mark, success! Oh wait, maybe I spoke too soon.

I’m staring at the ticket ordering page and pondering my choices. Floor, Section 200, 300 or 400? Hmmmm…  $95.50 + $6.95 service charge, well it’s an easy choice. I’m going to get some floor seats. I click the add to cart and uh oh… The big red message of ticket doom “At this moment there are not enough tickets available to fulfill your request.”  How can that be? I’ve been sitting here for 35 minutes now and am just able to get to the ordering page. Are there that many other people ordering tickets for the same venue on the same night who are much more proficient at hitting the refresh button than me? Oh well, I guess I should have stayed in Refresh Button School instead of pursuing my alternative carrier as a trash collector. One can never really be sure of how the choices they make will affect them in the future. 

So ok no floor seats. I can deal with that. Let me try the 200 section. Waiting, waiting, waiting……. The red message of ticket death again. 300s? Waiting, waiting, waiting….. Good thing we only collect trash on Mondays and Thursdays… Waiting…. Bingo! Seats in Section 317 have been added to my cart.  Where’s that seating chart, let me see what I’m able to score here? Oh wow! 3rd level to the side, almost heading around the back of the stage. 45 minutes in, $95. a seat, and this is the best I come up with? Thanks but no thanks. I send these tickets back to the waiting pool and try my luck again.

Now 1 1/2 hours into my Dead Ticket adventure.

Waiting…. Waiting…. Waiting….

When the surviving members of the Grateful Dead recently announced they would be going on tour for the first time in 5 years, deadheads around the country were buzzing with excitement. Old friends were being contacted, plans were being made, hotel rooms being booked. Once again the bus was on the road and many of us were ready to hop on.

That was until ticket prices were announced yesterday. With ticket prices for the reunited Grateful Dead (performing under the name The Dead) priced in the $100 range, many Deadheads are rethinking their plans. Instead of being able to go to multiple shows on tour, due to the high price of tickets many Deadheads are being forced to settle for just 1 or 2 shows.

There is quite a bit of discussion going on in the Dead community right now over the price of tickets. To read what people are saying, you can visit one of the many Deadhead message boards like ours here at Tooboarders.net