Ticket Regret

I have a problem. Sometimes, I'll see an event like a comic con, a concert, or even a movie, and without thinking I'll buy tickets. There is something inside me that screams, "This is once in a lifetime" or "You must see this on a big screen." So, I'll buy tickets, take extra days off of work, and then after a day or two I find myself asking, "What the hell were you thinking?”

It's not that the event in itself will be bad or isn't something I want to do, but once the initial excitement wears off, I find myself thinking about the stuff that goes along with the event. The travel, the parking situation, the additional costs, the long nights, and well... leaving the comfort of my own home.

Sometimes I force myself to go and I have a good time, sometimes I regret it and wish I had stayed at home. But I'd estimate I probably only attend 50% of the events I buy tickets for. Thankfully, I don't tend to buy expensive tickets!

Saturday, I have tickets for Joe Bob's Indoor Drive-In Geek Out in Durham, NC. It's hosted by Joe Bob Briggs, the famous movie host from The Movie Channel, TNT's Monster Vision, and now on Shudder with The Last Drive-In. It's a double feature of Donnie Darko and Bubba Ho-Tep, complete with live breaks in the movies for commentary from Joe Bob and Darcy.

I've been a fan of Joe Bob since I was a kid, and I watch The Last Drive in pretty regularly. When I saw they were doing a live event so close to me, I bought tickets instantly. I actually had tickets to see Joe Bob a few years ago, and a family situation occurred that made me miss the show, so I figured this was the time to make up for it.

But once that initial dopamine rush wore off, I begin looking at the situation as a whole. 

• It's a double feature that begins at 7 PM and will have breaks with discussion about scenes and the production, so I'm looking at getting out of there if I'm lucky by 1 AM maybe even 2 AM.  

• It's being held in downtown Durham, which is not the nicest of places. They have a pretty bad crime problem.

• The parking is close by, but for a well-attended show it can be a nightmare to get out of. So, now at 1 AM I'll be fighting to get out of a parking deck and then to navigate the tight downtown streets avoiding the homeless and whomever else is walking around.

• The event is held in an old historic theater with old seats. Which means I'll be elbow to elbow with strangers not in the most comfortable of places.

• I've seen both movies a couple of times, and while enjoyable, they aren't my favorites.

The more and more I've thought about it, the more and more I want to just stay home. I'm to the point now that I'm dreading the idea of going. I mean, how did I go from over the moon excitement to "I wish I was sick and had a good excuse not to go?" 

I actually have a draft of a blog I'll be publishing sometime this month that talks about this a bit, but I'm starting to realize that the same reason I've bought things to show my fandom or interests, is the same reason I do things. Not necessarily because I really want to do them.

A good example is going to conventions. Over the past ten years or so, I've been to several comic/wrestling conventions and spent a lot of money buying photo ops. Afterwards, I'd send them to my friends, post them on a blog, and then they sit in my Photos app and never get looked at. I mean, it's a photo. What else am I going to do with it? It was a split-second encounter, which I'd say 1/4th of them left me less of a fan of the person after I met them, than before. But outside of a bragging story "Oh, I met him once" what value does these really hold? I guess you can say I paid for an experience that hundreds or thousands of others have had and now I have clutter on my phone.

But, two years ago, I went to WrestleCade, which I try to attend every year, and things were different. The prices have skyrocketed, the space hasn't really grown despite the attendance doubling (or maybe even tripling), and it just wasn't a good experience. So much so, we left a day early and the highlight of that trip was finding a great little restaurant in Burlington, NC called The Village Grill. We've been back to The Village Grill, but I skipped out on WrestleCade last year and have no intention of going this year.

And I guess maybe that's the difference. Now, I'd prefer to find a nice little restaurant with my wife. That is exciting since we struggle to find good ones around us. I'd much prefer to have a calm, sit down meal with her, in a place that isn't crazy busy than pay to go to a concert, convention, or whatnot. For a while, I thought there was something wrong with me, because I should be craving experiences and travel, right? But I'm starting to accept that maybe that just isn't me. Heck, most of my favorite experiences took place inside my home to begin with. Maybe, I just got caught up in FOMO like everybody else.