[bobrockruinedthehip]

To play devil's advocate, if the band didn't make the announcement prior to the pre-sale, there would have been plenty of die-hard Hip fans who wouldn't haven't tried to get tickets to this tour, primarily based on location. Personally, without the announcement, I would have seen the tour dates and waited for the 2nd leg of the tour, expecting additional dates closer to where I live (US shows). I'm guessing a number of other people would have had a similar thought. If they held the pre-sale, made the announcement, then had the general sale, it would have caused similar issues, then die-hard fans would be upset because they would have tried for the pre-sale if they knew this was the last tour.

I have to agree entirely. We are a fickle bunch. Imagine the Hip announcing their Man Machine Poem tour without knowing that Gord had cancer and finding out that the tickets are $166 each for lower level. I can only imagine the griping and complaining that would have been going on in this forum. "I am not paying $166 to hear Gord yell his way through another concert in a hockey rink no less. They should do smaller shows. Etc." Then when they announced that Gord had cancer, we would have been upset that we didn't know sooner so that we could have bought the good tickets to the show. It eats me up how everything went down but the "what if" game is pointless in my opinion.

This is exactly right. At this point in their career, the Hip are not selling out 25,000 plus tickets in Vancouver, at those prices, without the announcement. They wanted to assure they made the maximum amount of money. They structured the sale to assure this happened. Good for them. They deserve every bit of it.