It Was a Long, Cold Night.

By Derek Palmer, Managing Director, Executive Vice President, International

Well, most people know that I have been with Tickets.com for a long time, but not many know how I got into the business. I stood out all night at a ticket outlet in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia trying to get Pink Floyd tickets. It rained… it snowed… it was cold. At about 3am the mall security told the small group of us that we couldn’t stay there any longer but if we came back at 8am we could line up again and they gave us little carnival tickets to hold our place in line. I happily scampered to my car to grab a little shut eye.

At 10 minutes to 8 I emerged and went back to the now fairly long line. Feeling smug, I walked to the front where I was to take my previous spot (I was third in line as I recall) only to find that nobody knew what I was talking about and the security guards manning the line refused to honor the red carnival ticket that I was frantically waving in his face. I and about 10 other people ended up at the back of the line. We eventually got our tickets but not nearly the quality we would have.

The night of the concert we had a sort of mini reunion in the upper deck of RFK stadium- still a great show. I remember thinking “there has got to be a better way to get tickets".

A few years later a friend of mine asked if I would drive him to a job interview with a company called ProTix in Fairfax, Virginia. While we were there I was asked if I wanted to interview for a phone center position as well. Immediately my mind raced back to my Pink Floyd experience and I agreed to an interview. Interestingly, I got the job and my friend didn’t - and I have been here ever since.

I have always loved live entertainment and feel truly lucky to participate in a way that helps people experience their favourite team, artist or event. No television show or video game can touch seeing an event live.