UPDATE - 4/11@4:15PM: I've received some details regarding the Quebec City Summer Festival show on July 15th from a festival source. There are 3 open-air/general admission stages located on 3 different sites in the city, all within walking distance from one another. Rush will be playing at the Bell Stage on the Plains of Abraham which has a capacity of around 80,000. There are no single day passes but The Festival Pass gives access to all stages from July 8-18. The price for the pass is expected to be around $50 CAN and will be available exclusively via www.infofestival.com on May 1st, contrary to the info found on Rush.com. A limited quantity of passes will be available locally, three days earlier, hence the announced April 28th date. This pre-sale will be exclusive to METRO, a local grocery chain.

UPDATE - 4/10@10:46AM: Live Nation now has on-sale dates listed for all of the US dates, along with pre-sale info where applicable. I've updated all the dates in the tour section along with the lists below. Information is a bit more sketchy for the festivals and state fairs; there are a few inconsistencies between what's listed at Live Nation and Ticketmaster as opposed to the festival/fair websites. I'm also not sure when we'll get information regarding the Canadian dates; info for those always seems to lag behind the US dates for some reason. Live Nation does not give end times for their listed pre-sales so I've made educated guesses on those; the CITI and Rush VIP pre-sales typically last 2 days, start at 10AM and end at 5PM. I'll continue gathering information and keep everyone up to date. If you notice any errors with my information or have additional information, don't hesitate to contact me.

UPDATE - 4/9@7:43PM: I've located some more information on what I think these Rush VIP package pre-sales are all about. On the Ticketmaster site for the SPAC show they list this pre-sale as a Premium Ticket Package and even have a link explaining what it includes:

See Rush as a VIP!

Package includes:
* One premium, reserved ticket located within the first 15 rows of the stage
* Specially Designed Rush Concert Shirt
* Collectible Tour Poster (limited edition, numbered)
* Official Rush Tour Program
* Copy of the new Rush DVD, "Beyond the Light of the Stage"
* Copy of the Rush CD, "Working Men"
* Set of official Rush guitar picks

I assume the DVD is referring to the documentary and that they just misspelled it. Unfortunately they don't mention anything about price (which I have to assume is very high), availability or eligibility. More as I learn it. If you ask me, this whole Ticketmaster-Live Nation pseudo merger is confusing as hell. :)

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UPDATE - 4/9@5:01PM: Live Nation just posted a massive update to their list of dates which includes more pre-sales info. It looks like all the dates that go on sale next week will have both CITI credit card pre-sales along with something they are calling a Rush VIP package pre-sale. No details are given as to what this VIP package pre-sale is all about. I'll update the tour section with the new information along with the lists below this evening.

NOTE: Because I've been busy with gathering tour information, I'll be posting my regular Friday Random Rush Updates post either tomorrow or Sunday.

Yesterday the Rush countdown clock ticked down to zero at 7AM and with it came the big tour announcement we've all been waiting for! Rush's 2010 tour has been dubbed the Time Machine Tour and includes 33 US dates and 4 Canadian dates. Tickets begin going on sale for several shows next week. It will be another evening with Rush format (no opening band) and they'll be playing Moving Pictures in its entirety! So we'll finally be able to hear The Camera Eye not to mention Vital Signs. Now that we've had time to digest all the tour information I thought I'd post an update on changes to the site for the tour, and information on pre-sales. There are a total of 37 dates scheduled so far. Many of them are the old familiar sheds that the band usually hits when they go on the road, but there are definitely a few surprises this time around. The band is skipping many cities that they usually visit and will be playing several state fairs including the New York State Fair, the Great Allentown Fair, and the Minnesota State Fair along with a couple of festivals including Sarnia Bay Fest and Festival d'&ete de Quebec. The tour will kick off at the newly dubbed Hard Rock Pavilion in Albuquerque, NM on June 29th and end at the Cruzan Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach, FL. From Albuquerque they'll scoot across to Kansas City and points East, taking a break at the end of July before heading out West for several dates in August. From Las Vegas on August 14th they'll head back East, take a break in early September and then head down the East Coast to finish out in Florida. There are indications that the band will be adding a few more shows; second nights at both Red Rocks and Chicago and one more Canadian date (not sure where exactly - maybe Ottawa), but don't expect much more than that. The tour should end up rounding out at about 40 shows.

