Buying Wrestling Tickets

I love professional wrestling and I want to see it succeed, the only downfall to that is it makes it so much harder to buy wrestling tickets during those times when wrestling is popular.  We are in one of those times.  Except this boon is like no other boon that we have had before.

With my WrestleMania XXIV, Hall of Fame, and Midday Madness tickets, 2008

Thanks to the Internet and streaming we can consume wrestling from around the world live no matter where we are on many different devises and platforms.  Because of this we have companies from other countries coming and running shows in the United States, something that never would have happened 10 years ago.

New Japan talents has been appearing on joint shows with Ring of Honor for years, however in July 2017 they ran two solos shows in Long Beach, California.  In 2018 they ran six solo shows and now in 2019 almost a dozen.  AAA is running Madison Square Garden this September and in Los Angeles in October, Progress Wrestling from the UK has run tours in 2017 & 2018 and independent companies from around the world pack in the fans during WrestleMania weekend. I myself went to RevPro and NJPW in New York this past April.

All of this makes it very difficult to get the best seats when buying tickets. 

The first time I ever got wrestling tickets was with my Dad when I was nine years old in 1989.  We went to the Ticketron outlet at the back of the Sears and my Dad but us tickets to WWF.  That's how you did it back then at the box officer, by phone, or at an authorized ticket outlet.

My first wrestling ticket stub, this image is two tickets placed together to from one as they tore opposite ends, 1989

My next couple of wrestling shows my friends bought the tickets.  My first experience buy wrestling tickets was driving down to Boston and standing outside overnight for WCW Monday Nitro, you can read all about it here.

My first of many wrestling shows in Boston, WCW Monday Nitro, 1997

It wasn't too long after that when Ticketmaster exploded and online ticket sales became the way to buy tickets for most venues.  This meant to try and get the best tickets standing in line or ordering by phone became a thing of the past as you were competing with everyone that had a computer and the fastest Internet connection. Some venues tried to stagger the on-sale time so the box office could sell tickets for an hour before online sales launched but that didn't last long.  

In fact many venues have multiple pre-sales if you a member of a certain club or credit card.  Also Ticketmaster jacks up the prices of tickets with their platinum seating charging astronomical prices for tickets.  For instance the New Japan show at MSG advertised front row at $290 and yet Ticketmaster made those tickets platinum premium seating charging over $700 each.  I'm not going to even start with secondary ticket sellers.

New Japan at Madison Square Garden, April 6, 2019

The Augusta Civic Center handled their own ticket sales until switching to Ticketmaster in 2004.  Prior to that they had no online ticketing just by phone or at the box office so in April 2003 I stood in line overnight at the Civic Center for tickets for the July 29, 2003 Smackdown Brand house show.  I met my buddy Rood for the first time that night and in the last 16 years we have gone on many wrestling adventures.

I got the last two front row tickets and it was my first time getting front row for WWE.  It was well worth it as at that show Vince McMahon appeared on the Brother Love Show with Zack Gowen and the cared was main evented by Brock Lesnar & Kurt Angle vs. John Cena & Big Show.

Some smaller venues like The Colisee in Lewiston & The Lowell Memorial Auditorium handle their own ticket sales and have online ticketing.  I managed to get front row in Lowell for two ROH PPV's All Star Extravaganza VIII in 2016 & Best in the World in 2017 and front row for War of the Worlds.  Having front row for those PPV's were amazing!  

But no matter if it's Ticketmaster or a smaller venue the same thing always happens to me.  I get all excited because I want to get front row, so I sit down in front of my computer and start hitting the refresh button as the butterflies building in my stomach.  Then when tickets pop up I move as fast as I can and except for a few instances I'm always initially disappointed because I don't get what I want. 

I'll tell my friends and they are always happy and positive about it, but not me, not for a couple hours actually.  I don't know why I put myself through it but I do.  Every time!  For instance when New Japan Pro Wrestling Fighting Spirit went on sale on July 26th at 10am I was up in northern Maine at a campground, we were actually leaving that day.  After getting all pack up I went into the lounge area where I could get on the wi-fi.  The night before I had logged up and checked everything out and it was fine.

