After the day of planning for the U2 tour yesterday, I thought buying the tickets today during the presale would be relatively easy. I thought I’d be done in five minutes. Instead, it took me just over an hour to acquire one little U2 concert ticket. I have never had a problem getting tickets, since I started getting tickets back in 1992. I mean maybe a little wait, but nothing like I had this morning.

I was very prepared this morning. Just after 9am I added a new/separate credit card that I have never used before to my ticketmaster account, so I could put it away until the tour. Since there is a new credit card entry policy instead of tickets, I didn’t want to risk losing my regular debit card I use for everything – or having to replace it for identity theft. I opened my ticketmaster page to the New York City show – decided the Saturday show would be harder to get in the presale then the last one and they may add more shows so it might not be the last one. I copied my presale code. I opened up the thread to my U2 friends so we could share ideas while trying to buy our tickets. Then I just sat there and watched the countdown clock. Getting more and more nervous the closer and closer it got to 10am.

The clocked turned to 0:00 and the page refreshed on its own. I put in my presale code, chose one ticket for the floor, entered the crazy security phrase thing and hit enter … nothing. I hit it again … nothing. I got out and went in again and did everything over … nothing. About 10:05, I pulled a GA but the time expired before it even went to the next page. Guess Ticketmaster was a bit overloaded this morning. I went through this process several more times, pulling about six GA tickets, but could never buy them because the page timed out or the site crashed all together. So I switched to the last night in NYC, but the same thing happened. By this time is was about 10:30 or a little after, so I tried for Boston – and the same thing happened. I went back to try for the New York shows and the same thing happened. At 11am, I decided to try for Chicago as it was 10am there, so the tickets were just going on sale and the same thing happened. I then tried my ticketmaster app on my phone – not sure why I didn’t try that sooner. I immediately pulled a GA ticket for the first New York show on Saturday July 18th. So at 11:11am after over an hour of stressful trying imagining I’d never go to a U2 concert again, I finally had a U2 concert ticket!

Two hours later, I had to do it all over again when it turned 10am in Vancouver. I’ve always wanted to go to Vancouver. Heard it was a beautiful city, and I love the Pacific Northwest like Portland and Seattle. And I REALLY want to go to the tour opener! As difficult as getting my NYC ticket was this morning, that’s how easy getting my tour opener Vancouver was this afternoon. I had the Vancouver ticketmaster page up, as well as my ticketmaster app open on my phone, and when the clocked counted down to 0:00 the page turned and I got right in. In three minutes, I had my second U2 concert ticket. Now I have in my possession two U2 concerts tickets to the iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE tour – the Tour Opener in Vancouver on May 14th and Opening Night in NYC on July 18th. SO excited!

Please check back Monday as I continue my U2 tour ticket buying saga at the regular on sale for the rest of New York, Boston, Chicago and the other Vancouver.