“A large number of Apple Computer’s iTunes customers, who paid in advance for rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers’ new album ‘Stadium Arcadium’ in order to receive a Ticketmaster code that would allow them to purchase advance tickets for the bands upcoming tour, did not receive those codes before ticket pre-sales began on Tuesday and are now enraged with the iPod maker,” Katie Marsal reports for AppleInsider.
Marsal reports, “Apple has made no official comment on the issue, though several customers who contacted the company’s various telephone hotlines were informed ‘Apple is aware of the problem’ and that it is ‘working to get the emails [with the codes] out as soon as possible.'”
Marsal has all the sordid details here.
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Red Hot Who? There must be at least 200 people world wide who are upset about this. That said, by my calendar it’s 5/9/2006, the day the promo codes were to be issued, and the day’s not over yet. Ticket sales were supposed to start 5/13/2006. That’s NEXT Saturday, folks? Why not get mad at the promoters who started selling early?
BTW, this will move the stock about .0000003 cents. What’s driving the stock down today is the general NASDAQ trend, Dell’s drop in sales, and Warner Bros. making a deal with Bit Torrent. Tomorrow it’ll be forgotten…and I’m still $65 per share ahead of where I bought in. Have a nice day.
Hello All,
Hmmm, I can just see the MS windows writers now. “Apple viruses causes iPod problem on iTunes. All apple products affected. Just another reason not to buy Apple and to wait for MS Vista.” lol
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N.
WOW
NO COMMENT FROM MDN
surprise surprise
“A very popular error: having the courage of one’s convictions: rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one’s convictions!!!” Nietzeche
“Chill out. It’s not like its for Tool tix.”
Now THAT I’d get mad about missing out on… and I am.
Same thing happened to me with the Depeche Mode presale. Never got the code for the presale.
What a major mess up. Those seats are GONE. Hint to those who can’t get past their personal prefs: Put whatever band YOU like into the story – it doesn’t matter.
At least the Wintrolls can’t say that MDN doesn’t publish the bad Apple (sorry) stories…
re: umm
What makes a band relevant? Do they just have to be relevant to you? If you replace RHCP with Fall Out Boy or Ghostface Killa or Gnarls Barkley or (the list goes on and on until it hits a band that matters to you) then does the issue matter? It’s not about the specific band it’s about the bungled promotion.
re: Zeke
Wrong on all counts. Whether you like them or not there are thousands of fans of RHCP (I’m one of them) who are upset about this mess. That said, the promo codes were to be issued May 8th according to the emails not the 9th, the pre-sale begins May 9-13th. If you’ve ever tried to get tix from tickemaster you would know that you have to get tix the day they go on sale if you hope to get good seats. Pre-ordering the album on iTunes gets you access to the pre-sale tix BEFORE the general public gets tix on the 13th. Get your facts right.
The issue is not about your stock prices it’s about getting what you pay for from a company you trust. You seem to think it’s “good enough” that only (in your opinion) a few people are upset…I’m glad that Apple usually doesn’t accept “good enough”…we all know who does though. Maybe you should buy more MS stock…it’s good enough. Have a nice day.
That stinks. I would be upset too. (Although I haven’t really liked anything RHCP have done after Mother’s Milk, that’s besides the point. UPLIFT MOFO PARTY PLAN!) Apple said, buy the album, get the code. That didn’t happen. So they need to find some way to make it right. Now. If they don’t fix it right away PC idiot will be all over that bad press.
I was a “victim” of the U2 fanclub ticket screw up a coupla years ago, and they apologized profusely publically and privately, then they fixed the situation immediately by offering us another crack at tickets. They’ve always looked after their fans so that didn’t surprise me at all. Now, I guess, we’ll see if RHCP care about their fans.
I’m not much of an RHCP fan (although Flea is one of the best bass players of all time) but I think these morons claiming that they’re irrelevant because they have been around more than six months are ridiculous. In the age of “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” disposable fluff, I applaud their longevity.
So, are they relevant? Let’s see, they have the #2 song on iTMS this week and the #1 album, so yeah, I guess that means they’re still relevant.
PETERJ:
Quote from the article:
“Red Hot Chili Peppers fans who pre-order the album on iTunes will also receive an email with a code that they can use at Ticketmaster.com starting May 9 to purchase concert tickets before they go on sale to the general public on May 13.”
That’s very different from YOUR version of the “facts”.