Those of you who were around for the last couple tours will probably recognize the little extra box at the top of the site's home page. For those of you who have never seen it, I've loaded all the tour dates into a database along with all the pertinent ticket sale and venue information. You can view the entire list of dates here. With each date I list the pre-sale information where appropriate, the ticket sale information and then a few links to tourdate-specific comment threads. This information is all dynamic; which means that once the pre-sale ends for a given date, the pre-sale info goes away - stuff like that. So all the information is up-to-date. The home page tour feature basically allows you to select one particular date from the drop down and just see info for that date. It will default to the next upcoming date - which up until June 29th will be the Albuquerque date. But you can also choose to set a date as your default. Just click the set as tourdate default link when viewing a particular date. Then each time you come back to the site that default date will appear. If you don't like having the tour date stuff cluttering up the home page you also have the option of turning it off. Just click the Turn special Rush Tour section off link (just under the Blogospheres heading). There are also date-specific comment threads for each tour stop; one for general discussion, one for checking in, one for posting whether you have or need tickets, and one for reviews that will appear after the show. I will also be using the news ticker to announce shows with a pre-sale or on-sale currently happening.

It looks like Rush will not be doing any sort of special fan pre-sale like they did with Music Today on the last 2 tours. So far the only date with any published pre-sale information on the Live Nation site is opening night in Albuquerque; there are 2 pre-sales planned for this date. Live Nation will be sponsoring one pre-sale that begins next Thursday, April 15th at 10AM, and the other will be for CITI credit card holders and begins next Wednesday, April 14th at 10AM. At the present time there seems to be conflicting information for pre-sales and on-sale dates between what is listed at the Live Nation site as opposed to Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster has pre-sales listed for the Chicago and White River dates - but not Live Nation. Hopefully this will all get sorted out over the next few days. Where information differs, I am going with the Ticketmaster info for the time being. For the CITI Credit Card pre-sales, it looks like the password is the first 6 digits of your account number. If anyone has further information about these pre-sales or pre-sales for any other shows, please let us know. Here are the dates for which tickets go on sale next week:

PRE-SALE: Tue, Apr 13 @ 10AM (local venue time!)
Mon, Jul 5: Charter One Pavilion - Chicago, IL [info] CITI RUSHVIP
Fri, Jul 23: Saratoga Performing Arts Center - Saratoga Springs, NY [info] CITI RUSHVIP
Sat, Aug 7: White River Amphitheatre - Auburn, WA [info] CITI RUSHVIP
Mon, Aug 9: Shoreline Amphitheatre - Mountain View, CA [info] CITI RUSHVIP
Mon, Aug 16: Red Rocks Amphitheatre - Morrison, CO [info] CITI RUSHVIP
Fri, Sep 3: PNC Bank Arts Center - Holmdel, NJ [info] CITI RUSHVIP

PRE-SALE: Wed, Apr 14 @ 10AM (local venue time!)
Tue, Jun 29: Hard Rock Pavilion - Albuquerque, NM [info] CITI RUSHVIP

PRE-SALE: Thu, Apr 15 @ 10AM (local venue time!)
Tue, Jun 29: Hard Rock Pavilion - Albuquerque, NM [info] LIVENATION
Fri, Sep 3: PNC Bank Arts Center - Holmdel, NJ [info] LIVENATION RADIO

ON SALE: Fri Apr 16 @ 10AM (local venue time!)
Mon, Jul 19: Mohegan Sun Arena - Uncasville, CT [info]
Fri, Jul 23: Saratoga Performing Arts Center - Saratoga Springs, NY [info]
Mon, Aug 9: Shoreline Amphitheatre - Mountain View, CA [info]

ON SALE: Sat Apr 17 @ 10AM (local venue time!)
Tue, Jun 29: Hard Rock Pavilion - Albuquerque, NM [info]
Sat, Jul 3: Marcus Amphitheater Summerfest - Milwaukee, WI [info]
Mon, Jul 5: Charter One Pavilion - Chicago, IL [info]
Fri, Jul 9: Rogers Sarnia Bayfest - Sarnia, ON [info]
Sat, Jul 24: Nikon at Jones Beach Theater - Wantaugh, NY [info]
Sat, Aug 7: White River Amphitheatre - Auburn, WA [info]
Mon, Aug 16: Red Rocks Amphitheatre - Morrison, CO [info]
Fri, Sep 3: PNC Bank Arts Center - Holmdel, NJ [info]

ON SALE: Sat Apr 17 @ 12PM (local venue time!)
Fri, Aug 27: Minnesota State Fair - St. Paul, MN [info]

If any of this information changes, I'll be making updates to the tour section so stay tuned. I'll have my regular weekly Random Rush Stuff post up either tomorrow or Sunday. Have a great weekend!

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