Wave Goodbye: It’s Not As Much Fun to Pick Up the Pieces…

A load of Nine Inch Nails fans got the shaft with Music Today’s paperless ticketing tactics for the “Wave Goodbye” Tour.

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It all started when Rez (Trent Reznor) announced that Nine Inch Nails would not be touring after a last round of shows titled the “Wave Goodbye” tour. He said that after 20 years, Nails needed a break from the hardcore tour circuit, but that he’d still be making music. Fans were shocked, but still supportive of a man who’d come so far in the music world and in his own creative process. We had watched his musical endeavour grow, just as we had grown. 1989-2009 – it seems like they’ve been around forever and this tour marked the end of an era.

Image via BrooklynVegan

The day the tickets went on sale was excruciating. We reserved our virtual place marker on the ticketing website (NIN @ MusicToday) at 9am, and waited for sales to start at 5p – an 8 hour wait. We were buying for the Los Angeles shows – the closest the tour would come to Seattle.  It was an exhilarating experience, because we knew that we were one of a few to get tickets to this monumental last tour. We booked our flights around the ticket date. We rented a car, we called our families and friends and told them we’d be in town, and we waited.

The day before we flew to Los Angeles for the Wiltern show, the NIN site announced that Rez had been sick in New York and Chicago. Then they announced that the LA shows would be rescheduled. I crossed my fingers for our show – and to no avail.

The night before we flew out, they rescheduled the show at the Wiltern, and much to my dismay, the rescheduled date would fall the day after we’d left LA. We were crushed.

They say that where there is a will, there is a way – but willpower didn’t get us far enough. On the front page of the NIN site, Rez said they’d honor refunds for the fans who were unable to switch things around. The forums on NIN.com were ablaze with notes to and from users, attempting to swap tickets, and trying to find ways to get into shows because they wouldn’t be in town for their rescheduled show. We all waited. We expected them to be to help us out in trying to get to these shows. It didn’t help that MusicToday closed at 3p PST, for the Labor Day holiday weekend.

One might have expected preferential ticketing to those who already had tickets, or the possibility of trading tickets with other NIN fans. The result was much different than expected. Fans like myself were told that there would be no trades, no swaps, nothing but a refund if you replied by a certain time. I was lucky I was able to access mobile email or I might have missed out on my refund. There was no “switching things around” like Rez had mentioned on the site – there was nothing offered to those of us who’d spent a day waiting for tickets, and whose plans had been shattered by Trent Reznor’s illness. There were fans who’d flown over from the UK, and while it was apparent those fans had the ability to make other plans, they’d still flown to the US to be sent home empty-handed.  Many fans had a life to get back to, that wouldn’t allow the necessary flexibility to try to catch a rescheduled show.  The Music Today employee who handled my refund was entirely unsympathetic to the circumstances.

The refund process was fairly disconcerting as the entire refund was handled via email. I don’t have a smartphone, and I’m lucky to be able to access my email through my phone since I had to respond to the refund email by 9p the night we flew in. If I hadn’t been able to access my email, I may have never seen my refund for the $130.00 it cost to buy those tickets in the first place.

We had no luck at the venue… everything was “sold out”.  We could have gone through scalpers but at what cost?  NIN’s ticketing policy is directly aimed to stop scalping on tickets.  Still, the system doesn’t always work the way it should – especially in cases like this, where the bids for the last round of shows is so high.

Mister stopped me at going down to the Henry Fonda, on Tuesday, to try to get tickets at the venue.  “Honey,” He said, “Let it go.  There’s nothing you can do.”  He could see that I WOULD stand outside the theater from 5 to 9, trying to find tickets, and I think he didn’t want to see the agony of not being able to find tickets for both of us.

I couldn’t take the rental car down, because I wasn’t on the rental agreement… I had called to find tickets and there was nothing available.  I couldn’t log into the NIN site through my phone to read the 13 messages I had offering tickets for the show.  I think, that day I lost a little faith in the music industry to really cater to fans.    Music is less about the people who love the music, and more about the money to be made on reselling my tickets to the last NIN show. Some may say I’m bitter about losing my seat – which is partly true; but more importantly, I understand that those people throwing a show don’t care about me, as a fan.  They care about getting heads in the door.

ps – Dear Trent Reznor – No hard feelings, but your ticketing situation sucks.  Get well soon!