The internet ticket line.

Once again I have been shut out from Jimmy Buffett tickets. With the online ticket sales they have eliminated the long hours of waiting in line to buy tickets and exchanged that for an immediate sellout. But they didn't sell out immediately as I had originally thought.

I was online at 10 am and had my purchase entered by 10:01. After entering my "make sure you're a human" code a window popped up announcing my wait time to be 6 minutes. I sat in front of my computer hoping that I would get my four lawn seats, it was a lot quicker getting to this point today than it was last year. But after the time clicked down I was informed that there we no tickets available to match my request.

10:08 AM and I was already shut out. It's still better that waiting 24 hours outside of Carson's to find out you're not getting tickets. I heard later that day that people were getting tickets at around 11 AM so I tried again but still got nothing. I called but could only get single seats in the pavilion. By the way, the first row of the lawn sells for $33 and the last row of pavilion seats, only 10 feet closer sell for $133. I wouldn't pay $133 per seat to see Jesus. Ok, I've paid that much for DeAnn to see Bon Jovi but that was at the House of Blues, it's different.

The real cost of the tickets comes in after you find what you want. For the lawn seats they say it costs $33, then there's the $18.95 Ticketmaster convenience charge plus the $3 per ticket parking fee. If you want to print your tickets using your own ink and paper there is an additional charge 0f $2.50 per ticket. I don't get that at all since having somebody there print them, put them in an envelope and mail them to you is free.

So without the printing fee you're up to $54.95 for a lawn seat or add other $100 on top of that for pavilion. At TicketsNow.com the scalpers add about $10 for the lawn seats plus a $9.75 convenience charge and $14.95 to slip them in an envelope and mail them out. A final cost of nearly $90. I could do the Ticketmaster cost, at $110 for two tickets it's still less than some nights going out for dinner and Margaritas but I don't want to spend $180because it makes me mad that I would have to.

When I checked the ticket scalper web sites, one of them already had nearly 1500 seats available and some individual sellers with 10 or more tickets to sell. How does this guy get ten tickets and I can't get four. The ticket limit is six. If they want to get rid of the scalpers, they should make everybody buy their own tickets, limit 1.

I have friends who call an out-of-state Ticketmaster but this doesn't work with Buffett since he sells tickets for all of his shows across the country at the same time leaving all of the ticket sales options loaded up. In April they will be going to a single 800 number anyway so even that option will be gone.

The concert is six months away so I have time to figure it out. Someone may come up with an extra pair at a reasonable price. I miss the old days when I could buy them in groups for the bus trip. That was a lot of fun.