If you’ve tried to sell TicketFast tickets to another fan recently, you know it’s not easy. Most fans are aware of the risk involved, and won’t buy TicketFast from someone they don’t know personally. (I wouldn’t, sorry to say…..)

So the thing you want to do, especially before the 3rd Leg starts (in a little more than six weeks), is get your TicketFast tickets converted to “hard” tickets. Easier said than done. If you call or email Ticketmaster Customer Service, they’ll pretend they don’t know what you’re talking about and then they’ll flat out tell you it can’t be done. You have to call them several times or be ready to bother them all day via email in order to get information from them about how to do this.

I chose the email route today. Here’s the full text of the email exchange.

It began when I submitted this via their online Customer Service contact system:

“If I am the original purchaser of TicketFast tickets, what is the procedure to have those converted into “hard” tickets?”

Simple enough question, right? Well, when I submitted the question, TM took me to another page where I was told that my question really WASN’T submitted, and instead they thought this might answer my question:

The answers below were automatically selected to assist you with your questions. If no solutions are listed or the solutions are not helpful, select “Submitting Question” to submit your issue to our support staff. The answers to the following questions may be relevant to your question:

Title: Which email from Ticketmaster contains my ticketFast tickets?
Link: click here

Title: What is ticketFast?
Link: click here

Title: What if I experience problems while ordering or printing my ticketFast ticket(s)?
Link: click here

Title: Will my ticketFast printout be accepted for entry into the event?
Link: click here

Title: How can I purchase tickets using an internationally billed credit card?
Link: click here

At the bottom of that page, I found another SUBMIT button with instructions to click it only if they hadn’t already answered my question. Ummm … click!

Credit where it’s due: I got a human response only 27 minutes later. Sadly, it was useless:

Dear Matt,

Thank you for your e-mail. There are many conveniences to purchasing ticketFast as your delivery method! Some of these conveniences include:

-You get your tickets right away, no will call lines or mail delivery to wait for.

-You print them at your convenience.

-You can forward them to others attending the event so they can print their own tickets. TicketFast tickets are transferable, as they are used in the same manner as traditional tickets.

-You can change the method of delivery, depending on the time frame and have them either mail or shipped via UPS to your billing address, or have them waiting for you at the Box Office Will Call Window.

If you have any further questions, please reply and include all previous correspondence.

Thank you for using Ticketmaster, where we really appreciate your business.

Sincerely,
Martin

They really appreciate my business, but they don’t read my question. So I wrote back:

Thank you for the quick reply.

I understand the convenience of TicketFast, but that doesn’t answer my question.

If I am the original owner and am still in possession of TicketFast tickets, how do I get them converted into “traditional” or “hard” tickets? I’d like a step-by-step procedure, please. I have Ticketfast tickets and want to have them converted into traditional/hard tickets. How do I do it?

Thanks,
Matt

Again to their credit, I received another email reply very quickly. This one arrived 46 minutes later:

Dear Matt,

Thank you for your e-mail. In order to process your request, we require additional information. Please provide the following:

Name on the account:
Credit Card Number:
Event:
Facility:
Date of Event:
City and State of Event:
Order Number:

If you have any further questions, please reply and include all previous correspondence.

We really appreciate your business.

Sincerely,
Miguel E.

Now, in hindsight, that may have answered my question right there. But that’s not how I understood it. When he starts by saying “in order to process your request, we require additional information” it sounds to me like, “We’re not going to answer your question until you give up all your personal information.” Well, I didn’t like the sound of that, so I wrote back:

Miguel -

Thank you again for the quick reply. I’m sorry, but I don’t see why Ticketmaster needs to know my account, credit card number, event information, and all that other stuff. I’m asking what should be a simple question, completely unrelated to anyone’s personal details:

If I am the original owner and am still in possession of TicketFast tickets, how do I get them converted into “traditional” or “hard” tickets?

I assume the procedure is the same no matter what my account name and credit card number is, right? So I’m asking - what’s the procedure? Thank you in advance.

Matt

And again, another quick reply — they really do deserve GREAT credit for being so quick to answer emails — this one from Martin who very clearly explained exactly what you need to do if you want to convert TicketFast into hard tickets:

Dear Matt,

Thank you for contacting us. If you wish to convert your ticketFast tickets into hard copy tickets, please provide us with the following information:

Name on the account:
Credit Card Number:
Event:
Facility:
Date of Event:
City and State of Event:
Order Number:

Once we have accessed your order, we will cancel the ticketFast ticket and issue out hard copy tickets. This can only be done by either calling Ticketmaster’s Customer Service department or by emailing our Customer Support team.

