Avril Lavigne’s smash debut album was called Let Go - and let go is exactly what local fans have to do if they think they’re getting tickets to her first concert in Kingston.
Tickets to Lavigne’s April 8 show at the Kingston Regional Sports and Entertainment Centre went on sale Monday at 10 a.m.
By noon, all 5,300 tickets were gone.
There was a frenzy for the $59.50 and $39.50 tickets starting at 10 a.m.
At 10:05 a.m., the online site for buying tickets - www.kingstonrsec.com - was already telling hopeful buyers that there were no more seats available.
During the next hour, the site would say one or two seats were available, and then no seats at all, and so the morning went.
Richard Adams, who works in the publicity department at Nettwerk, Lavigne’s Vancouver-based management company, told the Whig-Standard yesterday that tickets officially sold out at noon.
After tickets sold out, people who tried to buy tickets online got the message: “The ticketing system currently indicates that no seats are available for this performance. This performance may not yet be on sale, or may be sold-out. Please try at a later time or contact customer service.”
Those who were lucky to buy tickets would have spent almost $100 for a pair of tickets. A pair of $39.50 tickets also has $17.20 in convenience and facility fees tacked on, plus a $3.50 order processing charge, for a total of $99.70.
Lavigne’s concert in Kingston is her first local show since she burst onto the music scene with her album Let Go in 2002. That album produced the mega-hits Complicated and Sk8erboi.
She has also released 2004’s Under My Skin and last year’s The Best Damn Thing, which spawned the No. 1 hit Girlfriend.
Hardcore Lavigne fans who are part of her fan club had the opportunity to buy tickets to her Best Damn Tour show for 10 days before the tickets went on sale to the general public.
Doors to her show open at 6 p.m. and the concert begins at 7 with opening act Boys Like Girls.
Her tour starts March 5 in Victoria, B.C., and wraps up July 9 in Vienna, Austria.
