The surest way to guarantee something won’t be enjoyable at all is to plan it for my kids. The more money and effort, the less fun. That ratio is undefeated. I was flying in the face of my own wisdom, then, when I booked tickets for the whole family for an expensive theatrical production in the big city. But this wasn’t just any live show. It had dinosaurs. Surely that would impress my girls. Based on the inverse way my kids judge everything I put resources into, probably not, but I decided to try anyway since I still occasionally think I can buy my way into being a good father. Welcome to Jurassic Park.
The event was Jurassic World Live, and it was a stage show set in the famous dino cinematic universe. The only way I could ever enjoy live theater is if it involved raptors eating people, although there was no guarantee that would actually happen at the show. Maybe this would be the first time in six movies and one animated series when those electric fences finally worked. Years ago when I had more free time and fewer kids (there might be a connection between those two data points), I took my daughters to a traveling animatronic dinosaur show that set up shop in the finest abandoned parking lots the Midwest had to offer. It was a low budget tourist trap, but the kids seemed to like it, and by that I only mean they weren’t scarred for life. When it comes to family outings, you have to grade on a curve. I figured Jurassic World Live would be a better version of that low budget tourist trap. It would be worth every penny to see movie-quality animatronic dinosaurs in real life. If you ever feel like procrastinating (which I can only assume you do since you’re reading this), look up the making of the first Jurassic Park movie. The life-sized animatronic T. rex sometimes moved on its own, and the only way to fix it was for a technician to crawl in through its massive jaws and down into its belly, combining the two usually unrelated fears of confined spaces and being eaten alive. A documentary about the making of the movie would be scarier than the actual movie. That was the kind of thing I wanted to see on stage. Take my money please.
That proved to be the hardest part of the whole process. I admit I’m not the most tech savvy person in the world. Exactly none of you just gasped in surprise. After reading even one newsletter, it’s not hard to believe I’m bad at literally everything. Since I generally oppose going places or doing things (and the related activity of spending money on either or both), I don’t have a lot of experience at buying tickets. For every live event I’ve been to in the last fifteen years, the tickets were either free or handled by someone else. Apparently that was a skill I should have been cultivating this entire time because I failed hard when I tried it myself. When I said this show was expensive, I meant expensive for me, the cheapest man alive. Tickets were advertised as being $25 each. When I actually went to the site, though, they were $32 each, plus a nine dollar service fee. Not $9 altogether, but an extra $9 for each ticket. Apparently a skilled artisan had to attach each one to an email by hand. Whatever. I’d already made the decision to go, and I wasn’t ready to restart the exhaustive process of watching targeted Facebook ads until some other random event convinced me to waste my money. After all the made-up fees and surcharges, our family outing on a budget was going to cost $283. I nearly died of sticker shock, but then again, everything is more expensive these days. Taking a family of six out to a sit-down restaurant costs $100 with tip, even when four of our orders are grilled cheese sandwiches I could have made for less than a dollar each at home. Life is expensive. Dying is, too. Don’t get me started on coffins. I bit the bullet and sent the purchase through.
That’s when the trouble started. There were multiple companies involved in this single, simple transaction. The stadium’s website sent me to a third party ticket seller, which then forwarded me to a separate, unrelated ticket receiving app. You might know it as the one currently being threatened with congressional hearings for screwing up ticket sales to fans of a certain female artist. Never mess with Swifties. I wasn’t shocked, then, when my transaction was less than smooth. The company selling the tickets required me to download them to the ticket receiving app and “transfer” the tickets to myself. Following their links, I downloaded the app, set up an account, and tried to accept the tickets. It gave me an error message. I tried five more times, getting the same error message on each attempt, before the app finally said the tickets went through. I logged out assuming all was well. Big mistake.
The night before the show, I checked the app just to make sure everything was in order. The app said I didn’t have an account. Uh oh. I tried all three email addresses I regularly use, but no luck. Panicking, I created a new account. Predictably, the app told me I didn’t have any upcoming shows. Obviously that wasn’t right. I emailed the app’s tech support people with the confirmation number I got when I bought the tickets. They told me the confirmation number went to the ticket seller, not to the separate ticket app, so it didn’t prove anything. Then I sent the ticket app screen caps of the email the app sent me after I successfully set up my account and accepted the tickets. Again, that somehow didn’t verify anything because… reasons. If I wanted the tickets, I had to contact the third party ticket seller the stadium used, not the third party ticket-holding app it also used. That makes sense.
