Bought a front row ticket to a Washington DC show. I got a call from Ticketmaster saying that the promoter has changed the stage setup and according to the promoter, there will be no Rows A, B and C for this concert....so they were going to re-assign the seat. They gave me Row D seat 102 which is dead center on the aisle. I still wanted clarification and Ticketmaster couldn't answer this. I asked if ALL the seats in Row A, B and C were taken out or was it just in the area that I had before. If ALL the Row A, B, and C seats all the way across were taken out, then l'd be first row dead center. I've tried calling the venue itself and they don't know. They referred me back to Ticketmaster.


I'm thinking maybe the all acess VIP packages usurped my seat as they went on sale after Ticketmaster did, promising good seats.
Not sure what to make of this, I knew getting this ticket was too good to be true. I'd still be happy with 4th row, but this isn't helping my already love hate relationship with ticketmaster.

Has this happened to anyone else?

I can't see how they managed to communicate with each other correctly in the first place so yes they probably buggered it all up. Bet there could be a few problems on the night with tickets at this rate.

That is pretty surprising... have you ever been to this venue? Anything quirky about the ususl stage setup? I was thinking perhaps the band wanted to make it extend out farther or something. But that is not possible at all the venues they're playing, so I doubt it. Or, maybe this is the only one they wanted to change.

OR like you said it's some VIP bullshit.

Uh. I think the seats are bolted to the floor at DAR. I can't really imagine them extending the stage or anything.

If this is VIP shit, ugh.

I'm in row G, didn't get any calls... So am I in the 4th row now? This is odd...

I've seen the pumpkins play at this venue back in 98, and had my graduation there in 04. The seats are bolted to the floor...but I'm thinking couldn't they just 'unbolt' if need be. For example, what do they do when they need to replace a broken seat, my guess is 'unbolt' it somehow. But the more I'm thinking about this reassignment, the more it makes my blood boil, especially if my seat really did get usurped from the all access VIP b.s. I should be happy I'm getting to see them so close in the first place, but there's something upsetting about having your front row seat taken away, just so the promoter can make a few $$.

They are not unbolting seats from the floors. DAR is a historic landmark building, you don't move seats for the Smashing Pumpkins.

lol everybody just got owned

Sounds good for me :P I paid $107 dollars for a 4* seat on the 11th just to get in the first 20 rows. Maybe they're only expecting to sell enough of the VIP packages to cover the first 3 rows. I'd have been happy with row U if that's all they had but, row C sounds good too :)

Well, Ticketmaster is still sending me the original ROW A ticket, along with the Row D ticket. I could just get the ROW D ticket scanned at the door, and present the row A ticket from my pocket to the usher. I'm sure the ROW A ticket would later get scanned if it did end up being someone elses seat, but it may just work. I realize I have no right to get mad at the the person who may have gotten my front row seat, but i've just been mulling over this for some time...and feel like I gotta put up a lil fight. Still looking forward to the show.

If they screwed over fans just to fulfill the VIP rows, that's such bullshit.

If they screwed over fans just to fulfill the VIP rows, that's such bullshit.

Yeah. They probably should have just held out on selling the first 10 - 20 rows until they seen what the demand for VIP tickets was going to be.

I called the venue back today and got a better answer and good news, at least for my sake. The stage IS, in fact, getting extended. Thus, all of rows A,B,C are eliminated. This makes my replacement Row D ticket, indeed a front row seat. My blood pressure has returned to normal range.

What happens to the people that originally had row D tickets? Are they going to move every single person back?

Very strange.

What happens to the people that originally had row D tickets? Are they going to move every single person back?

Very strange.

Obviously nothing in Row D was sold to begin with. Looks like they reserved D-F for VIP, then decided to move row A-C to D-F and put the VIP in the front three rows.