RSSiTunes Ticket Promotion Backfires
By Ed Oswald | Published May 9, 2006, 6:43 PM
Those who pre-ordered the Red Hot Chili Peppers' new album through a joint promotion between iTunes and Ticketmaster should have received an e-mail with a concert ticket presale code Monday. But for some, that e-mail never came.
In the iTunes Music Store, Apple said those who pre-ordered the album "Stadium Arcadium" were to receive special videos along with a presale code which would allow them to buy concert tickets a full four days ahead of the general public.
However, it became clear on Apple's support forums that the e-mails were not arriving by Monday evening. By the end of the day many had not received the code, or received a blank e-mail from iTunes with no message body.
"I don't have my code yet either," a disgruntled fan who posted under the name "RoseTintMyWrld19" wrote late Monday. "This is the whole reason I pre-ordered Stadium Arcadium in the first place. Will someone at Apple please give us a shout? It would be much appreciated."
Customers also reported that Apple itself was in the dark, only saying that it expected the codes to be released sometime Monday. It wasn't until sometime Tuesday morning that Apple phone support representatives began to manually send out Ticketmaster codes to those calling in to reporting issues, according to Apple Support forum threads.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers Web site was also updated Tuesday, saying that codes were sent out Monday and if a fan hadn't received it, they should check their spam folders before calling iTunes Support.
Even with the official word from the band, so far Apple has stayed mum as to what exactly had happened that caused the issues. No representatives had posted in the thread explaining what had happened, which left a bad taste in some users mouths.
Additionally, once the codes were sent it was already past the time of the start of the presale, and those who had gotten their codes on time had already grabbed the good seats.
"I just got my Calgary codes and I'm more steamed than ever," a poster who went by the username "stevelaw" wrote. "The only available tickets are disasters. Level two, high up, way on the sides. I can understand that maybe 'floor, front row' isn't likely... but a presale does confer an expectation of advantageous tickets, and these they ain't."
A request for comment from Apple was outstanding as of press time.
iTunes should have to refund their money or give them the RHCP album for free. :)
Score: 0
|"It wasn't until sometime Tuesday morning that Apple phone support representatives began to manually send out Ticketmaster codes to those calling in to reporting issues, according to Apple Support forum threads."
This is not true, i personally bought the cd from iTunes, it is 1) overpriced (16.99 in stores) and 2) not a hard copy. The main reason was to get my presale code. Monday night came around and my code still wasnt there. Tuesday morning at 9am, i contacted apple support where i was transfered from department to department for nearly 2 hours only to end up at a dead end talking to the only manager on duty who told me he couldnt do anything as no one at apple with real time support has any access to the codes and my best bet was "To send a request to the iTunes Music Store support and they will get back to me within 48 hours." remember that this was past 10am on tuesday, when the tickets were already out. My code arrived at 4pm that day, when the best seats were seperate at 300 level seating, no 2 adjacent seats were still available. the iTunes store has still not responded to my request and i have not been reimbursed for anything. Apple really dropped the ball on this one. I would like to see some type of law suit happening. The only reason Apple took in so much cash from this promotion was because of the tickets, it was clearly FALSE ADVERTISING.
Score: 0
|i say itunes should pay up.
Score: 0
|Well I bought from iTunes specifically so one of my friends at work could get the tickets (I'm not a concert-goer)...got the email only late Tuesday and they were all gone for the Toronto show...pure BS...thanks Apple :(
Score: 0
|This is funny because our domain actually blocks ticketmaster so anyone who did this from work never would have received it anyway.
Ticketmaster spammed one mailbox of ours for a week straight, they ignored our requests for help, we blocked their domain. So it goes.
Score: 0
|What a shame ... not sure why M. Sweazey is amazed that RHCP are still together - the new double CD is a great addition to the RCHP discography ... not as gimmicky as their previous two outings...
This is a shame for Apple though. I hope that they can find a way to appease fans. I know how online promotions with multiple parties can often go extremely wrong. Ticketmaster is difficult to work with.
Score: 0
|Score: 0
|From ticket pre-sales I have seen - none of them are good seats.. Almost always upper level.
Score: 0
|I have to concur. Presales do not guarantee great seats. Radio stations are alotted a section of seats for promotional contests (usually a chunk of the first 3 rows), the record label is alotted a chunk of seats for "band-related" release (read fan clubs, network promotions, giveaways), and the main box office is alotted a chunk as well for "crowd control" to keep those who actually show up to the venue from getting p*ssed that they waited in line for hours (days?) and got nose-bleed. And while its not documented, a large number of the good seats left are sold to ticket brokers who have contacts within Ticketmaster. This is the seedier side of the ticket business that supposedly is not tolerated, yet how do you explain these brokers having all the good seats and selling them for more than twice the face value? They certainly aren't using the same methods as the rest of us, considering I've stood in line to get the best seats possible, was the 4th in line, and when I got to the window, they had completely sold out of the front section of the arena...I had to sit 34 rows back on the floor. Ridiculous. These "upset" fans can't blame Apple totally...sure they didn't deliver the goods like they were supposed to, but the presale doesn't guarantee you the chance at front row.
Score: 0
|Come on people...get a life. Just like the houston Astros tickets that came "free with two proofs of purchase" of Kellogs Frosted Flakes--we didn't scream to the press when we found out it didn't mean exactly what WE thought it did.
Besides that, we need not contact Apple to know where the problem lies--it was that new MacOS virus :)
Score: 0
|I'd be pretty pissed off if this happened to me to tell you the truth. I was actually thinking of buying this album off iTunes just for the pre-sale tickets.
I hate iTunes and the quality and all that, but if it got me good seats for this, I'd pay good money. I knew I didn't stand a chance though, and look at that. I was right.
I'll still try to buy average tickets though.
Score: 0
|