"Kala ko ba sold-out na?"

"Joke-joke lang yung sold-out, no?"

"Ang daya, nakabili na po, may ganito pala?"

"Wait pa ilang araw, baka bumaba ulet."

These were the some of the nearly 2,000 disgruntled though funny comments from netizens on the Facebook page that posted the three-day discounted tickets offer for the Eraserheads: Ang Huling El Bimbo concert on 22 December at the SMDC Festival Grounds in Parañaque.

Fans thought all 50,000 tickets (the exact number of pieces to be sold, as announced by organizers) had run out. But on 12 October, online payment platform Maya posted on its social media accounts there were still 10,000 tickets available at a 10-percent discount each.

The offer was good until 14 October, a payday.

Maya was formerly PayMaya of Smart Communications, said to be one of the concert sponsors. Smart was the main sponsor of the Eheads' first two major reunions in 2008 and 2009.

Sponsors bought 10,000 tickets

"There are many sponsors of Huling El Bimbo (and) part of their sponsorship is purchasing tickets they will use as a promo," concert promoter Francis Lumen of WEU Event Management said in an online message.

"So, these sponsors are launching their promos using the tickets they bought from us. There are other brand sponsors that will be doing their promos soon, like Smart, etc."

Information about the concert has so far been released exclusively on social media including the band members' respective pages.

There had been complaints from fans about the steep ticket prices, but apparently the gripes turned into excitement when the tickets were made available since these were snapped up in five days.
That is, if it's true that 40,000 tickets — since 10,000 were allotted to sponsors — were really sold out.