I did offer a solution: first come, first served, just like in every other arena of life, unless U2 sanctions some other system. And here's another solution: everyone stop being obsessed about the physical distance between you and the band. U2 shows are amazing even if no Bono sweat splashes on you.
I'm not accusing anyone of not PUTTING IN TIME. It seems you're arguing something that has little to do with my point. I'm sorry to have offended you. And I apologize for using the term "asshole". Just trying to put myself in the shoes of the original poster; I don't really care if it's the same hundred people who set themselves up in the front row every night. Carry on doing what you do; it seems to be working out well for you.
To: u2tour@yahoogroups.com
From: discreet.music@gmail.com
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2011 23:48:11 +0000
Subject: [u2tour] Re: GA procedure, my experience in Pittsburgh
Nope, I'm actually literate, thanks.
Perhaps you should re-read the sentences you chose to quote. The part about there being twenty people there already, for example. [You are also implying that everything that happened in Pittsburgh (a lot of which was venue incompetence) is a reflection of the line system in general which isn't the case.]
You say:
//I'm a little confused nowadays about where these people organize their secret exclusive society. I imagine at least a handful of them are reading all these posts and snickering to themselves. How about coming out of the woodwork, assholes? Explain what gives you the right to sleep in and then butt in line after the real fans show up before dawn for the only show of the tour they can afford to go to and get shuttled back because they aren't hip to your made-up rules? //
But the people that the OP says were there were the people *organizing* the line. In other words the people you are calling assholes, the people you are saying were sleeping in were the people who were already there giving the original poster her number in the first place.
Further, the secret thing is laughable. You can't say both that this is some secret exclusive society and complain that there are *hundreds* of people before you. Obviously, if it's a secret it's a pretty well-publicized one. As I said in an earlier post, I flew straight to Pittsburgh from Minneapolis. I was there at 10AM Sunday and at the line by 11AM. I stayed for several hours helping with the line and swapping stories from Nashville and Minneapolis and Chicago and wherever else people had been. People had slept out the night before. People were staying in shifts all day to make sure there was someplace to check in. While you may question the sanity of staying that long in line (and I have said multiple times in previous posts that I think the lines are starting way too early (a combination of venue restrictions and traveling fans and the space between dates for a stadium show, I'm afraid) you can't argue that people weren't putting time in. In any case, by the time I was in Pittsburgh the line location was posted on Facebook, it was on Twitter under the same convention that was used for *every other city* on the tour, information was posted on Interference and @U2 and everywhere else. GA line information has been discussed on this very list with every single stop on this leg. The procedure has been basically the same for all shows. You can claim all you like that this is all done by some secret horde of villainous fans, but the information was there all along.
And, I should add, the information from the fans was much more forthcoming than that from the venue, as anyone who received the 'GA Line by 4PM' notices from Heinz Field knows. I talked to security on Sunday (when they came over to let us know they were cool with us having a line and hanging out so long as we didn't wander into restricted areas) and asked point blank when we'd be allowed to meet on showday. His response, "Whenever you want." I asked where. He said wherever. He had no firm answer.
The fact that we eventually got a firm answer (U2 Dave would take the GA line onto the property at 6AM on Tuesday morning) is entirely due to the people at the front of the line being diligent in talking to security and U2 staff and making sure everything got sorted out. There was some confusion due to venue incompetence, but the fact that there was any sort of order at all was due to the fans you are hanging out to dry. [Incidentally, after having people who had never run the line before doing it in MSP, I'll take the experienced line veterans any day.]
Lest you think I've never been on the other side of this, I should mention that on the first American leg I went directly from the airport to the line. I got in at 1AM the day of the show and spent the next four hours with another bunch of U2 fans intrepidly avoiding security (who were trying very hard to have us kicked off). I ran into the same situation as the original poster describes in that when a line finally started forming I found a list had already been started. However we all reached a decent compromise and it was fine in the end.
So yeah, complain all you like about how things have started too early. But it's unfair for you to -a- insinuate that people running the lines aren't putting in their fair share of time and -b- insinuate (or flat out state) that these people are bullies or assholes or whatever else. I'm not saying everything's a pile of roses - there are always going to be mishaps and incidents where things aren't quite fair - but you're painting very dark colours in very broad brushstrokes here.
And let's face it, none of you have yet offered a better alternative to the current system.
--- In u2tour@yahoogroups.com, cal roach <cal@...> wrote:
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> Perhaps you missed the first couple sentences in the original post:
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> "We got there at 4am, ready to stay until the show. There were about
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> > 20 people there, so we thought we were in good shape. The list holder gets
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> This is the BS I'm talking about. I personally don't care; I don't need to be on the rail or in the circle or whatever your goal is. The point is, "calling" a place in line before there's a line isn't fair to the people who didn't know there was a list or a process. I don't understand how you can NOT understand this. These people aren't necessarily any less of a fan than you just because you gang up on everybody with a bunch of other fans determined to make things good for yourselves without any official policy.
