Numbers Game : Ticket Priority System Pleases Springsteen Fans

The flood of complaints that has perennially accompanied ticket sales for Bruce Springsteen’s concerts slowed to a trickle Tuesday when nearly 350,000 tickets went on sale in the Southland for Springsteen’s four September concerts at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

“This is the best system of any I’ve ever seen for handling concert tickets,” said Tim Sloss, 26, of Laguna Hills as he walked away from a Ticketron outlet in South Coast Plaza with four 10th-row seats.

“I’m missing some work, but I don’t care. The way I look at it, I would have stood here all day.”

Security personnel at Ticketron and Ticketmaster said Springsteen fans generally were well-behaved and that there were few problems or complaints.

When a radio announcement was made Monday night that tickets would go on sale Tuesday morning at 10 a.m., fans began lining up at ticket outlets where bracelets with random priority numbers were distributed through the night. The random priority number system was used to prevent fans from lining up days ahead to ensure their place in line. As tickets went on sale, those with the lowest priority numbers were served first.

Contrary to past years, in which fans who were first in line often wound up with tickets in remote locations, those with the lowest priority numbers this year frequently got tickets near the front of the stage.

“The people who were first in line here got front-row seats,” said Rome Reddick, an Event Management employee policing the Ticketmaster outlet at Music Plus record store in Santa Ana. “We went through our 400 priority people by 11:20 a.m. and now we’re taking the leftovers from the Ticketron down the street.”

Of the few complaints that were voiced, most focused on the comparatively slow rate at which Ticketron outlets were processing orders.

“It’s going very, very slowly,” said Jerry Crutcher of Contemporary Services Corp., the security firm patrolling Ticketron outlets. “We’ve been here for two hours now and we’re only up to number 50.”

Many Switch Outlets

Consequently, many fans left Ticketron outlets and went to Ticketmaster.

“I’d rather get not-so-great seats and get them fast than wait all day,” said Tony Morales, 19, of Capistrano Beach.

For some ardent Springsteen fans, the challenge was in getting a desirable priority number.

“We figured that any number under 500 would be good,” said Joe Lynch, 16, a Westlake Village resident who was on vacation in Newport Beach when he heard the announcement Monday night.

“We came down and kept getting back in line to get better numbers. We cut off the bracelets, scrubbed the numbers off our hand and even changed clothes a couple of times,” Lynch said. “After two hours we left with number 175, but that wasn’t good enough. So we came back again until we got number 45. We didn’t get home last night until about 2 a.m.”

Mike McAteer, 20, and Rachel Perez, 26, both of Corona, were further back in line at Ticketron with priority number 141. Realizing that they were likely to be in line for several more hours before their number was called, McAteer said:

“I’m disappointed that it’s taking so long. But it’s worth it. Bruce is such a good guy. He’s not just out for himself. And his shows are four hours of constant energy. He’s the new fad, like Michael Jackson or Prince, but on a higher level. They were just up and down real fast. But Bruce has been around for years. He’ll still be there when they’re gone.”

‘Flooded With Tickets’

Although fans have complained during previous Springsteen tours about the large number of tickets that were sold by ticket brokers at many times their face value, this time around more fans are trying to get in on the action.

“All 14 of our phone lines are lit up and I’d say it’s split about 50-50 (between buyers and sellers),” said an employee at Preferred Tickets in El Toro.

“We’re flooded with tickets,” added Andrew Galindo, owner of the Ticket Outlet in Anaheim. “People have heard about the inflated East Coast prices and think they are going to be able to sell tickets for $1,000 each. So a lot of people are coming in to sell tickets. Since they can buy four, they keep two for themselves and sell the other two. I had a few kids out standing in line, but most of ours are just coming from the public.”

Galindo said he expects prices for tickets in the first 10 rows to sell for a maximum of $400.