Ticketron: The Average Joe's Ticket Agency

We didn't have the Internet or Ticketmaster during the Seventies if we wanted concert or other tickets, but we did have the great service known as Ticketron. The idea was simple; have a ticket service outlet at various department and other stores. It beat waiting on lines at box offices, and you didn't need a credit card.

My friends and I typically used the Ticketron counter on the balcony level of the Abraham and Strauss (now a Macy's) department store on Fulton Street in Brooklyn. Usually there was not much of a line, but things could change if a hot act was coming. In 1974 the Grateful Dead and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young both began selling tickets at the same time for their summer shows at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City. On that morning the line stretched down the stairs to the main floor of A and S, where kids waited for hours to purchase a maximum of four seats to each show. When you finally got to the counter you would pay for your tickets, which were then printed by a machine that seemed fascinating at the time. Using a noisy dot-matrix printer, it would shoot the tickets out in a continuous strip into a  plexiglass box at what seemed like lightening speed. You could pay with cash, which was great for kids, and you had the tickets in the palm of your hand.

Ticketron charged only a dollar over the face value of your ticket, which was one hellova deal. Then came the evil  Ticketmaster, which charged heavier service charges. With its aggressive marketing and ability to pass higher charges on to the performers, Ticketmaster lured many of the big acts, and in 1991 they gobbled up Ticketron.