Ticketmaster Is Evil And Must Die
Ticketmaster is an evil monopoly that steals cash from defenseless consumers. They are infinitely more evil than their hated 30% surcharge would suggest, and they must be destroyed.
A Modern Monopoly
Did you know you aren't Ticketmaster's primary customer? Sure, you and your friends bought 141 million tickets last year, but Ticketmaster's loyalty belongs to their true customers: venues and promoters. Ticketmaster secures its monopoly by goading them into multi-year agreements that empower Ticketmaster to act as their exclusive vendor. In exchange, Ticketmaster gives them money. Lots and lots of money. Several million dollars upfront, sometimes.
Ticketmaster doesn't earn a cent from a ticket's face value. It all goes straight back to the venue, promoter, and talent. To sweeten the deal, Ticketmaster also shares a slice of its exorbitant fees, giving venues and promoters an incentive to support Ticketmaster's outrageous markups. "It's not us!," they can whimper. "It's that damn TicketBastard!"
Ticketmaster's 9,000+ exclusive agreements makes them the gatekeeper to 90% of the nation's arenas and amphitheaters, 70% of our clubs and small theaters, and most of our basketball, hockey, and football games.
So What Am I Paying For?
- The Service Charge
This is Ticketmaster's cash cow. The majority of their $1.2 billion in revenue comes from this all-encompassing charge. It appears on all tickets, and cannot be escaped.
- The Facility Charge
This is the venue's cash cow. Sure, they also take a slice from the ticket's face value, but they want more, dammit, and they get it here.
- The Processing Charge
Wait a minute... didn't you pay a service charge? What's the difference between processing and service? Right, there is none. Well, technically that's not true. The service charge is refundable and the processing charge is not. Ticketmaster claims that the processing charge covers their expenses for taking your order and finding you seats. Sounds like service to us.
- The Convenience Charge
By far, the most annoying name for a fee. It's the price you pay for printing out the tickets you bought, even after paying a service and processing fee.
It's supposedly an accomplishment that Ticketmaster is even willing to disclose its fees, but knowledge in this case leads to anger, not power. In any other instance, pricing transparency by itself is a good thing because it empowers consumers to compare prices and shop around. Ticketmaster's exclusive agreements, however, undercut any potential price shopping.
Why Hasn't Anyone Destroyed Ticketmaster?
Pearl Jam tried and failed. The band landed before Congress to publicly brand Ticketmaster as an evil monopoly.
The heart of their issue was ticket pricing, but Ticketmaster had a history of screwing Pearl Jam:
- For a Seattle concert, Ticketmaster agreed to donate $1 of their $3.25 service charge to charity. Right before the tickets were set to go on sale, Ticketmaster reneged and threatened not to sell the tickets unless they could boost the service fee by $1 to cover the cost of their "charitable" contribution. Ticketmaster ended up stiffing the charity.
- Ticketmaster then wanted to charge a $3.75 service fee on an $18 ticket. Pearl Jam forced them to list the charge separately, and it wasn't until the band threatened to go to another venue that Ticketmaster acquiesced.
- When Pearl Jam tried to bypass Ticketmaster in Detroit by selling tickets through their fan club, the ticket giant threatened to sue the concert promoter for violating their exclusive agreement. Ticketmaster ended up disabling the promoter's ticket machine.
- In New York, Ticketmaster threatened the Paramount Theater for violating their exclusive agreement after Pearl Jam told fans over the radio to visit the theater to buy tickets at the box office.
In their Congressional testimony, Pearl Jam said: "all of the members of Pearl Jam remember what it is like not to have a lot of money, and we recognize that a teenager's perceived need to see his or her favorite band in concert can often be overwhelming."
For the band's 1994 tour at the height of their popularity, they tried to cap prices at $18 and limit surcharges to 10%. Ticketmaster refused and the tour was canceled.
How The !@#$ Is This Not A Monopoly?
We dunno, but President Clinton's Justice Department thought Ticketmaster's arrangements were a-ok. Pearl Jam retained the ber-corporate lawyers at Sullivan and Cromwell to needle the Justice Department into investigating Ticketmaster for antitrust violations. After a brief investigation, the Justice Department ruled that people were only indirect buyers, and that Ticketmaster's true customers were venues, since they were the ones consuming Ticketmaster's services. The venues weighed in on Ticketmaster's side and seemed to voluntarily hand over their business, so there was apparently no monopoly.
