hannah mon-mania

when my wife heard that hannah montana was doing a concert at the target center in minneapolis she thought it would be fun to get the girls tickets. now my girls do not live and breathe hannah, as some apparently do, but they do like her and her music. to be honest i know virtually nothing about her but my wife follows this stuff pretty closely and being the daughter of billy ray cyrus, and a product of the unstoppable mass marketing force that is disney, it seemed like an ok thing to do. so a few saturdays ago, at the appointed hour, i logged into ticketmaster hoping to score a few seats. little did i realize that commoners like me and the thousands of other parents doing the same thing, had no chance at all at obtaining tickets as the concert "sold out" in a matter of seconds. as it turned out, hannah montana was the biggest concert of the season, and arguably the biggest concert in terms of ticket demand, EVER at the target center. the ticket brokers, and their "sophisticated" software sucked up all of the tickets almost instantaneously, where they appeared moments later at ebay and craigslist, before parents had a chance to buy them at face value. i had no idea that purchasing tickets would be this difficult but i found myself scouring the web to see if i could get tickets from a broker. as it turned out, the tickets were selling at about 3X's face value and i ended up sucking it up and getting three so my wife could take my girls. there were a lot of angry parents upset that brokers were profiting at the expense of parents who want to take their kids to the show, but i can actually see both sides of the argument. i wasn't thrilled that some ticket broker in new york city probably has some of my money now but its supply vs demand, free market society, blah blah. yes, it blew that i paid a small fortune for three tickets but i didn't HAVE to...nobody made me. thats what they cost and i paid it.
in the end, despite some logistical problems where people had to wait in line for the doors to open, the kids had a great time and really enjoyed themselves. would i do it again? probably not but it was part of the girls christmas and they know it was a once in a lifetime deal. sometimes you just want to do something for your kids and you shouldn't have to feel guilty about it.
believe the hype here or if you're really hardcore, check out the setlist here.