[SteelTown]

Springsteen a near sellout, speculators look to cash in

By DOUG FOLEY
The Hamilton Spectator
Didn’t get Bruce Springsteen tickets?

Take heart - and  a small bank loan - because websites are offering good seats in CoppsColiseum for the Spingsteen concert March 3.

For $1,332 each, they better be good.

That was the top price being asked briefly on tix2event.com for a seat in Section 121.

If that’s too expensive for your tastes, ticketliquidator.com was offering the same section for $1,200. (Talk about sucking up to The Boss.)

Lower prices could be found on the popular on-line auction site, e-Bay, where a seat was up for bid at $691.59.98, still almost fives times the $115 top ticket price for the Copps concert.

The high-priced ducats were being offered by the ticket broker websites even while regular-priced ones were still available through TicketMaster.ca

That came as no surprise to Duncan Gillespie, chief exective officer of Hamilton entertainment and Convetnion Facilties Inc., which oversees the Coliseum.

He said he had heard tickets were being offered as early as Thursday night.

“A lot of these people are just speculators. They say they can get you tickets figuring  they will get some to sell,” he said.

And it appears likely such sources will be the only way to get tickets before the Springsteen concert.

Gillespie said the show was almost sold out by the afternoon and he had no doubts that all 18,000 tickets would be gone by Monday.

There were 1,000 tickets still available but most were in the upper bowl and behind and to the sides of the stage.

“They may not be the best seats in the house but you do get in the building,” he said.

“It’s a very happy day for us. We not only sold very, very well, but we also have The Boss coming to Hamilton.”