[Rick Lee]

Van Halen tix went on sale for the Phoenix show in June the other day. Craigslist is already full of ads for the tix from the ticket brokers for many times face value. I don't know how they get all those tix, but I'll never pay any of them for it. I've almost always bought tix the day of the show, sometimes on Ticketmaster's site, sometimes at the box office and usually in the parking lot. I've rarely paid over face value in the parking lot and rarely been more than 12 rows back from the stage. How do these ticket brokers find people willing to pay $500 per ticket when face value is $118?

Last June I bought Rush tix on Ticketmaster's site the day of the show. Took me about 14 tries before some good tix came up, but they did and I got 12th row on the floor for face value. I met up with a buddy there who was seven rows in front of us and paid a broker $500 each for his three tix. Last VH tour I showed up at the venue in Philly, tailgated a while, walked up to the box office and got four tix in the 7th row, front and center for face value, show was just about sold out. I hate those ticket brokers, but I don't have a lot of reason to hate them based on my own experience.