i'm open as to what we do but my accomplice has gambling fever, and with several free credits from verious slot cards around town, it's hard to argue against playing.
i'm head mentor of a loose stable of roughly a dozen players of various types ranging from actuaries to museum curators, but of all the people under my tutilage, the most hardcore is my accomplice -- over $2k ahead this year in vegas, $30 up in online poker (without having ever made a deposit of any type).
we whirl through various downtown casinos. at the end of a few hours i'm ahead $114, my accomplice is up $89 (both with a maximum bet of $1.25).
i want to see the killers tonight -- aside from cheap trick, they are the other reason i'm here right now. they are a vegas band playing a fairly good large venue (mandalay bay), but i don't have any comps there so i'll have to buy tickets. my craigslist ad has only had one tickle, but it's a person with general admission seats and there's no fricken way i'm going to stand for a band like the killers.
with a couple of hours to kill before showtime, we head back to the rio to use the spa -- since i'm a diamond member, i can use it for free. and come on, in the middle of the desert, where else should you head but for the middle of a sweat box?
i sauna, steam and shower in a few cycles and then head over to mandalay bay.
i could go on and on about how to get a cheap ticket for any event but the short version is that tickets don't really have a price. $100 to see your favorite band may or may not be a good price depending on seat location, venue, line-up, time, weather, health, schedule, etc. and it's not clear how ticket prices are created in the first place. "$125" to see the rolling stones. why is that ticket $125? why not $115? would you pay $125, but not $126?
you get the idea.
even though the killers show is less than an hour away, and we don't have tickets, you'd think this is a problem ... but it's most probably not. mandalay bay is a large venue, early perusal of craigslist has shown that this definitely will be a buyers' market.
solid goldstein coined the term kutrate koncert klub (KKK) for getting cheap tickets when we went to school in the 80's. we lived just down the street from a major concert venue and on a whim once went to see if we could get tickets to see warren zevon -- he was opening for kansas, a band we had no interest in seeing. we got in for two bucks apiece that night and learned lessons that has saved us thousands over the decades that have pass since.
kutrating an out-door venue is easy and "natural." any event of size you've ever been to has probably had people (some professional scalpers) working the outside with extra tickets ... you may not even be aware of these people, but they're there.
but an event like this, where the arena is directly attached to a large entertainment complex, which includes a casino, is a bit stranger. security swarms and crowds are unpredictable. you certainly see far fewer professional scalpers, but it's not clear if you're going to get hassled getting tickets.
a quick pass through the crowd shows that all the tickets for sale are either general admission (there's no way i'm going to stand for a show) or people who are still deluded into believing that their tickets are worth face value (they're not).
i go to the KKK first line of attack, make a sign, hand it to my accomplice,and start calling people with ads on craigslist. as i'm talking to a person who is standing less than 100 feet away from me, another guy comes up to my accomplice's sign.
"my girlfriend got given these tickets."
they're casino ticket stock, which means they are legitimate (no one ever counterfeits casino stock). they show a face value of $79 with fees, but if you look close, the final total listed is $0.00. that means these are comps. he either has a very cute girlfriend or she is at least a medium roller in the gambling world.
i'm willing to pay half-face, but the guy i was talking to on the phone is lined up as well ... i can probably get these for less than that .... which means this guy needs to put the price out first.
"how much do you want?"
"well, these are $75 tickets. how about $90 for the pair?"
the show starts in 20 minutes. he wants to be inside, not outside. his tickets are rapidly approaching zero value and i think he knows that. also, he has no financial attachment to them. this is vegas. almost certainly whatever money i give him will just go into over-priced booze inside.
"i'll give you $50 for both."
"sure."
and like that, we're in for 75% off.
the seats are straight back from the stage and just a few rows off the floor. there were two openers for the show -- the first act had the unfortunate circumstance of having to play before the set time on the tickets ... the catch is the killers are known for being very hit-and-miss live. this could go bad.
the first band was "halloween town," featuring a former bandmate of one of the killers. their music sat right at the edge of cow-punk, with a fair amount of twang, and they were good..
the second act, "phoenix," had a few horns and played rocky/punky stuff. they were just fine too, but halloween town were better.
the killers came out with force to an overtly enthusiastic hometown crowd -- in fact, the whole stadium spent the entire time on its feet except for a very small slice of people who (thank god) were seated immediately in front of us.
i'm not overly familiar with the killers, except for their hits (i didn't know they did "human," i hate that song and probably wouldn't have gone if i'd realized they do), but they played with a controlled form of reckless abandon. at one point the crowd got so frenzy whipped that they started beating on each other, bringing the show to a screeching halt as the lead singer (brandon flowers) got everyone to settle down. "no fighting please, this is a positive atmosphere." which i guess means you can glorify the name of assassins, but you can't act like them.
the show was full-on light attack and did a good job of filling the entire stage. the last time i saw something this openly photo-abusive was years ago at the soup dragons/stereo mc's/blur show in london.
i didn't zoom the pix to help give you a feel of the entire effect.
fire the confetti canons. come back out. do your most famous song. the end.
regardless of their reputation live, the killers were fine. the show was good, not great, but in these days of hyper-inflated concert tickets, it was worth the $25. and just as importantly, the shows today and yesterday were the reason i came to vegas in the first place. in both cases i entered the day without holding passes for the shows and ended up paying a combined face value of $75 for $150 worth of tickets.
right.
(miscellaneous pix from the day:)
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