Hans from Madonna Underground has sent in his memories of his “Ticket Stress” for the Confessions Tour.

Finally after three weeks of many uncertainties regarding the new Madonna tour, we finally got tour confirmation on April 3d. We finally knew where Madonna would be playing and how much she was going to cost us! Several websites are advertising Madonna tickets on sale, but for a mere euro 380 and I am definitely not going to pay that! I want to be VIP at least for that kind of money. But I am convinced that these aren’t the “official’ prices.

At 3 in the afternoon we hear that the tour will be named “Confessions Tour” and that she is indeed coming to Amsterdam on September 3d. I think my whole neighbourhood could hear the excitement coming from my house. Immediately I called Kimmy and she placed the news on the site at once. Now the ticket prices are official and indeed she is more expensive then she was two years ago. But thank god they aren’t as expensive as the euro 380 that was being advertised. It’s a known fact that we have to get our sleeping bags and spend the night at the post office on Friday.

The afternoon was very chaotic with lots of phonecalls and text messages. I went to Kimmy’s house in the evening to give her our “Madonna Underground” shirts and to make further plans about the tour. Still we had a bit of a party as our website had gone online that same day. Kimmy told me that the pre-sale for the shows would start the next day at 9 in the morning. Aaaaah! So soon?. I made up my mind, I was going to open my store a little while later. We then just planned which shows we were going to see. We didn’t think of going to London as the prices were just outrageous! We decide to focus on Germany, Paris, Amsterdam and whatever else may be added.

The next morning started with phonecalls and text messages of Kimmy telling me that the two ticket limit for the pre-sale wasn’t for every show of the tour, but for the entire tour!. So that meant, if I was using my code in the pre-sale for Amsterdam tickets, I couldn’t use it for Paris. What? We pay that much money to subscribe and only get a two ticket pre-sale?!. I certainly didn’t agree but of course couldn’t do a thing about it. So I used my pre-sale code for the first two shows in Paris.

My pc ain’t that great anymore and just keeps on shutting off by itself constantly, I am just hoping that this won’t happen during the pre-sale. Kimmy and me had a very stressful 30 minutes up until 9. The website is in French and we don’t understand a bit of it, but after several tries I manage to register myself. Then it was just a few minutes until the pre-sale would start. But I just kept on getting a white screen, it was past 9 and I still wasn’t on the website itself. I reloaded the page one more time and got lucky, without any hassle I could buy two tickets for the first two shows in Paris. Ok my first bits of sweat and stress were a fact. But I now had the confirmation of seeing Madonna twice in Paris!.

The rest of the week went by like any other week. But on Thursday when the normal sale of tickets for Paris would start, I heard that two shows had been added. They were sold out within minutes, unfortunately we both missed out on tickets for those shows. But nothing to be sad about, we know that for Paris you can ALWAYS get tickets. Then we heard the strangest story coming from the news. Telling us that the ICON presale for the Amsterdam tickets was such a success that there were less then 50 tickets to be sold through the normal sale. Lots of nonsense of course, the lady of the ticketservice confirmed to us “there will be enough tickets on sale this Saturday”.

Friday the tickets for the shows in London went on sale, but we weren’t even going to give it a try. It wasn’t a surprise to me to hear that the shows were sold out instantly, it was a surprise however to find out that 5 extra shows had been added!!. I was then contacted by a reporter who writes for a Dutch newspaper, he wanted to interview us about the site. He told us he would send a photographer this Friday to photograph us while sitting in front of the postoffice.

Friday in the evening it was time to take place in front of the post office in Purmerend.voorverkoopeentje I drove up on the parkinglot at around 19:30 and took up my spot. I saw that like two years ago, I was the very first in line!. The only difference with now and two years ago was that it was very windy and very chilly. Around 20:30 two man came around to see if there were many people. I chatted with them and agreed to call them when about 15 people would be in the queue. And then there were Kimmy & Simon and came to sit with me. The photographer was right on time and took some pictures of us, which will be placed with the interview. Peter (my husband) truly didn’t feel any sympathy for us and went home to find his very nice and warm bed ;o).

We went to a shoarma restaurant opposite of the postoffice to warm up, get something to drink and eat.voorverkoop1 Later on some friends visited us and brought along some candy. Until 04:00 in the morning we were by ourselves, but were joined by the two man (probably scalpers). Also we were bothered by a very drunk man, and the police had to come to take him away. Somehow we just remained with us three and the two scalpers, maybe it was the weather, maybe it was the price of the tickets? Kimmy & Simon tried to sleep a bit in the car, but heard that it wasn’t really comfortable. Finally some more people came and by now it was 07:30 and could wait inside the postoffice. Then at 08:00 someone came to cover for me, so I could open my store.

When I arrived at my store, I was treated to a breakfast by friends. Now I just had to wait to see and find out if we got tickets!. Thank god after 10:00 I hear that we have fieldtickets and that the first show is sold out. Later I hear that show 2 has been announced and that a ticket has been bought for me. I was so happy that I didn’t have time to feel tired and sleepy, until I got home. I tried to read a book but was reading the same sentence over and over, I just went to bed and fell asleep instantly.

We are now very busy preparing ourselves for the tour, booking our trips etc. We can’t wait to see the “Confessions World Tour” for real!

Thanks to Hans nd Kimmy at Madonna Underground.