1. they try to sell more tickets for first dates to the "normal" audience, than when they have sold enough they give fans a chance and they announce a second date , imo.
    But they way they launch the album , the tour, the subscription for u2.com, the gift i think this time was wrong. Many mistakes , too much confusion, only two tickets, vouchers ????? I hope for the european leg will be everything ok. Imo.
    ps for "they" i mean live nation, fanfire, u2.com and some tickets resellers
  2. technical marketing research, area test, just to pay attention to the reactions of the possible audience in arenas. If the tickets for first dates will sold in a short time, second step is to announce a second date in the same locations and give more tickets for fan. Something like that happened for Turin 1 and 2 - 2015 but the vouchers were delivered in time.
  3. The problems are indeed complex as there are basic market dynamics of supply and demand on the one hand, and,
    on the other, the feeling that U2 and U2.COM could have done so much more in both the lead up and the aftermath
    of the presale fiasco. And, unfortunately, because of this complexity there are simply no easy answers and solutions.


    This is what I think of Guy Oseary's reply:

    Mr. Oseary's letter is a diplomatic writing. Obviously the U2 manager recognizes the problems that people had with the various presales, but at the same time tries to steer clear from the fact that U2 has a contract with Live Nation who, on their part, have contracts with the venues who have contracts with the (official) ticket offices (TM, AXS). U2 management - on behalf of U2 – cannot simply walk away from those contracts, or change the outline and details from those agreements. Especially not with U2’s core operation being rolled out as we speak, namely; performing in front of a live audience. This is both the craft and art of U2, as well as it is their business for mostly pragmatic reasons (that is to say, I don’t believe U2 is “in it” for the money: they are Artists first and foremost, but it has to roll!).

    Now there are two sorts of issues that bother U2 fans: the first concerns the technical problems (e.g. the wrongly applied algorithm, codes not working), and the other is with regard to the very idea of Verified Fan itself that promotes itself as “rooting out scalpers and bots,” but yet seemed to have worked merely in favour of the secondary market. What makes the problem even more complex is that it looks like as if the secondary market has had a benefit from the technical issues.

    But all of this comes down to the very practical concern of getting U2 fans to the U2 concerts. It is what the fans want, and I believe it is what U2 wants as well. There is absolutely no interest for the band to be either the jukebox act for the money, or to play their new songs in front of a hostile crowd that wants to have value for their hard paid cash.

    Where it all goes wrong, in my opinion, is that the contract U2 has with Live Nation allocates too few tickets for the U2.COM long term subscribers. U2 has been around for roughly 40 years and because they are so good over this relatively long period of time, fans have grown with them. Some of these long time fans have families now and want to take their kids with them to the concert, while others may have the financial means to travel abroad and see concerts there. Families need to buy four (4) tickets at least, while travellers don’t come over for just one show. This is why the CITI bank presale set so many bad blood, because it felt unfair that those eligible were able to buy four (4), while long term subscribers only had opportunity (if they had at all!), for two (2).

    Mr. Oseary, doesn’t address this CITI issue at all, but it is obvious that U2 is bound to these ticket allocations by contract. Still, I believe that this deal is not good for fans and band alike. U2 management will do well to review this situation at their earliest convenience. This for reasons already outlined in the above, but also because this CITI allocation gives supply to an unwanted demand of making Verified Money over the heads of Verified Fans.

    Yes, there is something to say for Verified Fan as it diminishes the changes of fans buying fake tickets (I’ve seen it happen just a few months ago at a Stones concert where two people paid € 450,- euro for false tickets of Viagogo – definitely unverified scalpers!), while still enabling people to resell their tickets in case when their plans have changed for what reason whatsoever.
    But Verified Fan may not lead to Verified Scalping, as seems to happen now.

    In sum: the main problem for fans is the poor allocation of U2.COM subscriber tickets. Too few tickets were available for a legit fan based demand.

    The technical problems only made the situation worse, and the fact that U2.COM has too little capacity to handle these problems made it even more worse. Now U2 may be bound by contract, but it should be fair when at least it is recognized that whatever deal they got themselves into is not operating as was desired. With that recognition given, I believe we can move forward to finding solutions. If not for now, then at least for the near and foreseeable future.
  4. is it getting better or do you feel the same: if this is the best they can do ...i feel the same.