trent is shutting down the spiral fan club and incorporating alot of what was offered with membership in nin.com for free. that’s all fine and good…sorta. he said there will still be presales, but for anyone who signs up at nin.com. which could mean 10837 scalpers buying up all the tickets. not good. plus it seems there will no longer be early entry and a separate line. which sucks BIG TIME. i adored the early entry privilege. presales and early entry are the sole reason i was a spiral member. god knows i had no use for the message board, and i could care less if i got a “free gift” every year.
cassie suggested the reason for eliminating the spiral could have been that it was at least partially paid for by interscope and now trent “can’t afford it”…which is possible. clearly the web component is what costs money (but the arguably, moving those features to a free nin.com means he’s still paying for it), and i’d gladly continue to pay a yearly membership fee for a “fan club” without the web component, as long as it offered the presales – to members ONLY. i’d even give up the early entry, for restricted presales. i know i would never have gotten to see 38 shows without the spiral presales, as i’d never have gotten tickets to shows that all went on sale the same day – and with the fall 05 leg, almost all the shows we went to went on sale at the same time.
i know other bands – smaller bands – like stone sour have internet presales for their free “fan clubs”, i’ve taken advantage of them…but they clearly don’t have as much draw for scalpers as a band of nin’s size. and the stone sour presales were run by the same company as the spiral, music today, which makes me wonder if they’ll continue to do the nin presales on nin.com…and i’m sure music today doesn’t do this for free…
this has the makings for a u2.com ticket sale debacle. only now trent doesn’t have the resources (ie interscope) to back him up and fix it like u2 did. we shall see. hope it all goes well cuz i have 7 more shows to buy 🙂
*edit* as found on the spiral, someone asked Rob
I don’t know all the details of the presale process yet – they are
still working on that – but the goal remains the same as always: To
keep the good tickets available to fans, and out of the hands of
brokers. The process will be very similar to how it was on The
Spiral, where tickets have your name printed on them, and matching ID
will be required when you pick up your tickets and enter the venue.
I’m sure a lot more info will be coming soon, but we’re doing
everything in our power to keep the best seats in the hands of the fans.
-Rob