Adele is coming to Europe for the first time since 2016 – for ten exclusive concerts, all in Munich. Millions of people tried to get tickets. The pre-sale slots were torture for fans for days. Our star-Editor in Munich was one of them.
“If everyone makes music for TikTok, who makes music for my generation? I’m happy to take on that job.” British singer Adele said this in an interview when her current album “30” was released. I also belong to this generation of millennials. Adele is 35 and only a few years older. 19, 21, 25, 30 – these albums, named after their age, have accompanied me through the past ten years. And now this woman is finally coming to Europe again for concerts, even directly in the city where I live.
Of course I will get concert tickets with friends and family. At least that’s the plan. And that of 2.2 million people who, according to the agency Live Nation, had registered for the exclusive pre-sale by the beginning of this week.
I’ve already noticed that buying tickets has recently become like playing the lottery. A large portion of my Millennial friends belong to the following of pop stars like Taylor Swift and Harry Styles. Getting a place at their concerts is a battle of nerves.
Wednesday, 10 a.m.: Advance sales for registered Adele fans
And I’m moving into that now too. The starting shot is at 10 a.m. on Wednesday. Incorrect. Actually half an hour earlier, because you enter a waiting room via the fan presale links sent by email. Any verification codes must be entered five times in a row. “I’m not a robot.” “I’m not a robot.” “I’m not a robot – damn it.”
At 10 a.m. the countdown ends and the page flips. Adrenaline. “You have a place in line.” Me, four friends and my father. We want tickets for the first dates on August 2nd, 3rd, 9th and 10th. You can only select one date. My queue for August 2nd is 175,604 people. My father chose August 9th, for him it is 77,000. I have to go to a work appointment at 11 a.m. No problem, because an hour later the bar on my screen hasn’t moved even two centimeters.
At half past twelve in the afternoon I get a call from my father. The ticketmaster sales window has now opened. Adrenaline. I scream hysterically through the phone at him about which categories he should choose. We want four tickets (more is not possible anyway). “It’s all grayed out, I can’t select anything.” That’s it. My wait bar isn’t even halfway there at this point. It should take until 4:30 p.m. before the sales window opens on my screen. And of course there will no longer be a map available by then. Disappointment.
Wednesday, 2 p.m.: Advance sales go into the second round
Meanwhile, friends of mine are still in the card game. The second phase of the presales starts at 2 p.m. For the dates from August 14th (16th, 23rd and 24th). The advance booking for the last two dates (30th and 31st) begins at 6 p.m. For my parents, all of these dates are no longer an option, for me and my cousin the 14th and 16th are still possible – after that we have vacations planned. I enter the queue for the second time and end up at number 8251. A feeling of exhilaration. I am in pole position among my friends. We constantly keep ourselves up-to-date via WhatsApp. 6100 more.
A friend from the neighborhood canceled all appointments, “priorities set,” as he says. 900 more. Things are moving quickly now. I get a call, my friends don’t need a ticket anymore, another friend got there quicker. 46 more. “Get ready, you’re being redirected now.” Adrenaline.
My hands are shaking… aaaand: error message. “Sorry, but this event no longer exists in our database.” My pulse is at 180 – and it’s no longer out of excitement, but out of anger. Ticket sales at “Ticketmaster” apparently ran without any major disruptions, but fans are still reporting technical problems when reserving tickets. Some write that they have been out of the waiting rooms several times fallen.
This is what the pop-up stadium at the Munich exhibition center will look like in August. There is space for 80,000 people per show.
© Live Nation
Those who made it were usually unable to select tickets from the “cheap” seats at the back. The places start at 74.90 euros, but quickly shoot up to over 200 euros. If you want to sit or stand near the stage, you pay between 400 and 500 euros per ticket. Utopian prices that cause a lot of trouble. My friends who got their tickets pay this price. They sit “front of stage” and as a couple they pay just under 1000 euros. I want to be happy with them, we share a great love of going to concerts. But the fact that these are now as expensive as a short vacation makes me angry.
“You only give rich, privileged people the chance to see you live.”
I’m not alone in this. On the Instagram account of Singer Adele vents her fans’ frustration: “You only give rich, privileged people the chance to see you live.” “What prices, starting tomorrow one kidney less.” “Sorry, but with these prices I’d rather stay at home.”
When I go to bed in the evening, Munich friends and acquaintances who got tickets share their success on their Instagram stories. I’m grumpy, as they say here in Munich.
Thursday, 10 a.m.: Official advance sales start
But Thursday is a new day. The official pre-sale starts at Ticketmaster sharp at 10 a.m. – without pre-registration. We’ll try it again. My cousin and I are on the phone and we end up in the queue. Place 13,564 and place 2401 – not bad at all. It’s just that things are somehow even slower today. After 45 minutes, my cousin still has 659 people in front of her. Your children are screaming and the cell phone battery is about to die. Of course the charging cable is at home. 562. Excitement increases. 18 more. “This is psychological terror,” she writes. 3 more. She’s in the sales room. It looks good. Places selected. And immediately lost again.
You can’t click that quickly, the cheap seats sell out so quickly. She can reserve two tickets for us, at a price of just under 230 euros per person. Our limit is 150 euros (the first level of the second price category). We pass. On principle.
Thursday, 6:30 p.m.: Surprising advance sales
We still have a chance to get affordable tickets. Eventim starts presales on Friday. On Thursday at a quarter to six in the evening, Eventim sent an email saying that ticket sales would spontaneously start at 6:30 p.m. My cousin sees the email 15 minutes in advance. At 6:27 p.m. we are on the Eventim website. We are seething with anger. If you don’t see the email in time, you lose. The next impudence in the fight for the tickets. We’re in the waiting room. 30 seconds later I get a voice message. “I have tickets.” We made it. For 150 euros per person we can sit in the back seats and bask in the glory of the British superstar.
Friday, 10 a.m.: New quotas, old problems
We’re on the phone. When I get to the waiting room, I try to secure tickets for the first appointments for my parents. No chance. They come away empty-handed. Because they are not prepared to pay 350 to 500 euros. On Friday morning, Eventim will open new ticket contingents, again spontaneously, with an email at 10:05 a.m. The prices are absurd, there is hardly any availability for less than 400 euros. At the same time, tickets worth upwards of 2,500 euros are already circulating on sales platforms such as Ebay.
Anyone who calculates how much money the 80,000 guests will spend on the ten dates on the specially built pop-up stage at the exhibition center in Riem will feel sick. Owning tickets has a bad aftertaste. And it also means that superstar Adele no longer shines so brightly. Their concerts are becoming more and more elitist. She presented the album “30” to the crème de la crème of Hollywood live at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles in 2022, after which fans could see her weekend after weekend at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. At similar prices to Munich.
“I kind of forgot about it,” my cousin says on the phone. By August we will definitely have regained our anticipation. Experiencing Adele’s vocal power live will undoubtedly make us happy – for just this one evening. But the path there was anything but smooth.