'What fresh new hell is this?'

An attempt to unravel the Pearl Jam ticket-buying process.

Are you ready?

Are you fucking ready?

To pull off this near-impossible sleight-of-hand magic trick, you’re going to need to be alert and caffeinated, like Ethan Hunt cutting the red wire to defuse a bomb.

You need to be nimble, poised and focused, like Erling Haaland sweeping one of those giant legs back ready to strike another goal home for Manchester City.

Your fast-twitch fibres need to peak at just the right time, like an e-sports champ murdering marauders in a big screen Call of Duty playoff.

To score tickets to Pearl Jam’s upcoming November 8 show at Go Media Stadium, you’re going to need all of those things, and two more: a hefty dose of planning, and a whole lotta luck.

This couldn’t be any easier.

Here’s how you need to go about it.

The first thing you need to do is register for “a chance” to buy tickets.

This incredibly fortunate opportunity would have arrived in your inbox via an email from Live Nation earlier this week.

That’s right: You need to register your interest in attending a Pearl Jam show by Sunday, 11.59pm at the latest.

Pay attention: you have two more days to get this done.

Once you’ve done that, you need to wait.

On the evening of Thursday, February 22, you need to be sitting at your laptop, poised ready and waiting to receive another email.

This one will come from Ticketmaster and it will tell you whether or not you’ve been successful in the Great 2024 Pearl Jam Ticket Buying Lottery.

You’ll either receive a unique code that gives you “access” to the ticket-buying process.

Or you won’t receive a code, and you’ll be placed on a waitlist.

If you do receive a code/golden ticket, lucky you!

The following day, at midday, you can log into Ticketmaster and, along with an estimated 45,000 other people, attempt to crack the Ticketmaster code and actually purchase Pearl Jam tickets.

You will encounter wait rooms, countdowns and timers.

You will see codes and boxes and numbers that will make you think you’re there to solve a quantum physics equation.

You will need to fight your way to the front.

It will be overwhelming. It will be stressful.

(I’m guessing it will resemble my hideous SZA ticket-buying experience.)

But at the end of all of that, you may end up with a couple of Pearl Jam tickets in your hand.

Congratulations!

No code?

Sucks to be you.

If you haven’t taken notes, here’s an easy cut-out-and-keep guide to help you remember the very simple process involved in scoring a Pearl Jam ticket in 2024.

If bad language offends you, you may want to avert your eyes for the next wee while.

Because, honestly, fuck all of this.

None of this feels good, or right, or proper, or normal.

None of this makes it feel fun to be a Pearl Jam fan.

It’s the same bullshit that caused an outcry in the US when Taylor Swift tickets went on sale, a process so awful a Senate Judiciary hearing is underway.

(Tay-Tay uses Ticketek now.)

When I tried to unpack this on Twitter recently, I got two very good replies.

The problem is, of course, a monopoly.

Live Nation owns Ticketmaster.

It also owns many venues, including Spark Arena and The Tuning Fork.

It swoops in and signs up bands and artists up for massive world tours, then pushes them through a pipeline that it owns almost every section of.

With demand for concerts and events showing no sign of slowing down in this hectic post-Covid landscape, Live Nation holds all of the cards, and they are cashing in.

The only way for fans to express their disappointment would be to stop buying their tickets. But no one’s going to do that – especially when it comes to a band like Pearl Jam, who haven’t played here since that final Big Day Out in 2014 and are riding a wave of 90s nostalgia that shows no sign of slowing down.

Live Nation and Pearl Jam say this is about stopping bots and scalpers.

But this isn’t going to stop bots and scalpers.

It didn’t work in the US for Taylor Swift tickets sold the same way.

And it’s not going to work now.

Instead, it might be about something else entirely.

I had a brief chat to Ekant Veer, the University of Canterbury’s professor of marketing, and he agrees that email lists and waiting rooms help “gamify” the ticket-buying process.

“Sometimes, it’s truly about scarcity,” he says. “But recreating this in a false way gets people hyped. It turns the process of waiting into a game that you get to be part of and the poor service you’re receiving feels like it’s all part of the experience and hype.”

Getting chosen to take part in a Pearl Jam ticket lottery, then making your way through a series of check points and digital queues, can elicit an emotional response that influences purchasing decisions, Veer says.

If they sound similar to the tricks a casino uses, that’s because they are. “Bright lights and sounds and statements like, ‘Play now’ … all add to the allure,” he says.

Remember: we’re paying more than ever for concert tickets, and according to reports, Pearl Jam prices are right up there. I’ve seen overseas reports of Ten Club members paying $350 and upwards for pre-sale tickets to the band’s Dark Matter world tour, the same one we’re getting in November.

Did I register to take part in this debacle?

Of course I did.

I didn’t like it, and I’m not going to enjoy it.

The whole process makes me feel like I’m spiralling head-first into something dense and bleak, perhaps a vortex, or a black hole.

If only someone had written a song that helps sum this feeling up.

Oh.

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NB: NZ Herald may have accidentally confirmed a second Pearl Jam show for November 10, so you may want to skip all this horseshit and wait for tickets to go on sale for that instead.

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