I don’t really have much money for concerts anymore but I’ve been looking at what is available anyway and nearly all of the shows I’ve looked at are General Admission and a couple have had NO reservable seating at all which means that I’ve already ruled out going to see that artist. I appreciate that some people like GA shows and prefer them to the seated show and it is for that reason that I wouldn’t dream of suggesting they’re stopped altogether but I think that there should be SOME seating that is available to be reserved at the time of sale available. Not everyone likes the idea of arriving at a concert venue at dawn to start queueing to get a seat that is anywhere other than the back row and not everyone is able to do so.
In particular, I dislike the GA that refers to standing-only and yes, I know that people want to stand up at rock concerts and I stood up at the Meat Loaf shows I went to in April but it’s the idea of standing only that I hate. The main reason is that you are stood in a crowd with people possibly pushing and shoving because they want to get closer to the front, you have no personal space. I didn’t even like that sort of thing for 20 minutes on the train home from work, let alone a 2 hour concert. There’s also the fact that if you’re anywhere near the front of a GA area, you’re pretty much stuck there from the time before the show starts until it is over and you’d better pray that you don’t need to use the bathroom.
I realise that the Newbury show is a GA and I am nervous about this but at least we did have the option of purchasing a Golden Circle ticket which I’m hoping will avoid some of the usual GA pitfalls.