If you have any further questions, please reply, and include all correspondence.

Sincerely,
Martin

Thank you, Martin. And those of you with the patience to read all the way to the end, you know how to do it, too. Remember — only the person who bought the TicketFast tickets can do this.

Is it just me, or is there not ANY kind of spam block program provided by FanFire with the paid-membership U2.com email accounts? I’ve been getting spammed left-right-and-center with my membership email account.

I would have thought that my membership dollars could have gone towards some sort of spam filter! Anyone else having this issue?

I’m a runner, so I found this story at Bloomberg.com interesting… it seems that some people are so desperate for a spot in the New York City marathon that they are willing to pay cash or trade valuable items for a race number. Included in an entry on Craig’s List: a pair of tickets to U2’s sold out show at MSG in October. Over 85,000 folks entered a lottery for one of 52,000 spots in the race, and people attempting to get a bib through sale or trade run a life-time risk of ban from New York City running events. I love to run long distance races, but no way would I risk a ban to run under someone else’s name, not even for the New York marathon. And no way would I let go of a pair of tickets to an MSG show. But if you were one of the lucky 52,000 and want to go to the U2 show more than you want to race…

Here’s some more random U2 news for your Tuesday….

Dotmusic is reporting that it is unlikely that U2 will ever play the Glastonbury Festival:
“Michael Eavis has labelled U2 “blighters” and revealed it’s unlikely they’ll ever play the Glastonbury Festival.The festival head honcho is said to have spoken about the ongoing discussions he held with the Irish rock legends about playing last month’s event at the Port Eliot literary festival recently.Eavis apparently claimed Bono and co, who were on a world tour at the time of this year’s Glastonbury, “really mucked me about”, as he sought to finalise the bill, reports Playlouder.Eavis also revealed that in the days before the ring of steel that now circles the Somerset site, he used to let people into the festival for free, rather than see them locked out.He explained: “I used to go round the festival in the middle of the night and remove panels to let people in. Better in than out, I thought we had loads of space. I did it at 2am.”The Glastonbury Festival takes a year off in 2006.” The story can be found: http://uk.news.launch.yahoo.com/dyna/article.html?a=/050726/340/fo6l9.html&e=l_news_dm

A writer for the Salt Lake Tribune reported on a recent U2 show in Paris suggesting it’s a sneek peek for the band’s SLC show in December. The full story can be found here. (note: the link will only work for 14 days).

Contactmusic has a story about how U2 has really angered Sir Elton John:
“SIR ELTON JOHN is reportedly furious U2 have refused to have any part in a charity album he is producing for his Aids foundation. The ROCKET MAN star was keen to feature the Irish rockers’ 1980s hit NEW YEAR’S DAY on the star-studded release - which is set to feature MORRISSEY and BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - but BONO stunned John with the snub.
An insider tells British newspaper the Sunday Mirror, “Elton is livid. He can’t believe U2 refused to give permission to use New Year’s Day. He thinks it’s really bad form. “Bono was one of the main protagonists for Live 8 and the Make Poverty History campaign which Elton was happy to do because it was such a brilliant cause. “So you can imagine he was amazed - and a little let down to say the least.” The story can be found here.

Neil McCormick’s July 19th column talks about writing a song in reaction to the London bombings and all he did to get it out to folks for charity. He writes:
“I am not a rock star who commands the world’s attention, just a music journalist with a sideline as an obscure recording artist (operating under the pseudonym The Ghost Who Walks). I wasn’t sure what to do next, but I felt Bono was right when he insisted that it was a song whose time had come. He was still in Edinburgh on his quest to end extreme poverty, however, after which he was about to have his first break with his family in six months. It was too much to expect him to get on board another campaign, so I took a deep breath and started calling everybody I knew in the music business.” The full article can be found here.

