So I got all pumped up for the “fans only” Internet ticket pre-sale for Rush’s June 29th show in Scranton this morning.  I was on the website at 10am ready to purchase three of the closest tickets I could.  Once the virtual gates were open and I got past the initial prompts, it took the musictoday.com site over 10 minutes after I told it what tickets I wanted to show me a page that gave me seats in the 31st row (EE) of the 100-level section in front of stage left.  31st row?

I know Rush is a huge concert draw, but I doubt that the majority of people that were purchasing tickets at that time intend to go to the show.  I predict there will be a lot of these tickets available from professional ticket brokers for much higher than face value.  There was nothing in the pre-sales process to tie a ticket purchase to attendance, such as mandatory will-call or an ID check at the gate.  When will artists start to care about this issue?

I’m glad I don’t go to a lot of stadium/arena shows, or this would bug me a lot more.

On the bright side, this will be my 15th Rush show!