Anyone who knows us is aware that we love live music. We especially love Pearl Jam concerts and in 2013, made it to 7 of their shows. Immediately after seeing them for the first time in 2003, we became members of their fanclub, also known as Tenclub or 10C. One of the perks of 10C is the chance to get tickets to their shows before the general onsale. This has always worked well for us in the past, we were always able to get 10C seats to the shows we wanted to attend, which were usually those with the highest demand in New York and Philadelphia.
Although we’d always been successful in getting tickets that we wanted, a lot of people were shut out and complained to 10C. As a result, changes were made in the way tickets were made available to Tenclub members, rather than sitting at your computer trying to finalize a transaction on a server that consistently crashed, a lottery was instituted and all tickets were awarded by a random drawing.
We were fortunate to be selected for their historic show at Wrigley Field in July 2013, an epic show that lasted until 2 a.m. due to a severe weather delay, but were less successful in the drawings for their fall 2013 tour, winning only 1 of the 9 draws I entered. (Thanks to a bit of luck on ticketmaster and the help of good friends, we still made it to every show we wanted to attend)
When Pearl Jam announced their Summer 2014 European tour back in December, we looked at the dates and decided that the show planned for Leeds, UK on July 8 would be one we’d like to attend. It was one of the only indoor shows, definitely the smallest of the European venues which of course, made it one of the highest demand shows. So, we entered the draw, never expecting to win a pair of tickets for such a desirable show. Both Kevin & I entered for reserved seats as well as general admission standing tickets. Kevin received his email first; he’d won the draw for a pair of GA tix. A few minutes later I received my email from 10C informing me that I, too, had won a pair of GAs for the Leeds show! We were going to see Pearl Jam again…this time, in England!