Although I was nervous when I went to bed that night, I figured the crisis would prove to be much ado about nothing. I had proof I had paid. Worst case scenario, the venue could have replacement tickets waiting for me at the will-call desk. Apparently I was living in a fantasy from back in the ancient 1990s, when transactions could happen in person and we weren’t all subject to the iron will of mercurial apps. On the morning of the show, I called the ticket selling company as soon as they opened. The rep on the phone line could see that I had successfully paid for the tickets. She could confirm that I was the rightful owner of those seats for that show. She could not send the tickets electronically again. She could not print physical copies for me to pick up. She could not contact the stadium to let me in. She could not issue a refund. We had a circular conversation for an hour which was just a hundred different forms of her telling me no. Earlier this year, I got scammed by a guy who I sent $200 for an Xbox. The only difference between him and the ticket company is the scammer didn’t have a helpline to make up reasons for why I couldn’t get my money back. According to the company, I hadn’t purchased a ticket. I had actually licensed a dynamic security code that could never again be reproduced. Without that key bit of computer script, there was no way to get past the front doors. Never mind that I was trying to watch some fake dinosaurs, not hack into a Swiss bank account. There was simply no way for me to walk in and sit in the empty seat I could prove I had paid for. The technology didn’t exist yet. I was out of luck.
I messaged Lola to tell her we couldn’t go to the show and began researching alternative venues where I could disappoint my children. All of the family activities I plan follow a similar trajectory, and it’s always straight into a cliff. Then, two hours before the event, I managed to recover the tickets through the app on my own. I finally had the codes everyone agreed I rightfully owned but that no one would help me get back or use. Our dinosaur adventure was back on.
When the kids got out of school, we had a quick meal of leftovers and then sped downtown. Apparently we don’t leave the suburbs much. The girls were amazed to see buildings more than three stories tall. Imagine that scene at the start of Jurassic Park where the paleontologists look up at living, breathing brachiosauruses for the first time and you’ll get a sense of their awe. Apparently I didn’t need those expensive tickets after all. I could have blown their minds for the price of parking. Nonetheless, I had paid too much and wasted too much time to let the show go. I hustled the kids from our distant parking spot to the stadium. At the entrance, a bored clerk half-heartedly pointed his phone at the tickets I had worked so hard for. I’m not even sure if he really scanned them. A second later, we were in. It was time for dinosaurs.
For once, something I took the kids to was worth the money. Don’t get me wrong. For any adults watching, it was terrible. The actors lip synched to obviously pre-recorded dialogue. They had to exaggerate their gestures to show they were the ones who were supposed to be talking. Musicians have had their careers canceled for less. My favorite moment was when someone screamed but got their timing off so no sound came out. It was the same silent scream I made when I was on the phone with the ticket people for an hour. But somehow, my kids didn’t care at all. There were explosions and stunts and, most importantly, dinosaurs. They were big and loud and made the kids jump at all the right moments. The girls were so into it. I paid too much money and wasted too much time getting kicked around in the ticket buying process, but for once I pulled off something my kids actually enjoyed and will remember. Afterwards, the girls begged me to take them to more shows at the stadium. Disney on Ice is coming through in January. I’m on the fence because it will be so different from Jurassic World Live, but maybe I’m wrong. If Cinderella gets attacked by an ice skating T. rex, expect a glowing review.
Afterwards, I overheard a jaded kid in the bathroom tell his friend, “Most of those dinosaurs were fake.” “Most” was doing a lot of work in that sentence. This kid was too cool for the show, and even he had to concede that at least some of the dinosaurs were the real deal. Probably just the little ones, though, since everyone knows these theater companies are cheap. I appreciated his skepticism, but for once, I didn’t share it. I got exactly what I paid for, plus a bunch of bonus headaches thrown in for free. On a memory-per-dollar basis, live shows offer a good return on investment. They give my kids something they can talk about for years without the added expenses of food, lodging, and travel required by a real vacation. Disney World may be off the menu for good, but years from now, if my kids claim I never took them anywhere fun, I can point to a bunch of live experiences I paid for. Yes, the tickets are a hassle, but that just adds to the mystique. People only value things if they’re hard to get, and I make everything in my life harder than it needs to be. I can feel the value building by the second.
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Catch you next time.
James
The Real Dinosaurs