If Only They Weren't So Evil
Ticketmaster might be less reviled if it wasn't so frustratingly difficult for consumers to beat out resellers and other middlemen to buy tickets for themselves to popular events. Chicagoist's failed attempt to get tickets to the American League Championship Series is all-too familiar:
A refresh of the page gives us a new scrambled word to fill in and then we're thrown into a que. Wait time estimated at 15 minutes or more! WTF? We watch in anticipation for the number to get smaller and after a few minutes, it does. Now it says 11 minutes. A few minutes more, and it's down to 7 minutes.But wait! Now it says 14 minutes! What's going on here? We think something fishy's going on, so we open another browser window to see what those wait times do. It remains at 15 minutes. The first one keeps jumping from a short as 6 minutes all the way back to 15 minutes again. Not good
Finally, we seem to be getting close. Now this is about 25 minutes after Noon, but it's finally at 4 minutes. Then 2 minutes, back to 4, then 2, now 1 and then...
We get some sort of warning because another Ticketmaster window is open! We close that window, but in the meantime the first window sends us back to the original event page to select quantity and level again. We're shit out of luck! There will be no ALCS tickets for Chicagoist, all because Ticketmaster's computer system isn't built to handle exactly the type of transactions that are most critical to their business.
The same thing happened to us last year when we tried to buy playoff tickets for the Rangers. We were working computers, phones, anything with a hook into Ticketmaster, but we couldn't connect to anyone. Within 10 minutes, all the available tickets were gone. Real fair.
Are There Any Viable Alternatives?
Cracks are finally starting to form in Ticketmaster's money-encrusted shell, but the competition doesn't inspire confidence. Everyone looks at Ticketmaster's 30% surcharge and thinks how good all that undeserved cash would look in their pocket.
Live Nation, the largest U.S. promoter, is in the process of ditching Ticketmaster to build their own ticketing system, but only because they want to upsell junk and expensive packages while keeping the lucre for themselves.
Major League Baseball bought up a stake in Tickets.com, which will soon become their primary ticketing agent, but Tickets.com also levies a 30% service fee. MLB also ditched Ticketmaster for secondary ticket sales in favor of StubHub, which charges the buyer and seller a combined 25% fee.
TicketWeb was once an alternative for smaller shows, but they were gobbled up by Ticketmaster. Bandsintown is still around as an aggregator for small shows. While they don't sell tickets directly, the site will point you to Ticketmaster alternatives, if any are available.
You can also try using Brown Paper Tickets, which bills itself as "Fair Trade ticketing," but it can be difficult to find a participating venue.
Oh Come On, There Has To Be Some Viable Alternative
For the committed, there is really only one true alternative: abandon hope and the internet and take an urban field trip to the box office.
PREVIOUSLY: Why Do Ticketmaster Events Sell Out Instantly?
Ticketmaster Levies Entirely Believable $327 Per Ticket Convenience Charge
Live Nation To Challenge Ticketmaster, Sell Fans More Junk
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Comments:
If only someone would trust-bust them and ETS.
The answer to this problem is to NOT attend any events whereever there are surchages. Notwithstanding Brown Paper Tickets' desire to be a 'fair' outlet, the others are just in business to grap as much as the market allows.
I am not saying to boycott any performer, just don't go to any events. Buy / download an album. Join their fan club. Watch them on tv or online. Just don't go to an event that demands you bend over for them. Plain and simple.
If you pay the fee, then stop complaining about it.
In a related concept, if you don't vote, then you can't complain about the government.
Just my opinions, I could be wrong.
The last concert I attended was the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers live like a decade and a half ago.
Hey! I know the guy behind that TicketBastard logo. He's here in the Albany, NY area and used to co-host a radio show with me.
Some local events here in Atlanta use Xorbia tickets. They do have a convenience or processing charge (I don't remember what it's called), but it is much cheaper than Ticketmasters (on the order of $2 or $3 usually). They email you your tickets immediately, AND they don't charge extra for that like Ticketmaster does.
