The challenge of buying NYE tickets

In October, Phish announced a four-night New Year's run (Dec. 28-31) at their home away from home, New York City's Madison Square Garden.

Phish has done shows at MSG as part or all of their New Year's run eight times. They also did two other MSG runs (October 1996 and early December 2009). Of those 19 shows in 10 visits to the iconic venue, I attended eight shows over seven of the runs. So Phish, MSG and I have always gone well together.

Since this year was a big Phish tour year for me, in which I captured some of the thrills of yesteryear by attending 11 shows in spring and summer, to cap it off with the MSG run would be fitting. To that end, I entered the Tickets By Mail lottery requesting all four shows. I got two - the 28th and 30th.
Dec. 30 is special to me. It was the date of Phish's first ever MSG show, back in 1994 and I was there (floor seats!) with my brother, Ben. It is also the date I have seen Phish more than any other - 1994, 1998, 1999 and 2010.

But New Year's Eve is the Holy Grail of Phish shows. Every phan knows the NYE show is the most theatrical, sometimes the best played, show of the year. I was fortunate enough to attend NYE in 1995 and 1997 at MSG, and flew down to Florida for the Big Cypress 1999 show.

Phish went on hiatus in 2000, so there was no NYE show that year or in 2001. Their not-so-triumphant return was NYE 2002 at MSG. No luck getting tickets to that - they went in minutes and were subsequently scalping in the thousands. 2003 was in Miami and not practical for me at the time (I'd do it in a heartbeat now!), and they broke up for good (so they said) in 2004. Reunited in 2009, they did NYE in Miami again, but I was not sure it was worth it anymore, since they were a rusty shadow of the band I loved.

Everything changed last year. Phish not only became great again, they were better than ever. I will always feel like I missed out on one of their greatest tours, summer 2010, because I had been listening to the 2009 recordings and often cringing at the badness. It was autumn before I listened to the summer 2010 greatness, so I hit a few October shows before trying to get those hot NYE tickets. I was able to see the two excellent Worcester, Mass., shows on 12/27 and 12/28, and the 12/30 MSG show, but NYE was beyond reach again.

Something else had changed in the 11 years since I had been to a NYE show - online ticketing. Back in the day before the internet, Ticketmaster sold tickets through outlets at music stores and it was first come, first served. The more you wanted it, and the earlier you were willing to show up, the better your tickets. I was in college at the time, so you bet I was out there, the day before, sleeping outside the store in the cold, waiting for the doors to open the next day. It paid off with floor seats in 1995 and 1997.

But now, the only way to get tickets, in most cases, is at the awful Ticketmaster website. Tickets went on sale for NYE at 10 a.m. that day in October and the website immediately crashed from the enormous traffic. A few lucky people got through and the rest, of course, went to scalpers both legal and illegal who always get the best tickets in this corrupt system.

I'm happy about seeing two more Phish shows to round out the year, but unless a miracle happens, it looks like I will be missing another New Year's Eve with Phish.