We were both feeling rather flat, so the workout was taking a little longer than normal. Not a big deal, really, but I'm one of those who prefers to be there to watch warm ups for a sporting event, and when it is a concert, I also like to see the opening act. In this case, Muse was to start playing at 7pm, which meant we needed to be rolling at 530 to make sure we got there in time. So we were already a little behind.
We rolled out at 545. Not awful at all. We were even blessed by the traffic God in that we didn't have to sit in much Metromess traffic for our first trip to the new Cowboy Stadium.
We'd reserved a parking spot that was outside of the stadium lots (this turned out to be a blessing), so we had a pretty good 1.5 mile walk to get to the stadium. After a few blocks, we realized an easy 1.5 mile walk is a lot easier, probably, if we didn't just do a workout before.
As big as the stadium is, we didn't see it because of other buildings until we were right up on the parking lot, which is massive. Kinda unnerving to be walking somewhere new and not see something like a stadium, but with all the traffic and people, we figured we were going the right way. It was about 645 when we first set foot on the Cowboy Stadium parking lot, and the cars going in weren't moving. By 7:00we were looking for an entrance into the concert,
We walked up to the first one to have our tickets scanned. The scanner made a different noise than it did for other tickets, and we were told to go to another entrance. No big deal.
We walked around the stadium and found another entrance with many, many more people. We waited in that line, got to the ticket scanner thing, and then the same not-the-same scanner sound was made. We were told to go to "entrance C", and I was shown on our tickets how I should have known this from the get go.
So we completed our near lap of the stadium and found entrance C, which was close to entrance D, which is where we initially tried to go in. We now know what the stadium looks like from all sides on the outside.
We got through the line to the scanner at entrance C quickly. We got the same "not good" scanner sound. Scanner guy told us we needed to go to the box office. The box office wasn't too far away, thank goodness. I reckon it was about 745 at this point.
We get to the box office, and there are about 15 windows there, most having to do with Will Call and Purchasing. Those were the biggest lines. Two lines were dedicated to "Ticket Resolution". They weren't very long lines at all. Just a few people.
We stood in that line.
When we were next up in line, I looked at the email I was given by Chloe that told us what to do in case there was a problem.
Now, I was sort of prepared that there would be a problem, so I wasn't really all that frustrated. See, Chloe bought the tickets from our friend Mary. She bought the tickets from some outfit called Stub Hub, who offered the tickets from some other seller. So, I was pretty far down the chain from original purchase. Call it pessimism or call it realism, but I expected at some point that I'd have to explain how I came into the tickets, and I was mentally prepared for this.
So, I was reading the email, and in it the thing clearly read that we DO NOT go to the box office for ticket resolution. An entire paragraph was there to explain that the venue can't help us because we didn't buy our tickets there. It gave us a number for Stub Hub to call if any problems arose. My thinking at the time was that it was a customer service thing, and with all of the expensive charges Stub Hub tacked on to things, that it meant I basically had an ally to get us into the concert.
I was on the phone saying "yes" and "no" to automated questions. I was on the phone pressing "1" for this and "2" for that. I was on the phone on hold waiting for a customer representative. I was on the phone long enough that my phone was hot to the touch, and I'd yet to speak to an actual person.
Meanwhile, I stepped out of line to deal with the call, as the email had instructed me to call them and not talk to the box office people. To do something, anything, Noah stood in line, and as he'd make his way to the front, he'd then go to the end of the line because I didn't know what to tell him at that point. he was basically just saving us a place in line, just in case.
After 40-45 minutes of holding, I talked to a customer service guy, who asked me all kinds of verification questions involving customer numbers, order numbers, Mary's zip code, her email address...and I scored a 100% on that test. He then gave me silence for 20s and told me he needed to send me "up" to a manager. OK...
...Another 10 minutes or so, and then I was talking to a manager. He apologized 17 times, told me Stub Hub really is swell, and that...well...that there wasn't jack shit he could do for us. He assured me that someone from Stub Hub would get back to me within 72 hours and file an Investigation Report. Yea!
There was some silence on the phone as he waited for me to do or say something, I guess, and I was silent while waiting for him to tell me where to go get my actual tickets to get into the concert. U2 was to start playing at any moment.
While messing with this damn phone call for an hour, I saw 10 or 12 groups of people go through Ticket Resolution. This was probably 70 or so people, all told. It would be a group of 12, then a couple, then a family, and so on. Only one couple actually walked away from that window and took valid tickets into the show. Everyone else went away in a pissed off cloud of swearing.
That's what I watched while on the phone for an hour.
So when the realization hit that Stub Hub wasn't getting us into the concert, I gave Chloe a call. Her first reaction was disbelief, of course, and then she wanted to call Mary, who I believe is in Poland at the moment, which is why we were able to get tickets in the first place.
Chloe told us to get tickets from a scalper, because she wanted us to get in that concert. Since I only had about $100, we weren't going to be able to get one ticket, much less a pair of tickets, but I appreciated the thought.
Since Noah and I still hadn't eaten, he said, "Let's just go get dinner." And I was thinking, "Yeah, but I'm willing to buy a $10 hamburger INSIDE."
If we'd have paid the $40 or $50 to park at the stadium, we'd have just walked to the car and left at that point. But since we had a hike, I figured I'd just go up to the Ticket Resolution window anyway. The Stub Hub guy told me not to do so, because if the tickets were invalid, the box office would keep them, and he wanted me to hold on to them. Whatever. I figured if we were already out the $400 in tickets, he could just use a receipt or something, because I really didn't want to look at the worthless tickets anymore.
We walked right up to the window (nobody in line at that point), I said, "evidently our tickets are invalid, but I figure you can tell me what they've told me at the entrance points so far".
The woman at the window scanned the tickets, the scanner made the same wrong scanner sound as before, and she looked at the scanner to read the code. She then got up, went to get a manager (I suppose he was a manager), and the two huddled over the scanner for a bit.
He punched something into the computer, she got on the phone. And we stood there. Just stood there. They weren't telling us anything, and I stood there pretty drained. Just waiting for them to tell me the same thing they told 70 other people over the last hour.
She moved close to the window to talk to me. I moved closer to talk to her. She explained to me that the tickets we had were sold before the stadium was finished being built, and the seats on our tickets don't actually exist.
While I was already beat down by the whole thing, I thought being flattened, finally, was appropriate enough.
Then she handed us new tickets. Evidently, just because we bought seats that didn't exist, that didn't mean there was a problem, other than that they'd assigned these tickets new, actual seats.
We ran into the stadium, paid $40 for a burger, sandwich, water and a beer. Ate it on the run, basically, and sat down just a couple minutes before U2 came out.
Our seats.
Sunday Bloody Sunday.
It took probably half of the concert to really settle in and relax, but I got to see U2, and I got to see them with Noah. It was absolutely worth it all.
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