Yesterday really put my patience to the test (not that I have a lot of that to begin with…). 
 

Ozzy & Friends in Dortmund, Germany. Steel Panther opening. Perfect gig. 
Except for having to stay awake through an entire Black Label Society dead boring gig, but that’s the deal, what can you do……

I hadn’t decided whether or not I was gonna go, until an online friend asked me about my plans. She wanted to go and figured we could share room and go to the gig if I decided on Dortmund. Sounded cool to have company for a change and meet a new fellow music fan, so it didn’t take a lot of persuading to get me to decide. I was going!

So, after working out our plans on the phone, I went straight to Westfalenhallen’s own website, as they were the only ones selling tickets at face value.

I spent TWO (yes 2, two, zwei, två, deux, dos, due) freaking hours, trying to buy an Ozzy ticket!

The Van Halen ticket-hell that I went through a few months ago was a walk in the park compared to this. 

So, this is what you’ll have to deal with, if you ever feel like ordering tickets from Westfalenhallen’s website:

The website is not available in any other language than German. Great.

There is a link that says Tickets. When you click on that, you get three other links that sound similar, and if you don’t speak German very well, it’s pretty hard to understand the difference between the link “Tickets“, “Ticket-Store” and “Ticketing Westfalenhallen“…….. So, I clicked on the first one. Took me to some sort of search-page. Typed “Ozzy“. Got one result – just some sort of info-page about the artist in German.

The page didn’t include a link to any tickets. It just said that you could purchase tickets by clicking the link/button “Ticketinfos“. Just my luck that neither the link or the button was on the page yesterday. :-( (they had fixed that the next day, no wonder I was going nuts for not finding it!

I was searching everywhere on the page and it took me an HOUR only to find some kind of ticket-store on that page!

I FINALLY tried clicking on any other artist on the page and it opened some outdated, old Java-applet that looked like it was left from 1987 or something…. After clicking my way through THAT I finally got to the last stage where I could buy the tickets (HALLELUJAH!!). Right.

First I had to REGISTER as a new customer. Fair enough. Then it wouldn’t accept the password – so I kept requesting new ones. I ended up with a mailbox that had no less than SEVEN new passwords! 

NONE of them worked! (black smoke coming out of my ears at this point…)

I started over, registered again, used another mail address, realized that you couldn’t print the ticket and it cost 15 euros to get them to send the tix outside of Germany, so… *sigh*  I had to go back and change my customer info and use Nadine’s address instead.

And after TWOOOOOOOOOOOO HOURS I had the effing ticket!! I was ready to throw the PC out the window, one of the most frustrating online ticket-purchaces I’ve ever experienced!

But now it’s finally done. Trip booked, hotel booked, concert ticket taken care of, so the show better not suck. :-) Not after the ordeal I had to go through to GET the ticket!

Somebody asked me why I didn’t just request a press ticket. Because – as good as it is with freebies, they never send you those tix in advance. And the list gets there in the last minute, usually. So, you are always risking ending up way in the back because you have to WAIT for it.
I don’t have the patience for that. I want my ticket at hand when I get in line.

I’m still into the music and the gigs – I’m not and I never will be, the bored journalist who’s standing way in the back with a glass of wine talking to colleagues or just checking out the show from the soundboard looking slightly blasé.

I want the experience, the sweat and being part of a jumping, wild crowd – the actualADRENALINE. That’s what I live for. So, no freebies for me if it’s a band I really like (unless of course, it’s a laminate that will grant me access to anything or I’ve seen the band lots of times already and need to just write a review). :-)

A month from now. June will be a kickass-month! So looking forward to it.

[From one of last year’s OZZY-shows. This one is from Ergo Arena in Poland. I was sick as a dog, 39 degrees C fever, had spent all day in bed at the hotel trying to recover. Yet I forgot all about it at the show – it kicked ass!]