Why 'Oldchella' tickets aren't sold out anymore
Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney & Bob Dylan
You’ve probably heard of “Oldchella” by now. Formally called “Desert Trip,” the festival this weekend features performances by the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Roger Waters and The Who. The six acts will share one stage this weekend and the following weekend.
Since the average age of the performers is 72, it’s not surprising the crowd skews older and the festival itself has been fittingly nicknamed “Oldchella.” Ticket prices range from $199 for single-day admission and north of $3,000 for VIP options.
Goldenvoice, the producer of Desert Trip, is behind the original Coachella, which also takes place at Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. This is, however, the inaugural “Oldchella,” and things haven’t gone as smoothly as some concert goers would have liked.
Numerous people have taken to the Facebook event page for Desert Trip Indio claiming that they haven’t gotten their wristbands yet. Yahoo Finance also spoke to a ticket-buyer who got a full refund because he was given the wrong seats. Our source suggested this might not be an isolated problem. Indeed, the concert was once sold out and now has open tickets — suggesting others may have gotten refunds, too. We reached out to Goldenvoice but representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Still, many people are incredibly ecstatic about the event, which is being called “the concert of a lifetime.” Fifty-year-old Sandra Cooksey is traveling from the UK for the concert — she and her husband bought two $999 tickets to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. They’ll stay in California for two weeks and make a trip to Paisley Park to commemorate Prince. She estimates they’re spending at least $3,500 for the vacation.
Though the Cookseys are staying about 15 miles away from Indio because they couldn’t find closer lodging, she said she couldn’t be more excited about the weekend.
“We are going alone but are huge music fans so are just thrilled to be going. We will no doubt make new friends too,” she said.
Dave Davis, 57, also bought two tickets for $999 each for this weekend. He is SVP of Finance at Content Partners, LLC, a 10-person private equity firm. He said he and five other colleagues are attending Desert Trip this weekend with their spouses. Particularly because he lives relatively close to Indio (a three-hour drive away), he said he was easily convinced to attend.
“It was kind of a no-brainer. Who knows if these legends will be reunited again? I saw the Rolling Stones in 1981 and Paul McCartney in 1976. To me it’s like this is a chance to see them one more time. Of course, nostalgia is a big driver here,” he said.
Cooksey and Davis join the 70,000 people who are in good spirits as they head into the weekend. But, not everyone is pleased.
Felipe Oropeza, 25, of Tlalnepantla, Mexico, said buying tickets wasn’t the problem. It was receiving them. The tickets actually come in the form of wristbands that people receive at their mailing address unless they opt to pick them up at the concert venue, which he is now being forced to do.
He was told that the wristbands were sent September 9, according to a UPS tracking number Desert Trip sent him. However, as of October 4, Oropeza hadn’t received the package.
“I never received the package and nobody, not Desert Trip, UPS, USPS or the Mexican postal service can tell me where it is. I had to call on Monday to change to will call in order to receive the tickets in Indio,” he said.
“The worst thing is that Desert Trip doesn’t respond to emails and getting someone on the phone is almost impossible,” he said.
Desert Trip was first announced on May 3 of this year and tickets went on sale on May 9 at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET. With such high-profile artists, people knew to be on their computers at 1 p.m. ET on the dot, anticipating they would sell out right away.
And, just like clockwork, the concert organizers said tickets were sold out within five hours. However, if you wanted to make a spontaneous trip now, there are still passes available both on the Desert Trip website as well as resale sites like StubHub and Vivid Seats.
Though Desert Trip has a strict no refund, no cancellation policy, we know at least one person who got a refund because of system errors. With several people requesting to get their money back, it may be a primary reason that there are still hundreds of reasonably priced seats up for grabs.
We spoke to a 58-year-old resident of New Haven, Connecticut, who asked that we not use his name because he’s yet to receive a promised refund from Oldchella. He said he was eagerly anticipating a weekend getaway with his wife when he decided to splurge on the event. He was able to select two $999 seats in the middle of the bleachers and a few minutes later he got confirmation for two tickets he had not selected. The confirmed seats were actually in two different rows, directly behind each other, he said.
Though he wasn’t thrilled by the prospect of sitting behind his wife, instead of next to her, he said he and his wife were so excited about the performers that they decided to figure out the seat situation once they got there.
Until last month when he actually received the package with the wristbands. He found that the seats he was assigned weren’t the seats that had been sent along with the confirmation. They were 20 seats farther down to the right and three rows higher.
“This is when the fun began,” he bemoaned.
He estimates he spent over four hours corresponding via email and over three individual phone calls of waiting. He even sent a document to his credit card company asking it to remove the item from his bill.
He said he was infuriated, especially when he was assigned seats that he hadn’t selected not once, but twice. When he finally got ahold of a customer service representative on the phone, he was told that there were technical issues with the mapping system and that he wasn’t the only one who experienced this problem.
“I told them that I don’t accept that I can’t get a refund. The primary issue is that for 120 days, Goldenvoice wasn’t proactive and didn’t communicate what had transpired,” he said.
Though he said Goldenvoice offered him and his wife upgraded tickets, he was left with such a bad taste in his mouth that he decided to forgo attending this year.
An avid music listener and concert goer, he said he has never experienced such poor customer service in all his years.
“I’ve never run into this level of frustration. They are trying to present the weekend as a high-profile, professional event but the way they handled customer service was a complete failure,” he said.
He last heard from Goldenvoice on September 26, when he was emailed that he should be receiving his check for a full refund of $2,140. As of Wednesday, he hadn’t received his check yet.
The overwhelming majority of festival attendees will likely overlook any technical flubs or customer service annoyances for the love of the legends that are playing. Though baby boomers and Gen Xers certainly have more purchasing power than a 20-something attending Coachella, the steep prices of the tickets aren’t just a drop in the bucket. Perhaps many will find the process more cumbersome than it’s worth.
And for those who threw in the towel this time around, there’s always next year.
Melody Hahm is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering entrepreneurship, technology and real estate. Follow her on Twitter @melodyhahm.
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