Where Are The Good Old Days?

I remember when I first started going to the Big Day Out you could go down to the Plaza, walk into Beatdisc records and get tickets there. All over Sydney (and also Australia) the summer festival generation were walking into their local ma+pa record stores to get their tickets at 9 in the morning and that was it. You might have been behind people but at least you saw yourself moving in line and eventually you got to talk to someone. If there was a problem you saw it happening, you understood what it was and you knew that it wasnt going to stop you getting a ticket.

It didnt matter if the guy in front of you was a scalper. He'd be out of the way soon and you'd be next for that sweet sweet feeling of ticket purchase.

Oh how times have changed

I am now an incredibly irate man sitting at my computer at near 2 in the morning (not unusual sometimes, fair enough) trying to purchase myself a Big Day Out ticket. Given the fact that a few years ago they moved everything online and the fact that its more luck that anything EVERY year and every year the system goes down or something happens due to an 'unprecedented influx of people' I already knew that it was going to be annoying, frustrating and tedious - and I was right.

Im still here. Ive moved past the main site despite having to refresh a few times, I then finally got the ticketing page to load, filled out all the prevalent information and clicked the final button. Did it send? Of course not. It timed out. Refreshing takes me back to the order form (EVENTUALLY) and I do it all again and the same thing happens. This has now happened 9 times as well as about the 50-odd times Ive had to try and refresh just to get the ticket information up! Now I sit behind god knows how many people, and god knows how many dont even WANT their fucking tickets and all because of the so-called convenience of the internet.

What a load of shit - and what does it mean?

The patrons suffer - people miss out on tickets due to shitty internet connections, the organisers complete inability to provide an appropriate, fair and WORKING online service and the fact that alot of the tickets will go straight on Ebay.

The record stores suffer - With all ticketing being done on the internet unless you are already familiar with your local outlet chances are you're going to go straight to JBHI-Fi. Small business suffers because people arent going there anymore.

The festival suffers - We end up with more and more dickheads every big day out full of their own self importance, a high blood alcohol content and a desire to see bands like Sneaky Sound System....

Who is pretty much the only group of people who doesnt suffer? Who reap the financial benefits? Who took the ticket sales off the stores so they could keep more money for themselves? Who else of course - the organisers. They've become a lazy bunch of pricks who cant be arsed sending a few thousand tickets around the country to a RECORD STORE instead of some shitty online service that NEVER CAN and NEVER WILL (despite what they may say every fucking year) provide for the people who desire to attend these events that YOU PRICKS are putting on. Fuck you Lees and West!

Sorry but I keep losing my train of thought. I have to go and refresh my other browser every 2 minutes..

c*nts.