I went to see No Address, Breaking Benjamin, Staind, and 3 Doors Down last night (that was the order they played).
The show was GREAT! Well, No Address and Breaking Benjamin were great... I left during Staind. Personally I didn't understand how these bands all got picked to play together... whatever. If you get a chance to see NA or BB, go check them out - they were great.
I bought the tickets online and then this morning I got a survey email asking what I thought of the show. I've gotten plenty of survey types of emails before, however, this one came from the concert promoter (Electric Factory) and venue (Hershey Park) - not who I bought the tickets from (ticketmaster). I thought that was interesting, I don't recall agreeing to share my personal information with anyone. I'm sure I agreed to it in the Terms & Conditions (that no one ever reads), but I think that is something that should be a little more clearly explained during the purchase process.
The other interesting thing that happened was when I bought a glass of wine for my wife, they swiped my Drivers License through some handheld device as they were checking my ID. Does that seem odd? Anyone know what that is for?
Don't get me wrong here - I'm not some paranoid conspiracy theorist; I don't think that some evil force is building a database of my every action. I just think that some companies could do a better job of explaining what they do when they do stuff that is out of the ordinary like that... especially swiping the drivers license! I was telling myself all kinds of stories about that (just as nature abhors a vacuum, so to does the human mind...). LOL!!
I probably would have agreed to Ticketmaster sharing my info with Electric Factory, they do a lot of shows on the east coast and I wouldn't mind them knowing a bit more about my musical preferences so they can keep me informed of good shows (within, say, 45 miles of my house).
Jon,
Big Brother is probably just checking to see if your ID is legit. I didn't realize until just recently that all DLs now carry bar codes, and while they're not impossible to decode, most kids probably don't go to the trouble to create a valid one for their fake IDs.
Next time don't wear your suicide bomber jacket to the concert! ;-)
Posted by: Mike | July 21, 2005 at 01:07 PM
LOL!! Too funny! How did you know what I was wearing... are you watching me? ;-)
Seriously, yeah, they did swipe the barcode.
Jon
Posted by: Jon Strande | July 21, 2005 at 05:30 PM
Jon,
personally I would have just probably binned the market research mail, but I have this aversion to being included in data bases that worsens when it's a third party that I wasn't expecting... Why can't these people explain more clearly that they're going to forward your details to somebody else? You are right, the small text is the wrong way of going about it. As for the driver's licence, I'm sure that the barman had done it sooooo many times that he didn't want to explain it again, but why not put a simple sign up in that case ('We'd like to inform our customers that ID will be checked' or something like that? Is that too difficult?
Suicide Bomber Jacket...given that bomber jackets exist, I wonder when somebody will come out with an ironic range of those... We've already had Death cigarettes that worked well, I wonder if the jackets would be too much of a bad taste joke or not...
Posted by: christopher grove | July 22, 2005 at 07:41 AM
Can't wait for the days when you just walk up, ask for what you want and they say, "here you are sir, thanks for your business," and you walk away. /snark
Have I told you about my new Sitcom idea, Mayberry RFID? Sorta like a redneck Blade Runner with a cyborg Barney Fife and Jessica Simpson as Aunt Bea.Posted by: fouro | July 23, 2005 at 12:06 PM
Hey, atleast you know the bands. The last concert I went to we almost walked out before the main act. We had never seen the band, only heard them.
Good thing I asked the people next to me who they were waiting for :)
Posted by: Chuck Conway | July 26, 2005 at 02:10 AM