Daft Punk better damn well play at my house.
Because thanks to the epic fail of the AXS ticket sales site today, I — like half of New York City — didn’t even have a fighting chance to score LCD Soundsystem tickets for their five-show residency that will open the brand spankin’ new Brooklyn Steel concert venue.
After overwhelming demand, @lcdsoundsystem‘s shows at @BkSteelNYC sold out in minutes…(cont’d) #LCDxBKS
— Brooklyn Steel (@BkSteelNYC) March 30, 2017
The 1800-seat East Williamsburg concert space is opening up with five LCD Soundsystem shows on April 6, 7, 8, 10, and 11. They went on sale simultaneously at noon today.
LCD Soundsystem ticket sales started crashing in the “waiting room”
— Michelle Ness (@meeshyamps) March 30, 2017
AEG’s AXS ticket site crashed almost at the stroke of noon, as “bad gateway” and blank screen notices showed up — no matter which night you selected to make a purchase.
I personally had two laptops and my phone set up 15 minutes before the on-sale time to give myself the best possible chance to score the 2-ticket maximum allowed for any of the shows.
The ticket site lets you enter a “waiting room” previous to the on sale time, which sends you into a queue and then provides an alert when your turn became available. And while the alert functioned effectively, the crashed system did not allow me to move forward with the purchasing process.
And to make matters worse, the one time I was able to move forward to the ticket selection page, I had to go through the Google security bot, selecting images such as street signs and mountains. I was not the only one:
@AXS Hi why is it so hard to get tickets. LCD Soundsystem ticketing is fucked. What is this: pic.twitter.com/D0MpsWxMto
— BiffSavage (@BiffSavage) March 30, 2017
LCD Soundsystem’s rabid fan base has played the role of sucker before. Last year, the return of the band was soured by the crash of the Ticketweb site.
The question remains: have ticket sites worked to improve technology to fix these issues?
Irate fans took to social media after many (including yours truly) checked out StubHub, morbidly curious if any tickets had gone on sale there. Tickets are already selling for as high as almost $400, which begs the question as to whether or not scalpers had been given the upper hand by the ticketing agency.
Of course, this behavior by scalpers isn’t anything new, as evidenced by the Kraftwerk performances at the Museum of Modern Art in 2012. Minutes after the ShowClix ticket site crash snafu, a scalper put a ticket on sale for $42,413.
LCD Soundsystem fans have a new album to look forward to in 2017. However, it may be wishful thinking that system crashes and rabid scalpers will be shut down so the music fan can just enjoy being their innocent disco infiltrator.
Your city’s a sucker
Your city’s a sucker
Your city’s a sucker
Your city’s a sucker
Your city’s a sucker
Your city’s a sucker
Your city’s a sucker
My city’s a creep
– James Murphy
new pulp city 
I had no issues. It was a little slow but I was patient and I got my tickets!
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