Ed is coming to Taiwan again 紅髮艾德又來台灣

Ed is coming to Taiwan again 紅髮艾德又來台灣

20th January 2019 0 By livinguktaiwan

Ed is coming to Taiwan – Take 1

Ed Sheeran is one of my favourite artists along with Adele, and he was due to come to Taiwan in 2017. I was very lucky to get tickets to see him. A few weeks before he was due to come out, news had it that he broke his arm whilst cycling in London and had to cancel some of his Asian tour, Taiwan being one of them. I was gutted!!
2017年紅髮艾德原本到台灣開演唱會,我很幸運買到票。 誰知開場前兩星期,他在英國騎腳踏車手部受傷,要取消演唱會。結果一場歡喜一場空。

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Ed is coming to Taiwan – Take 2

A couple of weeks ago it was announced that that Ed Sheeran was coming out to Asia again, and he would kick off his Asian tour in Taiwan! Me and my friends were over the moon and couldn’t wait for the tickets to be released at noon today. If we were to go by last time, I knew for sure the tickets would all be snapped up the moment they were released.
前兩個星期收到消息,他又會在4月初再到台灣開演唱會, 今天中午開賣票。 上次搶票情況十分激烈,我看今次也會一樣。

I made sure I was logged into the ticketing website and had all my credit card details ready at around 11.45. Half a minute before noon I hit enter, the little icon kept on turning, it felt like eternity. I finally got in two minutes later. My target was to get the most expensive tickets in the seating area.  This cost NTD3000 / £75 / USD97 and was near the front of the stadium. They were all sold out already, as were the cheaper ones towards the back of the stadium!
1159 我已在電腦前準備就緒進入購票網站。 等了兩分鐘終於登入訂購的網頁, 我原本打算買NTD3000看台區的票。 天喔! 所有看台票全已搶購一空! 剩下只有NTD4000至6000的搖滾區。

How much should I pay?

Decision decisions…. do I go one price bracket up to the NTD4000 / £100 / USD130 ones? These were at the back of the standing pen. I hate it when I have to make a snap decision like this.  After pondering for a minute I went for it, as I didn’t know if and when I’d be able to see him perform again. Luckily I managed to grab two tickets and waited for the checkout page. I was stuck here for another 10 minutes and then got a message saying that I had 8 more minutes to complete my transaction. Eventually I was timed out and never made it to the payment page.
想了一分鐘,馬上決定買NTD4000的搖滾區票。 結果在網站上擾攘超過一小時, 不是未能進入結帳版面,就是說我的信用卡 失效, 最後更說我購票超過總張數上限。 我連一張票都都不能結帳,又怎會超出購票上限呢? 購票網站真是爛得可憐。

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I checked the availability again, everything was sold out. It was 12.25.
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Frustration

I decided not to give up and refreshed the screen a few more times.  Again, I managed to get two more NTD4000 tickets but struggle to get through to the payment gateway again. When I did manage to get through, it either timed me out after the 10 minute payment window timeframe, or simply rejected my credit card. I kept on trying till eventually they said I had exceeded the number of tickets one was allowed to buy – six. This was utter rubbish as I only had 4 in my basket all of which I couldn’t pay.

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By 13.12 I had spent over an hour on this and was mentally strained and frustrated.  That’s not a good position to be on a Sunday. Ed and I were not destined to meet and I figured it was time to throw in the towel. I decided to check my account one last time.  Perhaps one of the the payments hadn’t gone through without me knowing (one can only hope). My two orders were still in my basket, but I noticed a new message. I had until 1500 to make my payment. It turns out the ticketing agent realised they couldn’t handle payments for 30,000 tickets within a very short period, and extended the payment timeframe.
筋疲力盡之下,我終於決定放棄。看來我與紅髮艾德又是緣慳一面。 臨放棄前我順便到購物車裏看,發現之前點了的四張NTD4000搖滾區票全部還在。而且結帳限期延遲到下午3時, 我又再嘗試結帳。

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What next?

This time I got through immediately. Viola!!!
這次馬上成功。 終於有機會與紅髮艾德見面!!!!!

Now I only have to work out how I can stand for 4 or 5 hours on the day.
現在只剩下的問題就是當日我能熬得住站上4,5個小時嗎?

In the meanwhile, here’s a new song written by Ed Sheeran, performed by Westlife.
演唱會還有兩個多月才開始, 在這裏分享一首紅髮艾德近期為西城男孩 樂隊而作的新曲。

 


UPDATE

Now it’s 2230 and I just found out the system has released a big batch of tickets again.   I managed to get the seating ones that I originally wanted!!  So now I have spare tickets that I need to deal with.  What a day!

晚上2230,原來爛爛的售票網站剛推出很多票。結果我買到原本想要的三千元看台票。現在要處理多出的四千元票。