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> First come, first served is the policy for virtually every other band on the planet, and that's how it should be, period. Yeah, there will be problems, but they won't be problems created by a special group of supposed uber-fans who've put themselves in charge of the rest of us. Like I said, it was probably started with the best of intentions, but it's clearly a failure of a system for everybody except the select few who know about it. Get it? The people who "put in their time" are only doing so for their own benefit, so don't give me that crap. They should have to deal with the venue policy and suck it up just like the rest of us plebes, and maybe, horror of horrors, not get front row sometimes.
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> To: u2tour@yahoogroups.com
> From: discreet.music@...
> Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2011 21:25:22 +0000
> Subject: [u2tour] Re: GA procedure, my experience in Pittsburgh
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> Dude, none of these assholes as you call them are sleeping in on the day of show. Roll-calls I went to were at 4.30am or 5am. The people running the line were there before that *on top of* having slept out for multiple nights or taking long shifts to organize things. No matter how you look at it, they've put their time in. They've certainly put in more time than any of the people complaining on this list. Which is why I don't understand all of the bitterness.
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> --- In u2tour@yahoogroups.com, cal roach <cal@> wrote:
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> > I could go on and on about this; it's hard to know where to start. I remember there being different bullshit systems on the ELEVATION tour, and personally, I didn't really care; I got there early, took my ace of spades or whatever with a number on it and either got into the heart or right outside on the ramp (which was just as cool if not better). I'm not obsessive about needing to be right on top of 'em. But back then I wasn't really aware of any major fan organizations on the internet; I just went to u2tours to look at setlists. The list-makers told us they were a fan-organized thing to self-police the line and I swallowed that whole. They seemed nice enough; I never felt bullied.
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> > The VERTIGO system was definitely the best. No idea why they went away from that. Landed in the bomb shelter once and, well, that was unforgettable.
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> > I'm a little confused nowadays about where these people organize their secret exclusive society. I imagine at least a handful of them are reading all these posts and snickering to themselves. How about coming out of the woodwork, assholes? Explain what gives you the right to sleep in and then butt in line after the real fans show up before dawn for the only show of the tour they can afford to go to and get shuttled back because they aren't hip to your made-up rules? Can I coax out some self-righteous justification about how devoted you are and how you've EARNED your place in line, even though you've surely read (if you're such a big fan) about how it disgusts the members of the band?
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> > We've got a few years to ponder this issue and see if we can come up with a solution for the next tour. It's just a case of people taking power and that power corrupting a system that might even have been well-intentioned to begin with. The rest of us now have the right to revolt, right? Organize a massive group for the first date of the next tour to head to the venue at 4 a.m. and tell the list-maker to shove it up his or her ass. Or perhaps the band will come up with a better solution. Let's hope.
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> > --Cal
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> > p.s. sorry for the bitter tone; I'm still in major U2 withdrawal after Minneapolis, and thanks again SO MUCH to Khelia for hooking me up with a ticket!!
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> > To: u2tour@yahoogroups.com
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> > From: theu2edge@
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> > Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2011 09:51:41 -0700
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> > Subject: Re: [u2tour] GA procedure, my experience in Pittsburgh
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> > Exactly! The whole point of GA is first come, first serve. If you are there the day of show and 20th in line then you are 20th in line. Not 250th like you said waiting for these people to show up. These line nazi's really ruin it for people. Most venues will say they have nothing to do with the list and its not honored, so really you can just line up wherever. But of course these nazi's will indeed bully you until you move. I dare these jokers go to any other show and try to pull that list crap, say at a Metallica show or something. People would laugh them off the property. Enough with the list and numbers. Get there when you get there that's all.
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> > ----- Original Message -----
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> > From: Darren Dempsey
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> > To: u2tour@yahoogroups.com
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> > Sent: Friday, July 29, 2011 8:54 AM
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> > Subject: Re: [u2tour] GA procedure, my experience in Pittsburgh
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> > Find the BS list and rip it up..they have ZERO authority to do this!
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> > On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 8:02 PM, blessedpoverty
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> > > OK, the Pittsburgh show was AWESOME. But the GA line "system" was a major
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> > > downer. We got there at 4am, ready to stay until the show. There were about
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> > > our names down and it turns out I'm number 250-something! So where are the
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> > > other 230 people ahead of me?! In bed, at breakfast, anywhere but waiting in
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> > > Where do you get the secret information to "check in" on the list and then
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> > > take off? Of course, there's nothing to do about it. No offense to anyone
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> > > who actually waited in person, and I would have been happy to be in the 200s
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