Through their "Fanbox 20" fan club, she somehow scored 2nd row tickets at face value to their recent concert here. So, there's at least some benefit to the whole fan club thing.

And this is something ticketmaster is fighting as we speak. I of course can't find the article (it may have been a local weekly paper) but ticketmaster is trying prevent venues from giving seats to the bands.

My favorite ticketmaster alternative, ticketweb, was of course acquired by ticketmasteras soon as it got vaugely popular. And amazingly enough, ticketing fees are up to $5 per ticket for the concert I'm thinking of going to instead of the one or two bucks they used to be.

Matthew