Were you happy with the new ticket presale experience?

[jaramosx]

Originally Posted by nataliej

If a Muse gig sells out, some fans will always be disappointed that they didn't get tickets.

A logical way to help dedicated fans get tickets (i.e. those on the mailing list of members of the forum) is to have a lottery system and allocate a percentage of all tickets randomly and then selling the rest on general sale to the public. I don't know how anyone can not see this as a good thing as it's fairer for all fans.

A first come, first served "rubgy scrum of F5 pressing" is hardly fair (what about those that work and can't get online? Or those who aren't very good at typing their address details really quickly?).

Regarding the pre-authorization of payment, this is a very common thing. Having worked on credit card payment systems and handling pre-authorisations it makes perfect sense. In fact, it's how credit cards and banks work. Here's an explanation...

The ticket agency checks your bank/card for funds. If you have them, yay! The bank/card issuer reserves that amount of your available credit for the ticket agency and your remaining available credit is reduced. It doesn't matter that the transaction hasn't completed yet - that money is now reserved (this is called a pre-auth) and you can't spend it on anything else (for the time being).

(This is why if you have a card with a £1000 limit you can't run off to Tesco and buy 500 things at £100 each... you'll be denied after the 10th one as you'll have run out of credit).

Hotels work in the same way. When you check in they pre-auth your card with the amount your stay will cost (you know, to check you've actually got the money) and this money is reserved for them. When you check out, the pre-auth is either completed, or if you had anything from the minibar they might cancel the pre-auth and resubmit a request for the payment at the higher amount. It's at this point that the payment is actually requested.

So back to the tickets, if your application was successful the pre-auth will be completed and the transaction is finalised (and it will show up on your statement). If you were unsuccessful, the pre-auth (the money that was reserved) will now be reversed/cancelled and the funds are available again.

Whilst your amount of available credit may go up and down, the money is only actually taken when the tickets are bought.

Incidentally, if you applied more than once, or hit submit multiple times, this is why your available credit would have been reduced drastically as the ticket system will have initially have pre-auth'd all your submissions. It would only be when the duplicates where discarded that the pre-auths would have been cancelled.

Pre - approved in duplicate ¿? First time in my life. And for a week ¿? All potential participants in a lottery ¿?

this is a scam, here and throughout the world.

If you don´t understand or you want to convince you that the world is square or you CrowdSurge worker is your problem.

[bucket_]

I was successful, but it was an absolute joke. Confusing, poorly done, delayed, unfair in some cases seemingly

edit: not to mention the amount of touts now.

[mikethesmallprint]

they should have used ticketmaster and sent out codes to buy via a presale.

would have been handled alot better than this.

[Niall]

Originally Posted by nataliej

If a Muse gig sells out, some fans will always be disappointed that they didn't get tickets.

I don't think anyone is questioning that though.

A logical way to help dedicated fans get tickets (i.e. those on the mailing list of members of the forum) is to have a lottery system and allocate a percentage of all tickets randomly and then selling the rest on general sale to the public. I don't know how anyone can not see this as a good thing as it's fairer for all fans.

It didn't help thought, it just added an element of randomness.

A first come, first served "rubgy scrum of F5 pressing" is hardly fair (what about those that work and can't get online? Or those who aren't very good at typing their address details really quickly?).

A staggered release of tickets would mitigate that, and websites have for a very long time used a method where the rickets are help while details are entered and then released if the transaction isn't completed.

Regarding the pre-authorization of payment, this is a very common thing. Having worked on credit card payment systems and handling pre-authorisations it makes perfect sense. In fact, it's how credit cards and banks work. Here's an explanation...

It might be common but it isn't familiar, and there was little explanation as to how it would work and what the details of it were.

Incidentally, if you applied more than once, or hit submit multiple times, this is why your available credit would have been reduced drastically as the ticket system will have initially have pre-auth'd all your submissions. It would only be when the duplicates where discarded that the pre-auths would have been cancelled.

This sort of information would have been useful beforehand. It would have stopped people maxing out their credit unaware that they were doing so. The main site talks about card authorisation but most people associate that with security checks - not an authorisation to change their credit balance.

[robertmollers]

I want my e-mail!

[arelagord]

Still waiting on my email though money has been taken out of my account. Do they send the confirmation email to the address you submitted as part of the application or the one you origionally signed up with? If it's the later then I'm screwed as it doesn't exist anymore...

[mjartrod]

I'm not sure what is the point of blaming the band or management or Santa Claus for the way this system was designed..? The point is, it didn't work. I got tickets and I'm pleased with that but I could have easily been unsuccessful.

