By George Fallar 
I like music, especially live music. Bea and I attend as many live shows as we can, we see people everybody has heard of and people hardly anybody has heard of. We saw the Rolling Stones three times the last time they were touring, even managed to make a weekend in Vegas with The Who one night and the Stones the next. We have eclectic tastes in music and thoroughly enjoyed Lyle Lovett, Guy Clark, John Hiatt and Joe Ely on stage together at Mesa Arts Center. I know who Arcade Fire is and like them even though they’re from Quebec (anti-Coyotes hockey joke). Yeah I’m old enough to have sneaked out of the house to haunt the Fillmore East back in the Hendrix and Cream days. The last show we went to was Keb’ Mo’ at Talking Stick, great room and sound system by the way. So, I’ve bought a LOT of tickets over the years.
Yeah, we get it, you’re old
The past however many years, though, I’ve needed accessible seats. I’ve also come to snobbily enjoy having good seats at shows (and hockey, that’s another story). Usually, to get the GOOD seats, I inform myself of when the tickets go on sale and I work the phones at that time. I’ve had a good deal of success with that.
Sometimes, though, when there is a show that’s apt to be bigger (usually arena shows) than usual, it pays to take advantage of presale offers. These offers are available through credit card companies, artist fan clubs, and other things. In this case, Bea and I wanted to see P!nk in Las Vegas at Mandalay Bay rather than at US Airways Center which has horrendous accessible seating options. To take advantage of the presale, I bought P!nk’s new album online through her site and was provided a presale code. I got the presale code this morning at 9AM, and have been trying to take advantage of the presale for a couple seats until taking a break now at 12:30PM. Yes, 3 1/2 hours of on and off phone, email, online chat work. Do I have the seats? Nope, not yet.
Step 1
The first step is actually a few steps, we don’t have all day here do we? I bought the album (CD not the download) and was emailed my super secret presale code. This presale is the mother of all presales, trumps even the Citibank promotion going on now. Regular ticket sales begin Saturday 10/6, by which time I expect the good seats to be gone since P!nk is apt to be a hot ticket. So I click my way over to the Ticketmaster site for the show, click the “request accessible tickets button” and am presented with the following text:
To better accommodate your needs, Mandalay Bay Resort has requested that all special seating accommodations be solicited only through their representatives. Please contact a Mandalay Bay Resort representative for further help with your ticket purchase. Advance ticket purchase may be required.
Dial the number and talk to a ticket agent. I explain what I’m looking for and we go back and forth with some bouts of “please hold”. After 15 minutes of dead air and friendly conversation, the final result is that the Mandalay Bay box office insists I need to get my seats through Ticketmaster. I tell her a few stories about trying to get tickets and explain this is pretty much a normal thing so that the NEXT time someone like me calls, she will have a better idea what is up.
Step 2
Go to Ticketmaster. Search through “Contact us” for a telephone number, since I already know the regular ticket purchase page is no help in this regard. There are essentially two numbers to call, one to deal with current ticket orders and one to deal with ticket sales. I don’t have tickets, so let’s go with ticket sales.
I telephone tree my way to the P!nk concert in February and select the “purchase tickets” option. This may be paraphrasing, I wasn’t taking notes, but you get the idea. Whoop, “Tickets are not on sale for this event”, says the recording, “If you have questions about an internet presale, please go to Ticketmaster.com….” blah blah blah. Rats, now what will I do?
Step 3
Go to Ticketmaster. Buy the best tickets in the lower bowl that are available using my presale code. Now I have two tickets in lower bowl section 107. These are pretty good seats, although there is the slight problem that I wouldn’t be able to get to them on my scooter. Really, though, I just bought them so I could contact customer service. I chose to use “online chat” now armed with a legit order number for $300+ worth of seats. I was assisted by “Skylar_ZWS526” (not her real name):
Skylar_ZWS526
Hi, my name is Skylar_ZWS526, please give me a moment to review your information and I would be happy to assist you today.
I would be happy to assist you. Could you please verify the last four digits of the credit card used for purchase?
george fallar
xxxx
Skylar_ZWS526
Thanks for that information. Are you trying to get accessible seating now?
george fallar
Yes, i was not able to purchase accessible seats through the box office or over the phone because of the presale code. I bought the seats in this order, now wish to exchange them for accessible seating in the aforementioned sections.
Skylar_ZWS526
We have a no refunds/ no exchanges policy, however I would be more than happy to look into this and see if there is anyway that I can make an one time exception for you! Please bear with me one moment.
george fallar
I am aware of that policy. If you could then inform me of how to take advantage of the presale and purchase accessible seats I would be glad to hear it.
Skylar_ZWS526
Unfortunately you cannot buy presale accessible seating, however, if there are any accessible seating available I would be happy to make an exchange for you. Please give me one moment to see what is available.
george fallar
I imagine that is an ADA violation, by the way.
Skylar_ZWS526
I apologize, but the Mandalay Bay is handling the accessible seating for this event. You will have to contact them, their telephone number is 877 632-7700.
george fallar
I called them two hours ago.
They said they couldn’t sell me accessible seats, Ticketmaster had to do it.
So, here I am.
If you can’t do it, I suppose I will have to find some other way.
Skylar_ZWS526
I apologize, but Ticketmaster is not handling the accessible seating for this event. I would call them and ask to speak to the Box Office Manager. I am truly sorry for the inconvenience.
george fallar
However I cannoy use the seats purchased here and will need a refund since you cannot exchange them.
cannot not cannoy
Skylar_ZWS526
Okay, I would be happy to refund that for you. Give me one moment to process the refund.
george fallar
Thanks
Skylar_ZWS526
You’re welcome. You will see a credit of $312.15 in your account within 3-5 business days! It was a pleasure assisting you, can I help with anything else at this time?
george fallar
No thank you
So, you see, it was an unproductive morning trying to buy seats.
So, what now?
If this was unusual, it wouldn’t be as annoying. This is a typical occurrence with accessible seating, happens nearly every time. The one time the hassle paid off was when Tom Petty tightened me up with four front row seats to his show at Jobing.com arena because the fan club presale resulted in a similar situation.
I will get back on the phone later this afternoon and speak with the Mandalay bay box office one more time. Honestly I expect no results. I have some other recourse, but will probably just leave it at writing an email to P!nk’s people and then seeing what happens. If we don’t get to see her show, it will be too bad but I imagine we’ll survive.
Update 10/05
We called Mandalay Bay again and talked to the box office manager. We explained the situation and this time we got our tickets. She put two seats in our requested section on hold for us until the tickets go on sale Saturday 10/6. We’ll call the box office then, give them our order number and we’re all set. Thanks to Mandalay Bay (and MGM Resorts) for taking care of a problem, that sort of service is one of the reasons we generally stay at MGM properties when we go to Vegas.
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