Born Pink Jakarta - Ticket War & Drama
With the concerts being over last weekend (started writing this the week after the concert) and now I’ve (somewhat) recovered from the hecticness of weeks leading up to it, I kind of want to share my whole experience of attending my (believe it or not) first Blackpink concert, which was also coincidentally my first concert ever in Jakarta.
There were lots of interesting things related to the concert that I learned and experienced so I thought it’d be fun to share the story with you guys since some of you were in this journey (virtually) with me too.
So here goes the first part.
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Let me take you back to sometimes in early November last year. Having been following the whole Born Pink World Tour closely since Blackpink kicked off their tour in Seoul in October last year, I know how hard and competitive it is to get tickets to their concerts. Tickets were reportedly being sold out minutes after the sales were open, especially in Asian countries. Taiwan had their sale a week before Jakarta’s and here were some of the things I read online after the tickets went on sale:
Source: @villainpinks on Twitter.
And with that, like any other Blinks who are dying to go to the concert, of course I felt the need to have some sort of plan to secure my tickets.
My first recruit was of course my dear cousin. Thought if there are two us, the chance of getting tickets are going to be higher. So I bought her a Blink membership so she could joined in on the pre-sale and try our luck.
My second recruit was my close friend, Jane, who’s also a fellow Blink and she was planning to go to the concert. I was also pretty excited ‘cause I have a friend I can go with on at least one day of the concert. She also joined in on the pre-sale war with me.
I also recruited my sister to be on standby just in case none of us can’t get through to the site or if we need extra device to use.
After the pre-sale was over, I recruited four of my other cousins who were available to go to war for me during the general sales to try and get those VIP tickets.
And that’s the team who went to ticket war with me during the pre-sale and general sales.
Now that there are a couple of us, I was praying and hoping that the chance of getting tickets are going to be higher. We all of course tried to get the coveted VIP tickets but no dice. Platinum tickets were also sold out fast. And I know most of the people I know who wanted to go to the concert were mostly focusing on these two sections so competition was extremely high.
We did managed to get Platinum and CAT 1 tickets during pre-sale and general sales. If you saw my stories from that time, you know what happened during those two stressful days. Here’s a refresher:
I was in panic mode earlier. Went to the website at 2 pm and it’s empty. Thought it’s already sold out.
What happened today during pre-sale war:
VIP seats were gone in 1 minute. Platinum seats were gone in 10 minutes. A couple of friends said check-out through the app might be faster but I couldn’t pass through the check-out page on the app. All of my transactions ended up done via laptop. Had to refresh the payment page a couple of time because of system error (probably because of high traffic) to actually get to the payment page, but finally got my tickets for both days in the end. The whole thing took 15 minutes for me cause I had to switch devices.
Also, I noticed when I was in Day 2 page, when I tried to select one of the available packages which turned out to be sold out, it automatically switched to the Day 1 date without redirecting me to another page. So anybody who’s going to try to get tickets tomorrow, you might want to make sure you get the correct day.
Observation of the day:
I think the first 5 minutes of ticket war is the most crucial time to get the ticket that you actually want. If you can get your ticket in 1 minute, even better.
What happened before, during (and even after) pre-sale war:
Been jittery, nervous (even ‘til now) and couldn’t sleep properly all weekend because of this. A couple of friends who also joined today’s pre-sale war shared the same conditions as me apparently. Plus an increased heart rate these past few days. One friend even dreamed about this pre-sale war last night. Ticket war is so stressful honestly. Who can relate?
General sales, Day 1 & Day 2:
Sold out in 10 minutes. 😭 It was brutal guys. Day 2 was even worse than Day 1. 😂 Congratulations to everybody who got tickets! 🥳
Biggest thing I learned (well I know this already but you know what I mean) after this whole ticket war:
Even if you have money to buy the tickets, if you don’t haveluck on your side, getting tickets is impossible.
Okay, honestly, this wasn’t really part of my plan. My plan actually stopped at Plan #1. 😆 As much as I wanted to get the VIP tickets, I’m also very aware that my luck with this kind of things are usually close to none. So I was prepared to just accept my fate at that point.
But, of course, I am also aware that there’s still chance of getting VIP tickets if I purchase them from a scalper/reseller or somebody with connections. I’m a bit iffy about the first option just because I’ve heard and read about so many scams that happened so I tried to avoid that option.
So then it left me with the second option, which honestly, I didn’t even really dare to put my hope in since I don’t know a lot of people with connections. Even if I do know people with connections, I don’t think I know them close enough to comfortably ask them for help to get tickets (part of me also feel like I don’t want to bother people or get people in trouble with this stuff, you know).
Well, unless, they offered.
And then somebody actually did offer. My cousin knows somebody who knows somebody who said that they can get VIP tickets for the concert. So when she asked if I wanted to put an order in, of course I said yes. I placed an order for 1 VIP ticket Day 2, and the order was submitted before the pre-sale even happened. I paid the full ticket price plus the 900k service fee. And then I waited for the confirmation of the purchase.
