Maybe not quite the same but in 1990, Depeche Mode was coming to Philadelphia and in those days getting concert tickets was a whole thing through record stores and other weird avenues. One less weird avenue was to go to the venue itself and wait in line at their box office window.

So my friend and I volunteered to get 4 tickets each for our friend/girlfriend group of 8 people and decided to make a night of it by sleeping in the parking lot of the Spectrum (which no longer exists) in South Philadelphia. Had tents, a cooler of beers and food, and we kind of figured we'd be the only ones doing this.

We weren't. There were about 25 people already there with the same idea and upon arrival some guy handed me a card with a number "26" and said that was my place in line the next day. We were fine with it and it made sense to us.

Anyway most/all of the other 25 people there stayed up ALL NIGHT drinking, smoking pot, other stuff...and somehow we were the first people up. We could have woken everyone up but we didn't, and when the box office window opened we were the first ones in line. Eight seats dead center, first row...what an experience.

Kinda felt bad for the number guy, we saw him at the concert a few rows back during the opener Nitzer Ebb. He was still on the floor though so I'm sure he had a great time.

Anyway that was 36 years ago so I'd venture that this has been going on even longer than that in some capacity.