Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Feature story

It won't let me past the full address so I will just put it all on here...

2nd story, the follow up is this...

AG helps girl see Hannah Montana

Nine-year-old Destiny Hendrix will get her tickets to the Hannah Montana concert in St. Louis after all, her aunt said today.

Aunt Stephanie Abdullah credited Ticketmaster and Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon for agreeing to allow Destiny to pick up her tickets at the St. Louis box office of the Scottrade Center.

They waived a rule requiring that the person who reserved the tickets online -- in this case, Abdullah -- appear in person to pick up the tickets.

Abdullah is an Army sergeant stationed in Los Angeles. Her sister lives in St. Louis but couldn't get tickts for her daughter because she doesn't have Internet access or a credit card.

Abdullah was on KMOX radio this morning along with Joe Freeman of Ticketmaster.

""We have to take care of her," Freeman later said of Destiny. But he added that "the rules will be complied with so that the people in St. Louis who bought tickets get them.
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"I said on the air that we're not going to make any more exceptions," Freeman said.

The original story is this...
Hannah Montana puts aunt in bind

Our earlier story: The saga just won’t end for those in search of the elusive Hannah Montana concert tickets.

Stephanie Abdullah is a staff sergeant in the Army and a veteran of the Iraq war. She was one of the lucky ones when 1,900 more tickets were released for Hannah’s sold-out concert Thursday in St. Louis.

The additional tickets went on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday on Ticketmaster’s website. Abdullah started at 9:55 a.m., clicking over and over and over "so when 10 o’clock came I was in there."

But now she can’t get the tickets because she’s not here. Under rules announced Friday, anyone buying the extra tickets must show up at the Scottrade Center box office here before the show with a credit card and ID.

Whoever shows up must be the person who reserved the tickets.

"That’s ridiculous," says Abdullah. She’s stationed in Los Angeles and says she can’t get to St. Louis to pick up the tickets for sister and her sister’s daughter, Destiny.

The tickets are a birthday present for Destiny, who lives in St. Louis and recently turned 9.

Abdullah had never heard of Hannah. "But it’s important to me" because "It’s important to my niece. Apparently Hannah is a very big deal for her."

"Hannah" is actually a 14-year-old girl named Miley Cyrus who portrays the Montana character on the Disney cable channel. Her tour kicks off in St. Louis and was sold out in all 54 concerts.

Abdullah knows a thing or two about the media. She is a former Hollywood publicist who is assigned to an Army public affairs unit. She is recovering from an injury in Iraq.

She sent what seemed like hundreds of e-mails to the Post-Dispatch, all the other St. Louis media she could think of, Ticketmaster, the Scottrade Center, Disney and Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon.

Nixon is investigating ticket scalpers and announced last week that extra tickets would be availble to the St. Louis concert.

Nixon spokesman Scott Holste said the attorney general had announced as early as Oct. 4 that any additional tickets would have to be picked up in person.

"Everyone else that we heard from understood the conditions and accepts those conditions in order to be able to buy those tickets at face value," Holste said.

He said the idea is to discourage scalpers.

A father who reserved two tickets for his daughter at Saturday’s sale says the rules will cause trouble for parents who aren’t able to pick up tickets in person.

The father didn’t want his name used — he plans to take a "sick" day at work to pick up his daughter’s tickets.

Ticketmaster and the concert promoters couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

"That is unreasonable" and discriminates against a class of people, Abdullah says. She’s referring to her sister and others who don’t have credit cards or the Internet. That’s why Abdullah got involved.

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