Ten am hits and I start to try and buy tickets and it's moving like sludge.  At first I think it's the ticket website because I knew these tickets would be a hot item.  Finally it comes back and it's fifth row in the parquet, not even floor seats.  I search again and it gives me balcony.  So I go to buy the parquet seats and the Internet crashes.  I can't get back on and I have no cell reception for data.  That's it we are not getting tickets.  

We head down the road and notifications on my phone start going crazy so I drive until I see a good place to pull over and I pull up the website and as it's now 25 past ten and I'm know I'm getting nosebleeds, but I want to be there.  So I check the sections because you can pick you seat and there's nothing on the floor.  I then selected four tickets best available and it gave me second row on the floor and I didn't hesitate.  Got super lucky.  New York and Philly sold out in a couple hours, maybe less, and currently there aren't many left for Lowell.

upcoming New Japan in Lowell, 9/27/2019

In the past for indy shows I never bought tickets in advance, just show up at the door and typically you can get front row or general admission isn't bad.  Now with Limitless Wrestling, I get that same pit in the stomach feeling.

For their fourth anniversary show on Sept 6th, VIP and Front sold out in under three minutes and over 250 sold within the first hour.  I was lucky and got a VIP.  Part of me is happy that Limitless is doing so well and packing in the fans, but another part of me wants to not stress about getting tickets.

My least stressful wrestling ticket buying experiences in the last three years are the WWE shows at the Augusta Civic Center because I have no interest in front row, I go to the box office where I can pick out my seats and I buy particular ones in the $25 section and they are a great view.  Also by going to the box office I save all the Ticketmaster fees and just pay the venue's $2 per ticket fee for the twenty five dollar ticket is $27 and not $38 each.

I also want to add that I have an album with every single ticket stub I have ever gotten from any event that I went to that was ticketed, other than the movie theater.  Wrestling, concerts, monster trucks, sporting events and more.  It's really fun to go back and look at them when I add the new ones to it. 

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Until next time!

That Time I Stood in Line Overnight to Buy WCW Nitro Tickets in Boston

This adventure started on Tuesday April 9, 1997 when my buddy Jay called me and said, hey want to go wait in line to get Nitro tickets tonight in Boston?  Then we can go to the Natick Mall and meet Ric Flair!  How can you say no to that?  Well I couldn't but at 17 years old my mother might have another thought about this.

I asked my mom who told me to ask my step-father Irving thinking there is no where he's going to let her baby boy skip school to stand in-line over night in Boston to buy wrestling tickets.  She was wrong, that's what you get for not wanting to be the bad guy.  The next thing she knew Irving was giving me a ride to Jay's house.  I had a job flipping burgers at Burger King so I had my own money, but my mom insisted on giving me some to make sure I had enough, and once we got to Jay's Irving gave me some more so I was set!

This was Jay & I's first big wrestling adventure together, certainly wasn't our last.  We made the 150 mile drive from Maine and got to the FleetCenter, now the TD Garden, about two in the morning on Wednesday April 10th.  There was no one standing outside the box office which was exciting, however by the time we found a parking spot and walked back to the building there were two people in line.

At the time I didn't fully grasp the magnitude of what we were doing but looking back I can see it.  Think about it, yeah I'm a senior in high school, but I'm 17 years old, Jay is only 18 at this time and we just drove down the Boston our first time on our own to stand outside on an early Spring night, in not the best part of town so we can buy wrestling tickets.  Keep in mind, this was before the internet as we know it today, you couldn't go on-line to buy tickets, there was no pre-sale, you had to go to to a licensed Ticketmaster dealer or charge by phone, but the box office went on sale about an hour before other agents.

It was very cold that night in Boston, and we had a great time talking to other wrestling fans.  I've learned a lot about wrestling fans over the last 20 plus years standing in line waiting to get into shows and one thing that remains true is that we are all there for the same thing, wrestling.  We all have our opinions good and bad, and we undoubtedly will never agree about everything, but all agree that we love wrestling.