I DID try to buy tickets from Ticketmaster for several decades, but I have never gotten decent seating despite getting through within minutes of tickets going on sale. I will never buy from them again. It’s a waste of money for garbage seats. I’d rather spend the bucks to get good seats from the scalpers.
The issue IS about my stock prices. There’s nothing Apple can do about promoters who put tickets on sale earlier than the planned dates. Criticism of Apple for something beyond their control that affects my stock price IS what it’s about. It’s ignorant and uncalled for.
Zeke,
It’s not really about Ticketmaster (who sucks…but that’s another topic), it’s the fact that Apple promised something (the pre-sale code), but failed to deliver. That’s not on Ticketmaster, that’s on Apple. The fact that Ticketmaster only releases “garbage seats” is irrelevant.
The e-mail Apple was supposed to send out *IS* under their control. They dropped the ball on this one. The extent to which you try to defend Apple (by changing the subject to Ticketmaster’s ridiculous policies) is laughable.
I have to that I’m very happy with the Itunes presale. The email hit my inbox yesterday afternoon. Logged in at 10am today when it started and was able to get some pretty outstanding seats for the first Philly show!!! Thank God the RHCP finally came around to Itunes.
Zeke
You’re not making sense. That quote from the article is no different from “my version of the facts”. Re-read the post…hell re-read your own post. Apple sent an email stating that whoever pre-orders will receive a code on May 8th for the pre-sale that starts May 9.
On May 9th at 10 a.m Ticketmaster starting selling tix to people with their code, however a lot of people didn’t get their code emailed from Apple. The promoter didn’t put the tix on sale too soon, they went on sale when they were supposed to…but people who pre-orderd haven’t received their code so they don’t get a shot at the tix. Getting the pre-sale code out to people who pre-ordered IS Apple’s responsibility,
So if your stock price is affected (and that’s all you care about) then you have to blame Apple. It’s not ignorant if you pay attention to the facts.
OH! OK, so only SOME people didn’t get their codes before OTHERS were able to start buying. That’s a little different than the way it was presented in the article. Did you read the article? So apparently some people got their codes on time and were happy. Some didn’t. You know, there are things like spam filters, crashed DNS and mail servers, and any number of ways that email just doesn’t get where it’s supposed to go. To the extent that someone at Apple dropped the ball, yes, go ahead and blame Apple. But if it’s any of those other reasons, or similar ones, then put the blame where it belongs.
Well… this certainly sounds like one of the most important issues I’ve heard about in all my years of following Apple Computer. Perhaps all those fans really wouldn’t have bought the RHCP album for $10 without the chance (only a chance) for decent seats at a show. Maybe they should sue for millions in damages, cause life is now so bad because of a rotten Apple. Guess it’s time to get a PC…
Zeke
The first paragraph clearly states that “a large number” of customers didn’t get their codes. I’m not sure, but I’m thinking it’s in the thousands. Some people got it, some didn’t although ALL pre-ordered. It’s not about spam filters or crashed servers it was a screw up. I know because I was one of the people who got messed up. I received my code (with an apology from Apple) at 5:30 p.m. Of course, by then, there were no good tix left as they went on sale at 10:00 a.m. So I pre-ordered with a hope of getting a shot at maybe some floor seats and I end up with only seats up in the nose bleed section available because someone didn’t get the codes out in time. It was a time-sensitive promotion and something or someone really screwed up.
re: huh?
It’s a screw up on a promo that Apple was involved in. It’s not about their hardware or software. No one’s going to go to PC because of a screwed up promotion (at least I don’t think they will), but there is a problem. Let’s put it this way, if you paid $20 (because that’s how much the RHCP album was not $10, it’s a double album) for a better than average shot at 1 of 100 new cars and you didn’t even get the chance to be entered in the draw while others who did the exact same thing were entered in the draw (and ended up winning the car) wouldn’t you be upset with WHOEVER set up the promo? Well this time it was Apple.
Geez, Apple screwed up. It’s not treason to be upset…they’re still a great company. Why are you being so sarcastic?
Quite simply if you did not recieve your email for pre sales of read hot chilli pepper’s seats, Apple are in breach of contract.
You are entitled to have Apple pay you whatever it costs you to remedy that breach, a good measure of that cost would be the difference in what you would pay for equivalent tickets now compared to what you would have paid in the pre-sale.
If “just getting your money back” works for you, fine, but you don’t have to agree to that.
Anyway, I’m sure Apple’s lawyers know this and if you push Apple, they will do the right thing.