The idea of members applying for tickets in a sort of lottery isn't bad (we all knew that many would be unsuccessful) - it's the fact that touts still have access to it that is the problem. This could have been avoided with the ID thing. If they don't yet want to go for ID-ing every buyer for a general sale (or even a pre-sale) for now, OK. But it could have been done easily for a lottery such as this one and we'd be sure that those who were lucky are fans

All in all, the band is massive now and doing less gigs also doesn't help cos it's more fans and less tickets.

It's stuff like this that makes me LOL when I see people who want the band to do small, intimate venues. If it goes like this for big indoor venues across europe, imagine what it would be for smaller ones!

[muse2503]

I'm definately not happy with this system, I still haven't had an email and I can't check my bank account online

[rich2606]

Someone on Muselive said that they emailed crowdsurge and got a response saying their application wasn't even validated as their email address wasn't on the members list, despite being a member of the site for years.

I reckon that the reason so many people haven't heard anything at all yet is because their applications were rejected too, possibly because someone fucked up and didn't give Crowdsurge an accurate list...

[MUSEingJoshuaTree]

I'm not happy with this pre-sale either.

I didn't get tickets, which sucks massively, but is not the main problem. Having to wait for ages for that bloody "unsuccessful" email was a bloody nightmare. Woke up this morning to bad news and found the email arrived at 5:36 AM, probably like many others.

I had no problems with any money being held, but I can imagine how horrible that is, especially if you need that very money to get the tickets in the general sale.

Also ... yes I was aware this was a lottery, but I'm still annoyed at the fact that I registered for tickets in the first 5 minutes without thinking about it and didn't get them. Feels like being a good Muser and then getting a slap across the face

And reading through this thread and Twitter there are a quite a few more problems, such as not having an email at all yet.

I'd get up in the middle of the night for a pre-sale if I had to, but this, this cries out for improvement.

EDIT: also, I hear there are already tickets on eBay, brilliant ... not

[Pip]

Originally Posted by Pip

I'll have to wait until I get home, then copy and paste what my friend Laura told me about this particular sale and how the company Crowdsurge works.

That's if facebook will let me even see her post, they keep appearing and disappearing!

Sent from my HTC Sensation XE using Tapatalk 2

Couldn't access the posts via facebook on my computer so have copied and typed it from the posts on the Android app, where I can see the posts.

This is the info (and it's from someone who has a fair amount of knowledge regarding the inner-workings of the band and their management).

Laura ****** FYI guys, Muse are selling tickets themselves for the pre-sale I believe. Don't know how the main sale will work, and if it's only going through muse.mu

Laura ****** MEMO TO MATT: self-producing doesn't work, nor is managing your own ticket sales

Laura ****** ‎@sally -CrowdSurge was established in January 2008 to provide white-label e-commerce software, hardware, and marketing solutions to artists, brands, promoters, and venues, enabling them to sell tickets directly to fans

So, the band, or certainly Matt at least, must have known about how the system works (or should work, if handled correctly) and must also now be aware of the farce it quickly became.

As for the person who suggested it's pointless apportioning blame, get real and read back over the numerous issues of varying kinds so many people have had. You think we should all shut-up and not complain??!

[Philibob]

Voted no, still haven't received any sort of email (at least I know I've been unsuccessful as I've got my money back now) and not getting any response from Crowdsurge. The thing that's also annoying is that some people seem to have got a pre-sale link for 9am tomorrow in their unsuccessful email and others didn't...

Originally Posted by rich2606

I reckon that the reason so many people haven't heard anything at all yet is because their applications were rejected too, possibly because someone fucked up and didn't give Crowdsurge an accurate list...

My muse.mu account was created automatically for me from my forum account when muse.mu accounts were originally set up, I wonder whether this caused any issues...

[pib66]

I was lucky enough to get my tickets for Manchester but this presale was a bit of a farce. I'm not sure what it was designed to achieve really, it certainly wasn't to stop touting or to reward 'superfans'.

At the end of the day, there aren't nearly enough tickets to go around and a lot of people are going to be disappointed no matter how ticket sales are done.

FWIW, I thought the Radiohead system was garbage too, and so didn't bother with them.

Good luck tomorrow.

Ps. In reply to the expert on the double-billing thing, it wasn't the usual pre-authorisation and then authorisation of that payment process.....they pre-authorised a payment and then took another seperate payment rather than taking that first payment....so I now have to wait until next week until my card provider can cancel the first one....in the meantime those funds aren't available to me. Amateurs.

[Furygirl]

I'm wondering if they'll do the same thing with the US tour, or maybe this was a test.

The presales are usually a nightmare no matter what. I wish there was a way they could just do a regular presale and allocate more tickets, without the touts scarfing them up.

[the electric monk]

Originally Posted by robertmollers

I want my e-mail!

+1

Haven't heard shit. Applied for the 2nd London show so I knew my chances were never going to be great, but I would like to know for sure please...