How to Buy Concert Tickets for a Somewhat Popular Band in 60 Simple Steps
- Discover an underrated band and become an avid fan.
- Join the band’s email list and Spotify channel, follow them on all the socials and build a small shrine to them in your bedroom.
- Revel in the fact that only a few of your friends have heard of them.
- When the band announces that they’re going on tour, get very excited.
- Since they are not that famous, feel confident that you’ll be able to score great seats because they’ll have a fan presale for their real fans, even the ones who don’t have a shrine.
- Wait for them to email you the presale code.
- Panic the night before because you still haven’t received the presale code and frantically search the band’s website, Spotify, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, Threads and Bluesky for any mention of the presale code.
- Join the concert venue’s email list.
- Open a checking account at a new bank that seems to be marginally affiliated with the concert venue.
- Consider making a blood sacrifice.
- Research whether the blood sacrifice needs to be human.
- Think of a few people you wouldn’t mind sacrificing, just in case.
- Refresh your email constantly, hoping the band, Spotify, the venue, or the bank has emailed you a presale code.
- Go to sleep but wake up every ten minutes to write down ideas for a possible presale code based on a deep cut song, the drummer’s hometown, and the lead singer’s goat’s first name.
- Five minutes before the start of the presale, accidentally find the presale code on the band’s Instagram, hidden deep inside a paragraph of many irrelevant words.
- Receive a presale code from Spotify.
- Receive a presale code from the venue.
- Receive a presale code from the bank.
- Receive a reminder from the bank to fund your new checking account.
- Log in to Ticketmaster, armed with all the presale codes.
- Verify your identity with Ticketmaster.
- Change your password with Ticketmaster.
- Update your credit card with Ticketmaster.
- Input the band’s presale code.
- Stare at the screen with a half-loaded circle that tells you to “sit tight” as it searches for tickets.
- Keep staring at the screen.
- Keep staring at the screen.
- Keep staring at the screen.
- Message your boss that you need the morning off.
- When the screen finally loads, get a pop-up message that this sale has “limited availability” and to click “view more sales” to see the remaining tickets.
- Click to view more sales and input Spotify’s presale code.
- Stare at the screen with a half-loaded circle that tells you to “sit tight” as it searches for tickets.
- Keep staring at the screen.
- Keep staring at the screen.
- Keep staring at the screen.
- Hold a seance with a Ouija Board next to the band’s shrine, summon Casey Kasem and ask him if he can pull any strings in music heaven to help you get tickets.
- Ask about the human sacrifice thing again. You were thinking of sacrificing Andy, the loud chewer from work, does Casey think he’d be a good choice?
- Watch the screen finally load the seating chart. Click on the first available seat you see, which is easy, as there are only two available seats.
- Add to cart and feel cautiously excited.
- Get a message that the seat is no longer available.
- Get placed back into the queue.
- Stare at the screen with a half-loaded circle that tells you to “sit tight” as it searches for tickets.
- Transfer some money to your new bank’s checking account.
- While doing that, miss your turn in the queue.
- Stare at the screen with a half-loaded circle that tells you to “sit tight” as it searches for tickets.
- Watch the screen load the seating chart. Click on the only available seat. Add it to your cart.
- It’s in your cart! Thank Casey Kasem.
- Go to payment.
- Get a giant red X message that says “Sorry, you have been blocked. You are unable to access CardinalCommerce.”
- Recall any cardinal sins you might have committed to deserve this. Text Andy to forgive you for thinking about sacrificing him.
- Redact your thank you to Casey Kesem.
- Click on the presale.
- Get a message to “sit tight” and that you are the 30,000th person in the queue.
- Wait in the queue for an hour.
- Get a message that there are no more tickets available.
- Go to StubHub and pay 10x the price for a shitty balcony seat.
- Have a long talk with yourself about being delusional for thinking that your favorite band is under the radar and that Casey Kasem’s spirit could help you. Make a list of all the bills you could’ve paid with the money you spent on the StubHub ticket.
- The next day, check Ticketmaster to confirm that the show really sold out.
- Stare dumbfoundedly at the sudden abundance of seats available at a very reasonable price.
- Get a reminder from your new bank to order checks.
- About the Author
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Viktoria is a Boston-based writer of humor and children’s books. You can find her work in Weekly Humorist, McSweeney’s, Points in Case, The Belladonna, and Robot Butt, or schedule a private reading of select pages of her 3rd-grade diary.
