The least surprising news of the day is that tickets to Deadmau5's free February 15 show at Ice Palace Studios were gone in about a minute.
A source confirms the 60-second sell-out time is right and that people were only allowed to request two tickets per account.
Still, there's bound to be unhappy people, Deadmau5's fanbase in Miami alone probably exceeds 4,000 -- let's not even talk about the tri-county metro area and fans willing to drive or fly in for the show.
UPDATE Check out Crossfade's review and photos, "Deadmau5's Free Show for the Real Fans: "Miami's Been Redeemed.'"
A free event like this is a scalper's dream. At the cost of only the $1 processing fee (which is being donated to the Miami Children's Hospital), these Deadmau5 tickets can be sold at almost any price and still turn a profit.
But if you managed to get tix and are thinking of selling in order to pay your rent this month, there's a catch: StubHub, one of the biggest ticket resellers, is refusing to allow tickets to the Deadmau5 Miami show to be sold on their site. "Because this is a free concert we will not be offering tickets to this event," the site's reps say.
Naturally, when you want to get rid of something with little oversight, you turn to Craigslist. Dozens of tickets are available for purchase at about $100. (Way to ruin the spirit of the event, guys.) But alas, Space released a statement yesterday, saying scalped tickets would not be honored.
"Ice Palace does not accept tickets purchased from Stubhub or any other third-party ticketing vendor," Space wrote on Facebook. "When arriving at this event you must show photo id that matches the name on your tickets."
So you're screwed, scalpers. This could have probably been avoided if the non-scalping policy were common knowledge before tickets went on sale.
See also: Space Miami to Deadmau5: Come "Host a Free Show ... We Will Cover Expenses Up to $25,000"
That being said, the most similar event of this magnitude was Arcade Fire's pair of secret shows last year and, from experience, this kind of check-and-balance system can be a morass if not executed properly. You are also going to have a lot of upset people at the door, which means security is going to have an awesome night being yelled at. Also, getting 4,000 people in quickly while checking IDs for proof of purchase can be a challenge. (We're not saying it will happen at the Deadmau5 event, but it's a fairly common occurrence when IDs are required.)
All we can say is if you did manage to get a ticket: arrive at Ice Palace early, so you aren't waiting in line in the middle of Deadmau5's set.
Oh, and like always, Mr. Joel Zimmerman is ranting about this whole ticket mess:
if you see people selling tickets for more than 1$, dont buy em. fuck those asshats.
— deadmau5 (@deadmau5) January 28, 2014figure if scalpers dont sell tickets, and the venues open, but nobodies in there... we will obviously figure something out. Simple math.
— deadmau5 (@deadmau5) January 28, 2014if you want to make money, go into narcotics or realestate. not 1$ tickets. fail.
— deadmau5 (@deadmau5) January 28, 2014theyre checking IDs with tickets. so if you do plan on paying 100 bucks for a free show, you should probably know that youre not getting in.
— deadmau5 (@deadmau5) January 28, 2014do a free show in miami, they said. it will be easy, they said. fuckit, im just gunna let this train derail, show up and destroy the place.
— deadmau5 (@deadmau5) January 28, 2014just fucking show up, whatever. We'll make a night of it.
— deadmau5 (@deadmau5) January 28, 2014Words of wisdom, Joel.
Deadmau5. Saturday, February 15. Ice Palace Studios, 1400 N. Miami Ave., Miami. The show starts at 10 p.m. and tickets are no longer available. Ages 21 and up. Visit icepalace.wantickets.com.
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