The Sands is a sellout - all 2250 tickets went in 2 hours.
http://blogs.mcall.com/lehighvalleymusic/2012/02/did-blink-182-or-beach-boys-draw-bigger-line-for-tickets-at-sands-event-center.htmlSands Event Center has second sellout. Is it blink 182 or Beach Boys?
Categories: Music, Music News
Posted by John J. Moser at 02:55:23 PM on February 24, 2012
Beach Boys ticketsWhen tickets went on sale this morning for shows by pop-punkers blink 182 and The Beach Boys 50th anniversary reunion tour at the coming Sands Bethlehem Event Center, a line of 75 people stood outside the door to the center’s box office in the Shoppes at the Sands Mall.
Tom Mainhart was first in line Friday to buy tickets for new Sands Event Center shows.
But the surprise was for whom most of them were waiting. And how quickly the show sold out
About 70 of the 75 people were in line to buy $69.50 to $150 tickets to the May 17 show by The Beach Boys, a band whose five members have an average age of 68, and whose last charting single was 24 years ago.
All the show's 2,250 tickets sold out in two hours, said Jerry Deifer, one of the center's owners.
The give the center the second sellout out of the six shows it has put on sale. Most tickets for country star Alan Jackson's May 19 show sold out in a half hour.
“We've gotten a great response," Deifer said. He said there were good reports of the box office's customer service, and that sales went smoother since buyers experienced slight delays when tickets for the first shows went on sale Feb17. "We’re just fine-tuning the machine here," Deifer said.
People who lined up even though tickets were sold online hope the Sands had held back some better tickets for on-site sales or would start selling them slightly before the 10 a.m. online time. Deifer said that indeed was the case.
Certainly one important reason there were so few blink 182 buyers in line for its $59.50 tickets to its May 20 concert was because the show is general admission standing – no assigned seats – for 3,500 people -- meaning the time the tickets are bought doesn’t determine the place from where you’ll watch.
But clearly the fact that this tour marks The Beach Boys’ 50th anniversary and reunites singer/songwriter Brian Wilson with the band for the first time in 27 years and Al Jardine for the first time in 13 years has generated fan interest.
Deifer said while standing outside the box office that more than 800 tickets were bought in an online pre-sale Thursday.
“This is the hot show,” he said.
That was the sentiment of Tom Mainart, 59, of Jeffersonville, Montgomery County. Mainart, wearing a Beach Boys T-shirt and lei, started waiting at the box office door at 10:30 p.m. Thursday – 11 1/2 hours before it opened – to get the best seats he could for himself and his wife.
He got front row, but off the center he had hoped for. He was told the band had reserved first-row center seats.
“I’m a huge Beach Boys fan from way back – 1964,” he said. He said he’s seen them more than 20 times — as well as solo shows by Brian Wilson and Carl Wilson — and also will see them on this tour in Camden, Atlantic City and Holmdel, N.J. He said he’s waited even longer to get tickets to other shows.
“It’s the music,” he said when asked the reason for his love of the group. “It’s great music.”
He said his favorite song is “God Only Knows” – a sentiment shared by Ellen Cooper of Longswamp Township, who was fourth in line and waited 2 1/2 hours. The difference is that Cooper said she’s a recent convert to the band’s music.
“The Beach Boys were not hip in my circle,” she said of a life of not paying attention to their music. But she said she was struck two years ago by the use of “God Only Knows” as the theme song to the HBO television series “Big Love,” researched The Beach Boys and “I’ve been totally immersed in Brian Wilson’s music since.”
She says it not only prompted her to stand in line for tickets to see Wilson at New York City’s Highland Ballroom in June, but to buy a piano to play his songs. “It reawakened my interest in music,” she said.
There were, indeed, a few blink 182 ticket buyers in line. Deifer said that show also is moving toward a sellout, but tickets still are available.
Kelly Brown, 20, of Bethlehem said she chose to go to the box office to avoid the $14.50-per-ticket surcharges added online to each of the 14 tickets she was buying for family and friends. The wait in line saved her $212.
“I’ve liked them from the beginning,” Brown said of the band. But she said she’s never seen them live.
Becky Rasmuson, 17, and Bobby Storer, 18, both of Bethlehem, said they simply hoped to avoid online hassles. Both got tickets and said they’re excited: It will be Storer’s third blink 182 show and Rasmuson’s first.
Deifer said online sales hiccups and surcharge savings are good reasons to wait in line, but he said he suspects avid concert goers also enjoy the experience of waiting in line for their tickets.
“They get the person-to-person interaction,” he said. “They get a better understanding of the venue they’re going into. And they spend time with people who like the same act as they do.”
The sales mean all of the event center’s six announced shows are available. Other shows are Incubus on May 19, which will open the center; Flogging Molly on May 24 and Paul Anka on May 27.
Deifer said more shows will be announced soon.
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