(As a side note, his I Was Bono’s Doppelganger book has been reprinted in the UK thanks to popular demand. If you haven’t bought it yet - run…don’t walk…run to your bookstore and buy it! It’s fantastic! You can check out the @U2 coverage of it here: http://www.atu2.com/news/article.src?ID=3479 , http://www.atu2.com/news/article.src?ID=3480 , and http://www.atu2.com/news/article.src?ID=3484)

Lounge act Richard Cheese has covered “Sunday Bloody Sunday” for his new album Aperitif for Destruction. Released by Surfdog Records, Aperitif for Destruction also features lounge versions of The Beastie Boys “Brass Monkey” and The Killers “Somebody Told Me.” Cheese previously covered “Bullet The Blue Sky” on his self-titled 2000 debut. If you just can’t get enough of cheesy (pardon the pun) U2 lounge covers check out Australian lounge act Frank Bennett’s take on “With or Without You.”

When I heard that they played Miss Sarajevo the other night in Amsterdam, my first thought was that Bill Carter or maybe even Alma herself or someone else connected to the city of Sarajevo was at the show that night. That’s the kind of thing U2 does on occasion — a little tribute to someone in attendance — but it’s usually in the form of smaller snippets of songs, not a full-band setlist alteration.

Now we have news that they’re about to film a DVD in Milan.

U2 isn’t the type to add in a completely ignored gem from the past just a couple shows before a “Big Video Shoot” … unless they have a reason. So I’m thinking, maybe it’s nothing to do with who was at the Amsterdam show. Maybe it’s who might be at the Milan shows. Do you think Pavarotti himself might be involved?

The mind races…..

The July 2005 issue of Successful Meetings magazine has a story about how Convention and Visitors Bureaus (CVBs) are using music to promote their city or region. Denver is using U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” from their Red Rocks performance to help promote the city.

Terri Hardin writes, “A successful charting strategy is to be recorded at a live music venue, like Devner’s Carved in Stone: Live at Red Rocks Vol. II, which came in at #6 (on the Billboard’s Top 10 CVB CDs list). Rich Grant, spokesperson for Denver Metro CVB, reports, ‘We use the CD to remind people that there are few better experiences than relaxing under the stars listening to a concert at Red Rocks. We give CDs to meeting planners and media; we’ve also given them out on sales missions and events.’”

The CD producers are Ellen Naumann, Torrey Demps, and Kate Freeman. The Label is Outlook Music. The live material includes Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Pride and Joy”, Coldplay’s “Politik” and Tori Amos’ “A Sorta Fairytale” among others.

Last week, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” found its way back on to the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the first time since 1978 when Capitol Records issued a commemorative single that peaked at No. 71 on the chart. Paul McCartney & U2’s recording of Sgt. Pepper from the Live 8 concert in London debuted at No. 48, giving the song its highest-charting position thus far. The Beatles’ “Across the Universe,” which was performed by Bono and a collection of all-star artists during the Grammy telecast this year also had a brief chart run.

2005 is the first year that two songs written by Lennon and McCartney have debuted on the Billboard chart since 1978. It’s also worth noting that Bono, a self confessed Beatles’ fan, contributed to both singles. Finally, the McCartney & U2 recording makes further history by becoming the first Beatles song to chart by an individual Beatle. McCartney has re-recorded Beatles’ songs on his solo albums, but none of those remakes have ever charted on the Billboard Hot 100 until now.

Thanks to “ozone” in the @U2 Forum for this link to a comical Bono - George W. Bush mashup from animator Mark Fiore, who is apparently a big enough U2 fan to mix in some references to old songs that the average viewer won’t know. Good stuff and hopefully funny to you no matter what side of the political aisle you sit on.

See it: Busho Live!

MTV’s website has acknowledged U2’s existence with a video interview with the band here (on the right side of the screen). I would tell you more about this interview, but apparently I need to upgrade my player and I am too lazy to do that.

Elsewhere on that same page you’ll find an article that talks about the ways different bands select their setlists. Of note: several U2-uttered sentences. In the following snippet Bono reveals that for a while there U2 were toying around with the chilling idea of not including Where the Streets Have No Name in the Vertigo tour.

“We were wondering how you could play ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’ after the last tour, where we showed the names of those who died in 9-11,” Bono said, giving an example of the amount of thought put behind a single song. “Our show designer said we shouldn’t do ‘Streets.’ And then we started working on this idea of a suite of songs that joined the dots between what was happening in the civil rights movement in the U.S. in the ’60s and ’70s when Martin Luther King was taking to the streets, and what’s happening now in Africa.”

Do you think fans might go ballistic if they left that song out even once?