For George Strait fans in Funkytown, 10 a.m. Friday was supposed to be the moment of truth – when tickets for the King of Country’s first Forth Worth show in 37 years went on sale.
A lucky few would allegedly get tickets to see the King of Country at the new Dickies Arena for $19.82 apiece, and the rest would pay up to $250.
But it wasn’t so.
As it often goes down with high-profile concerts, the “regular” priced tickets sold out faster than you can say “Amarillo by Morning.”
Prospective attendees were met with a virtual waiting line that warned of “extended wait times.” A curious mind on the WFAA web team sat through a roughly 20-minute wait, while some angry fans reported wait times lasting an hour or more.
Once fans made it through Ticketmaster’s online queue, they were hit with a sobering reality: “Verified resale tickets” were at least double the prices advertised when the concert was announced.
The cheapest we saw around 11 a.m. – one hour after they went on sale – was $452 for an upper-level seat. Floor seats were listed for prices in excess of $5,000.
“Only the fans with deep pockets can afford to see him,” one upset Twitter user wrote Friday morning.
Others expressed frustrations with virtual lines more than 2,000 strong that led only to tickets price-gouged by scalpers for the highly-anticipated show.
The ticket fiasco had some calling for a second show.
The “verified resale ticket” façade is certainly one thing. But the sellout shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to fans.
We’ve seen A-listers sell out venues in a matter of minutes many times before, and Strait himself sold out the 100,000-seat AT&T Stadium in a matter of hours back in December of 2013, six months before his June 7, 2014 concert.
Dickies Arena is expected to have a capacity of just 14,000.
“I think there's hundreds of thousands of people that would love to see George Strait,” said Dickies Arena president and general manager Matt Homan. “Unfortunately, like I said, there's only 14,000 seats for this concert.”
Homan said 2,000 of those tickets sold in pre-sale, and the rest sold out Friday in 30 minutes. He said the secondary market for tickets is not in the arena’s control. They did however limit purchases to six tickets a person.
“We surely wish we could accommodate everyone to see George Strait but he's such a Texas legend, we knew the demand would be very high for this event,” Homan said.
For anyone interested in going stag to see the King, Stubhub had a few single tickets for less than $300 early Friday afternoon.