Disgruntled U2 Fans Consider Legal Action After Missing Concert
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_localsfo/20110609/ts_yblog_localsfo/disgruntled-u2-fans-consider-legal-action-after-missing-concert?bouchon=807,ca
Not sure if they have a legal leg -- bad traffic isn't really anyone's fault -- but U2 may take the opportunity to bank some goodwill here. Like if a you had a ticket that was never scanned in at the check in gate, you can get a refund.
It was more than traffic. The venue has 10,000 parking spots plus some additional overflow and sold almost 70,000 tickets. Doesn't work. BART doesn't work for everyone either. They were not able to manage capacity and had no contingency plan. That is not the ticketholders fault. For large Shoreline events, they have arranged for people to park WAY OFFSITE at Google properties and have hired shuttle busses to transport the fans.
Yeah, I agree for the most part. What the stadium really should have done was work with BART to make it convenient to get to/from the concert, heavily publicized that there would be limited, expensive parking and heavily promote BART as
the option. BART may not work for everyone but it could work for a lot more people than used it. Looking out the window the Union City station (first stop after Fremont, where the parking lot was mostly full) still had plenty of parking spaces. Peninsula people could have gone to Millbrae BART. Also, BART should have had the foresight to plan ahead for the concert and publicize that they will run later trains to get everyone home from the concert, rather than put up annoying signs saying ATTENTION U2 CONCERTGOERS: GATES ARE CLOSING AT 12:00!!! LAST TRAIN LEAVES AT 12:22!!! all over the station, causing people to drive and/or panic. Worst case scenario this could have caused a stampede...good thing it didn't. I found out that they finally gave in (they had to) and did run 13 extra trains until 2 AM, but it would have been better if they would have been supportive from the beginning & let people know that. There's no excuse for the stories about people driving to the stadium being redireected to no-man's-land and then being told they couldn't even park there, though.
That being said, I think lawsuits are ridiculous, but it's reasonable to give them refunds. Out of 70,000 tickets -- a few hundred, even a few thousand refunds is not going to break their back.