In spite of Ticketmaster's best efforts...

I got the tickets.

But I do have to say this: I don't think that the folks at Ticketmaster could make it any harder to buy tickets (or should I say "pre-buy" tickets) if they made a concerted effort.

(Note the pun on "concert." Yes, it was deliberate. Yes, I know it's silly. Yes, I like it that way.)

To begin with, the 10:00EDT pre-sale didn't really begin at 10:00. I know. I was there. It really began at something like 10:05. Well, you could click on "Find tickets" at 10:05, but then you got the screen saying they hadn't gone on sale yet. Finally, around 10:08, you could search for tickets, but then God help you.

Then, you had to face the little box with all the squiggly lines and the "secret word" (that often isn't even a word) that makes sure you're a real, flesh-and-blood human being. Normally, that isn't a challenge for me. But the Ticketmaster website kept saying (a) I got the word wrong or (b) the page had expired--even though it had only been a few seconds since it appeared. Or, even worse, it accused me several times of using multiple browser windows to reserve tickets. That wasn't the case, mind you: I'm guessing that that warning was a product of (a) and (b) above.

There were no floor seats offered, but after about 25 minutes of frustration, I did manage to get us on the fifth row of the lower level. Of course, I had to give up several batches of tickets in higher rows before I found those (even though I was searching for the "best available" tickets). And of course, I had to deal with all of the problems described above every time I tried a new batch.

In any case, mark your calendars, folks. We're going to see Robert.