Hi guys, I remember hearing about very high prices in places like America and Australia when the BND tour was going on, and it's only now, when I have some idea of the exchange rates, that I release just how much more you have to pay than we do in the UK. My tickets cost £30 each, which seemed pretty reasonable for a two-hour show (and in response to something mentioned earlier, we got real fire during Desert Rose! :-D). I hope the prices don't go up for this tour. I daresay I would find the money somehow, but I would resent a sudden price hike. As for the "whiners" debate... I don't blame people for complaining as long as they don't do it in a way that insults others. Some of us think that for what we're getting, the prices are a good deal. Some of us think that it's a rip-off. That's opinion for you. The fan club's ticket arrangements do bother me; apart from anything else it doesn't look like it's going to be easy to ensure that people who can't be in the standing areas for health reasons get an actual seat if they use the club's offer of money off for ordering tickets through them (see the official site messageboard). This annoys me a lot, as does other stuff that's been mentioned here, because a big reason it seemed worthwhile paying for membership of the new-fangled version of the club was the fact that we would have special ticket arrangements. It's not like the old version of the club where you had tangible evidence of what you'd be getting; the six magazines per year, the diary etc. People have joined the club with a certain impression of what the special offers would be like, and, be it by accident or by design, availability of tickets hasn't always matched the initial expectation. It seems a bit much also to be charged to use a messageboard. I used to be an admin on such a board, so I have a fair idea of what's involved in terms of time (moderation, posting of announcements) and money commitments. For all I know, some other artists might charge for access to their boards. But we're talking about a case in which we seem to be spending an awful lot of money on uncertainties (yeah, I know nothing's all that certain with touring, but people have been led to believe things which then worked out differently), even though the sponsorship would be expected to keep prices down. Unless of course... things are worse than we thought, and it's only the various sponsors who are preventing club membership costing something like $80 for Premium, and tickets which now cost $150 costing $200? The situation with the bonus tracks is frustrating. I understand that the reason for this is to prevent one country's stock of CDs being sold in another, but why not have a system in place which allows this to happen, while still giving people the chance to get the tracks they want in another way? Instead of paying £3.99 for a single, I'd happily pay £1.00 (which seems standard from what I've seen on the site of Virgin Megastore, which sells individual songs this way) per track (and no I-Pod exclusivity; make it available to those of us with PCs too) downloaded. As I learned by scrutinising the information which came up when I played a recent single in Windows Media Player, it's possible for a downloaded track to come with something called a license, which then prevents the track being played anywhere other than on the computer to which it was downloaded (whether as an MP3 or when burned to a CD). So it wouldn't have to lead to piracy. Kipper: I draw the line at personal attacks, but I don't see why people shouldn't critique the work/influence of him or other members of the band. I love the album, but some people hate it. When people make reasoned explanations for loving or hating it, instead of just throwing out "this sucks/this rules", I don't have a problem. Someone asked why some people still come to the list when they're so annoyed about so much stuff related to Sting: the ticket prices, the album, the band. My guess is that they still come because they still enjoy Sting's earlier work enough to care what he does now. I figure that they came when the album arrived because they hoped it'd match the quality of their favourites from his back catalogue. No-one wants to be disappointed in an album by a favourite artist, and no-one wants to feel let down or taken advantage of by the fan club or concert venues, or Sting himself as a performer. But some of us feel that way about one or more of these things, and we're still interested enough in Sting for it to matter enough to be worth voicing our opinions on. I've seen this same situation play out on a messageboard dedicated to a series of movies which recently got a sequel by a different writing/directing team. A lot of the people who were positive about the sequel and the spin-offs (in comics, books and games for instance) felt that the ones who weren't happy were fault-finding for the sake of fault-finding. But nobody wanted to come out of the movie thinking that they'd wasted their time and money, or that the series had been tarnished by this new addition. They loved the preceding movies so much that they weren't prepared to let problems with the new installment go unremarked. Well, if any of you are still reading this long email, thanks for listening. And one more thing - I can't find any information on when the Inside DVD is coming out in Europe. Is it just that they're delaying it to coincide with Sting beginning to tour there, so that people who enjoy the concerts will go out and buy the DVD? Or are we not going to get it here at all? :-( Angeline _________________________________________________________________ It's fast, it's easy and it's free. Get MSN Messenger today! http://www.msn.co.uk/messenger