3 days filled with anxiety and uncertainty later, after the general sales is over, I finally got an update from the seller about the VIP ticket. Here’s the message I received on that day:
My reaction:
At this point, my stress level was HIGH. So then I asked people who bought their tickets through their connections. One follower said, “My guy said that he’ll give the e-ticket on the 25th or at the end of the month during pay day.” One of my friend said, “She said the e-tickets will be sent to my email but I haven’t received anything yet.” And so because these two also haven’t received their e-tickets, I calmed down. Just a teeny tiny bit. But when I realized that they were promised their e-tickets soonish and not D-1, my anxiety spiked up again.
Some of you guys might think I’m overreacting but for an overthinker Blink who really, really, really wants to go to the Born Pink concert and get the VIP experience, this was a big deal. I like to know for sure if my ticket is secured or not because:
If my Day 2 ticket is secured, I want to sell my backup tickets that I got during the pre-sale.
If the VIP ticket is not secured, then I could start making an effort to try to purchase it from other channels.
But then there were 6 of my cousin’s friends who bought tickets from the same seller and they all trusted their friend (let’s call this person A) who knows the seller and they all just accepted the terms given. So at that point, I feel I didn’t have a choice but to trust the seller too.
Three weeks later, my friend got her e-tickets on her email. And then one month after that, my follower got hers from her guy. After each instances I got the updates, I asked my cousin about the status of my ticket too since the seller said everybody who purchased the ticket this way got the same rule (which obviously wasn’t true since other people already starting to get their e-tickets). But the answer was still the same. They wouldn’t give out the e-tickets or the seat number.
Honestly, it sucked to be put in a limbo for months. But I tried to not think about it too much and decided to just trust the process while still keeping my backup tickets. (This is also why I gave e-tickets to those who bought tickets from me because I know how it feels when you don’t have any proof of purchase after you paid.)
Not until February 14th, I finally got this forwarded message:
At this point I thought, “Okay, at least the ticket is issued.” But honestly, I still had some doubts because I still haven’t gotten the e-ticket and the physical wristband just yet. And I’m the type that tend to think about the worst case scenario in situations like this. But I was cautiously optimistic that this will turn out okay in the end.
On Feb 26, suddenly I got a call from my cousin. And let me tell you, she never calls randomly out of the blue like that. And for some reason, before I even picked up her call, I knew something was wrong with the VIP ticket. I got one of those gut-wrenching feeling in the pit of my stomach when I saw her name flashing on my screen. I braced myself for the worst before picking up the call and sure enough, something did go wrong with the VIP ticket.
My cousin’s frantic apologetic panicky voice greeted me from the other end of the line, telling me that apparently there was some “internal problems” from the seller’s end and turned out the seller “double booked” the tickets. So essentially there were more buyers for the VIP tickets than the tickets themselves and our group was the one that’s not getting the tickets.
Knowing how badly I wanted the ticket and the countless questions I had about the legitimacy of the ticket, she was super apologetic about it. But I know it’s not her fault. And it’s now even her friend’s fault. More like the seller’s fault, really, for miscounting the tickets.
I asked her what the seller is going to do about this big mishap and there were 2 options moving forward:
They’ll fully refund my payment and that’s it. No offer to help with the situation. Just wash their hands all together basically was what I understand.
They’ll give me a Platinum ticket and refund the difference.
At this point, Tiket.com has added additional Platinum tickets on the web and are still available, so I don’t see why I have to pay them 900k to buy something that I can get myself.
And so, in the end, I chose option 1 and got a full refund of my payment.
(Warning: Slight rant ahead.)
Honestly, I was really disappointed. And sad. And to be frank, pissed.
And not because I didn’t get the ticket because I know shit happens in life and not everything can goes according to plan all the time (although if you’re treating this as a business and profiting from it, you should be damn sure to keep your end of the bargain or at the very least own up to your mistake). More because I’ve asked multiple times about the ticket info and the seller kept insisting on not giving the information and sticking to their “We’ll give the ticket D-1, don’t worry about it” rule.
Like, how do you missed 3 tickets and not realized it? (I know Blackpink said “no one’s keepin’ tally” but I don’t think it applies to this. You really should keep a tally dude.) Now it’s D-14 before the concert and you dropped this bomb on us. And it’s not like VIP tickets are just floating around out there. Time is needed to find those and do some research on the seller too.
But anyway, I felt drained at that point and was still trying to let the situation sink in. I remember I was about to get dinner and my appetite just vanished all together. I did let my sister know about it and while I’m still in the state of shock at dinner, both my cousin and my sister immediately started searching for ticket replacement. (Honestly, super thankful for them ‘cause they weren’t even gonna go to the concert but search for the ticket for me anyway.)
And so it kinda kicked-off the next new thing I learned after experiencing my first ticket war, buying ticket from non-official channels. (To be continued on Part 2: The World of Scalpers)
Also, before I forget, my cousin’s friend, A (who knows the seller) actually reached out to me the next day and personally apologized about the whole situation. I voiced my grievances and disappointments and A owned up to the mistakes and took responsibility for it without trying to find excuses which I really appreciate. A also told me that she’ll help to look for ticket replacement so hopefully I can get the VIP ticket. And she really did. For the next couple of days, A sent me leads on VIP tickets that she found online so I could follow up on them. Just want to say I appreciate the gesture especially knowing that she wasn’t even the one who’s selling the tickets and not even going to the concert.
And to those who made it ‘til here, thank you for reading! 😊