I can't tell you anything we talked about that night, but I'm sure these are some of the topics included who is going to see Ric Flair after this, this is WCW's first time coming to Boston I bet the show is going to be amazing.  Isn't Ric Flair the man!  Damn it's cold!

Just before it was time for tickets to go one sale the staff at the Fleetcenter put us at different windows, five or six of them.  When it was time for them to go on sale the ticket agent put up the shade blocking the window and we said two tickets for front row, he printed one ticket.  So we said no, two front row.  By the time he selected two tickets we ended up with second row seats. We said, hey we want front row, he checked, they were all gone.  Seriously there are two of us standing at the window, why the hell would he print one friggin ticket!  Not going to lie, that was a bit discouraging, but hey we're going to Monday Nitro!

My actual ticket stub.  I've always saved all my tickets stubs going back to my first WWF show in 1989.

We said goodbye to our new friends, some of who we would sit near at Nitro two months later, and headed the 22 miles to the Natick Mall where "Nature Boy" Ric Flair was scheduled to make an appearance at Filene's department store, I know such an odd location.  We got to the mall and grabbed some lunch and got in line because the line was already starting to fill up.  We managed to get close enough to see the start of the line, but still had like three hours until the signing was going to start.

We took turns exploring the mall first Jay and then myself.  I went to a video store, back when we had them, and searched the wrestling tape section.  For $10 I found a Women's Championship Wrestling VHS that featured Wendi Richter on the cover.  You have to understand I was, and am, a huge Wendi Richter fan and finding this tape was pretty awesome!

I had never seen any of the matches on it before and it featured what they billed as the first ever women's Steel Cage Match with Richter defending the NWF Women's Championship against Heidi Lee Morgan.

I went back in-line with Jay and it had grown huge snaking out of the store and down the hall in the mall.  In Filene's they had televisions suspended in the departments that they use to run commercials on for the items they sold.  Someone working there had a genius idea and popped in a tape of The Great American Bash 1996 to entertain us while we waited in line.

I remember watching this live on PPV when it first aired sitting at Jay's house.  Ironically it was during Ric Flair's match when they announced The Nature Boy had arrived, and he had a surprise guest with him The Giant, now known at The Big Show.

We couldn't get photos with either of them but they were supplying an official WCW 8x10 photo that they signed for us.  I also had Flair sign what is my first ever signed wrestling trading card.  From the 1995 Topps WCW Main Event Cardz set.

I'm not going to lie, I was awestruck being in the presence of The Nature Boy!  I slid the card across the table and I said something about loving it because he has the figure four on Hulk Hogan on it.  He was smiling and said something, I don't remember because it didn't register but he was smiling.  He signed the back because he only had a black sharpie and the front of the card is so dark.  I collected the card, the photo, and shook his hand.

I took a step to the left and was in front of The Giant, as star struck as I was for Flair I was completely opposite about The Giant.  He said, "You want a picture?" I said I guess and took to 8x10 thanking him.  Jay, somehow, completely missed getting an autograph photo of The Giant, he was that star struck.  

It had been a long journey until now, and not being very well thought out in advance we both found ourselves awake for over 30 hours with only a couple hour nap.  We had a long 165 mile drive back to Jay's house and it was daunting.

The adrenaline kept us going for the most part but it started to wear off in Maine and as we neared Portland I dozed off.  I woke up a few minutes later and the first thing I noticed is that we were going exceptionally fast and when I looked over at Jay I couldn't help but notice that he was asleep!  I struck him yelling at him to wake up, and he did in a massive panic.  It was at this time we both noticed the flashing lights from the police cruiser behind us.  The adrenaline had returned in a big way in the form of heart pounding fear!

Jay had gone to college in Alaska for a semester and had just come home a few weeks back and still has his Alaska license, and the vehicle was registered to his mother.  We had been stopped for speed and Jay used the excuse that he wasn't familiar with the roads and he only got a warning.  We were extremely lucky! I don't mean because he got a warning.

That June we went back to Boston for Nitro, but that story will be in another blog post.

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Later Readers!