Photo by MarceGrez

Update: As of 6.23.16, the first wave of voucher-eligible concerts has closed. More will be added. I’ll try to keep up… plus, my local daily newspaper interviewed me on this issue yesterday due in part to a mini-viral post on my Facebook page:

It all started with a couple of Wilco fans.

In the early aughts, two men bought tickets to a Wilco show and were displeased with the rigamarole that accompanied their purchase. They sued, and — fast-forward 13 years or so — this has resulted in the settlement of a protracted class-action suit in the form of millions of ‘ticket vouchers’ for past Ticketmaster customers.

The roll-out of these vouchers has been bumpy to say the least. There’s only a handful of eligible shows, the list isn’t sorted by performer or state — only by venue, which is clunky at best to search — and many people had issues with making their vouchers work at check-out in the first couple of days.

What’s more, the ‘first-come, first-serve’ model means a lot of the initial shows listed as voucher-friendly are already sold out. Several are already gone that were there yesterday afternoon — some say ‘sold out,’ other shows just dropped off the list. Saratoga Springs, N.Y seems to have completely disappeared, after having one of the more impressive available line-ups just last night.

But the bottom line here, especially for music fans, is that we still may have some free tickets up for grabs between now and next May, when they are set to expire. If you attended a concert between 1999 and 2013, chances are you have at least one voucher code waiting for you at Ticketmaster.com (here is how to access this information).

Plus, after posting a quick, one-off update about the vouchers on Facebook, I went mini-viral. My friends’ responses proved that many people have dozens of free vouchers to cash in; I have two, plus a couple of $2.25 shipping discount codes, and I’m pretty happy about that. I’m also 38 and therefore the preponderance of bands that were big in the nineties doesn’t bother me as much as some other people.

I planned on doing a real public service here with a nice, long list of shows in my local region of New England and New York. Sadly, it’s a considerably smaller list than even just yesterday, and the shows start as early as this weekend. Hopefully, concert offerings will expand again as we continue to bluster about this… for now, I was only able to muster a couple of bullet points.

• The venues are limited to Live Nation stages, and the concerts are being updated periodically, so there’s a chance more acts will be added.
• If you scroll up to the top of the screen on the listing site, there is a button on the right to filter by location (city).
• The vouchers are good until May, 2017, but subject to availability.
• One voucher = two general admission tickets.
• In Mansfield, Mass., as of today (6.22.16), the following shows are still open: Keith Urban, Duran Duran w/ Nile Rodgers.
• In New York, New York, the following shows are still open (plus a slew of tribute bands): Sasheer Zamata (SNL) and Nicole Byer (Mtv), The Proclaimers, and Tiffany.

Have more information? Did I get anything wrong? Let me know — I wrote this quickly and I hate to be wrong. Comment or shout at me on Twitter.