Anyone who knows me personally understands my extreme distaste for all things in and related to the “main-stream” music scene. Attack this introduction statement however you may, but the following is one of the MANY reasons why.
I’ll start by reminding you of the 12/2007 – present day recession that the US currently finds itself in as well as the common belief that it was caused by large creditors and banks abused by a population who charges everything; blindly chasing the American Dream only aiding to the collapse of the American Economy. Consider this with the huge news story this past week which was Arianna Hufftington’s blog about moving your money away from the large banks (i.e. Citi) to help limit their power.
Enough about all that – fast forward to this morning… I found out yesterday from a friend (who heard from Radio 92.3) that Passion Pit, the electronic indie pop band from Cambridge, would be in Cleveland playing a show in March. “Terrific”, I thought – a band that I really enjoy (see #1 here) is coming to Cleveland – with low ticket prices, to boot!
Tickets went on sale this morning at 10am. I hopped on the Live Nation website only to find that the only way to buy tickets is with a promo code. Presales and promos aren’t anything new – however this presale code was the first 6-digits of your Citi Credit card, and labeled as such.
I thought fast, all credit cards have a specific 6 digit prefix, much like checking accounts and routing numbers. Since all Citi cards have the same 6-digit prefix, I Google’d it, and sure enough found what I was looking for. I pasted in the found 6 digit code and voila – I was in. Pretty bogus system, right? Wrong. I was able to make my way through the ticket pre-purchase process; creating an account, shipping & billing info, et al. Upon payment, I used my Visa CheckCard: “ERROR: The Credit Card does not match the code used in the promo.”
To buy tickets to see Passion Pit any day before the day of the show, you have to have a Citi credit card. You can’t pay cash, check, or even use any other credit card/checkcard. This is absolutely insulting. Leave it to Live Nation, an despicable radio station and a shitty-franchise of chain venues (HOB) to allow and condone this type of system.
Items that are used to promote signing up for credit cards:
- Cheap Passion Pit tickets
- Free Plastic Indians baseball helmets at Progressive Field
- Free T-shirts on college campuses
- Discounts at retailers, “Save 25% right now by signing up”
UPDATE: A friend of mine has a Citi card and we have obtained our tickets. Thanks to her choice of bank, we can enjoy our music as allowed by Radio 92.3 / Live Nation / Citi / The HOB. Shame on Passion Pit (their agents and label) for being a part of this system too. Fuck y’all.
