Tickets for Keith Urban, Jason Aldean, draw long lines
People at the front of the Fair concert ticket line, including the woman who camped out since Friday 7am, did not get the front row seats they expected when the E-tix box office opened on Saturday morning. Others behind them got front row, but the woman at the front got a 9th row seat.
There were lots of unhappy people at the Fairgrounds, and many more emailed or Facebooked their unhappiness to us, saying the E-tix system did not work online (ticket buyers were supposed to go to the State Fair website, not directly to E-tix)
After waiting for 26 hours, Karen Pilat, from Baldwinsville, was the first in line at the box office at the Fairgrounds this morning, but after waiting at the ticket window for several minutes, she was dismayed to find out her dedication only got her ninth row tickets.
"I'm broken hearted," Pilat says. "I was here 26 hours thinking I would get at least in the first three rows and no I'm row nine. I could've got these online. I don't know if it was freezing or what was happening with the computers, they actually had to put me on another one, so even though I was first in line, other people got their tickets first because my computer crashed."
The tickets for both Keith Urban and Jason Aldean went on sale Saturday morning under the 'new' system. At the Fairgrounds box office, a surcharge to the seller, and another to the credit card, were part of the payment.
People in line seemed more interested in the Aldean tickets. He performs Friday night, August 31. Keith Urban is scheduled for Sunday, August 24 at the State Fair Grandstand.
New York State Fair Director Dan O'Hara says the concerts were very popular, and within 41 minutes, 13,000 tickets were sold on Saturday. He says that may have caused some challenges for people on the website.
"When there are 14,000-15,000 people trying to get on at once, it happens," says O'Hara. He also says people waiting in line at the ticket box office had to compete with people trying to get tickets online.
O'Hara says on Monday, he'll have a debriefing with the CEO of E-tix to go over how things went Saturday and see if there are any ways to improve the process in the future.
E-tix does charge a service fee, but overall, O'Hara says those fees are lower than in years past.
