Memorabilia Medley: Concert Ticket Stubs

I think I might be the only person who really loves her concert ticket stubs. I am not really sure on an emotional level why I love them so. Maybe, they work to trigger some emotion about good times I have had. I’m not sure.

Anyway, over the years, I have managed to acquire two ticket stub books like the one you see here:

If I am not mistaken, they were both gifts. In one of them, I keep my non-Duran related ticket stubs and the other is solely for Duran shows. Originally, I kept my Duran tickets in the scrapbooks I was putting together. (Not so fun fact–I had a hard time keeping up with the scrapbooks and have been just adding items into a box to be later organized. Ugh. I need more time for cool projects like that!) Anyway, I discovered that I wanted them all in one spot for easy reference. I like having my other tickets in a diary for the same reason. You would be surprised (or maybe you wouldn’t) by how often I go back at look at my old tickets. There are times when I want to know what venues I have been to or where I sat at a specific arena. For example, I’m a big believer in doing your research before you buy concert tickets. I always have a map of the venue in front of me so I know what I’m hoping to get in terms of section, row, etc. On that venue map, I can mark when I sat for other concerts in the same place. I then know if those seats are actually decent and which ones are not. Besides that, I have also used my ticket stub diary to look at prices. Now, of course, they have changed over the years but they can give me a good idea of what a starting price might be. It prepares me a little bit before I see prices or actually buy the ticket.

Besides the ticket stub diary, I also keep a list of Duran shows (and other favorite artists I have seen more than once) in my iPad. In the case of Duran, I write down the date, city and who I was with. I could write down the venues, seat locations, etc but that would be a lot of work when I could just refer back to my ticket stub diary. I know that the latest trend is just to get tickets digitally. After all, the ticket is with you via your cell phone and it saves paper. I can definitely understand the benefits but I feel old school. I prefer the real thing, as least, for my collecting purposes. Yes, I suppose that I could keep track of all the details of a digital ticket but I would need to do it right away or would forget about it.

At the end of the day, I guess I like looking at the real thing because of the memories that come with the ticket stubs. All I have to do is to look at a ticket and remember details of the show and the surrounding event. What do the rest of you think? Do you like the actual ticket or is digital good enough? Anyone keep a ticket diary like I do?