I guess the real answer is to hide the surcharges in the ticket prices, so that we don't know we're paying it.
I admit that emotionally, it makes me grind my teeth any time I have to pay these surcharges. But when I step back and put my brain into gear, I realize I have the choice whether to pay or not. If the surcharges were hidden, then the net price would be the same, and I'd still have the choice whether to pay it or not.
I absolutely despise ticketmaster. They do essentially have a monopoly on the ticket sales market. That said, monopoly =! illegal. Monopolies are illegal in certain circumstances, but not in others. Much of it has to do with the particular circumstances of the firm in question. Moreover, even under multiple-firm antitrust law, if Ticketmaster wasn't engaging in blatant price fixing (telling venues/performers how much they have to charge for the ticket itself), it gets difficult for the DOJ to prosecute them for price fixing. One can imagine that Ticketmaster does offer the market (venues) substantial efficiency increases over selling tickets independently. Sometimes these efficiencies can be substantial enough to outweigh any actual or potential anti-competitive conduct.
It really sucks that Ticketmaster has such a stranglehold on the market for tickets, but until someone comes up with a better way to sell online, through a single-point interface (e.g. each venue not having to sell independently), Ticketmaster (or at least their business model) is going to prevail.
Etix.com is another reliable ticket outlet - at least here in the southeast.
Going to the venue to purchase tickets in order to avoid the service charge doesn't even work all of the time. Years ago I wanted to see a show in NYC, so I went to the venue to purchase the tickets, and they told me that I had to buy them from Ticketmaster. Rather than pay the crazy fees, I just didn't go to the show.
Seems like Amazon should take these bastards on. They sell everything else.
My better half and I are seeing Margaret Cho this coming Friday in Hamilton, Ontario of all places. All amounts are in Canadian.
Seats - $45.50 x 2 = $91
Facility Charge $3 x 2 = $6
Convenience Charge $7.75 x 2 = $15.50
"Delivery" (TicketFast - email me a PDF) $3.50 (only 1 though)
Order Processing Fee $3.25
$119.25 for $91 worth of tickets.
Margaret, if you're reading, you're the only person we'd put up with this sh*t for.
As this is Carey's last day with us, could we send a nice round of applause for a "rant for the ages".
I just go to the box office in my town for shows at the arena...no surcharges that way.
@KSPRAYDAD:
I've been to a few "box offices" in the Kansas City area that act as TicketMaster "outlets" and charge the full ticketmaster price. Personally, that's more infuriating than paying the fees online, as at least online it is admitedly convenient. There is nothing convenient about buying tickets in person, yet Ticketmaster still believes it warrants a "convenience" fee.
Worth noting that in 1996 Pearl Jam tried to do a tour without TicketBastard at all. They were partially successful. They would only play at non-TicketMaster venues and tickets were sold through the FT&T ticketing system.
They played venues without a TM contract - and because of this the tour was very limited. Tickets were extremely hard to get ahold of. I remember being on the phone for close to 2 hours before finally getting through and getting tickets for the New York show at Downing Stadium on Randall's Island. Downing Stadium took over 5 hours to get out of. Public transportation options were not even close to reliable - and we're talking about New York City. The second night at the venue they played their longest show ever as a "thank you" to the fans who were there the night before and "suffered" through the madness.
North American shows were played in Toronto, OH, MD, ME, NY, CT, NC, SC, and FL - that's it. They could not find any other non-TM venues.
indie tickets is a viable alternative for smaller venues. it's one guy and he does ticketing for venues in 16 states. only one charge added to the ticket price, which i've seen as low as 1.75$.
I absolutely hate ticketbastard. I tried getting 4 tickets to a Chicago Bears game this year. I was at my computer 10 minutes before the tickets went on sale for the year. I kept hitting refresh and at exactly noon I tried to purchase 4 tickets to a game. No luck. I tried multiple times and it kept saying sold out. Best I could get would have been 1 ticket to a game. Are you trying to tell me every game sells out in 15 seconds?
Aboslute BS. So once again, we can either pay a stupid markup on stubhub or just not go. Totally not fair.
I was really disappointed to find that tickets for a spring tour of one of my favorite artists -- not a big pop headliner, either, but someone who plays small 200-500 seat venues typically -- are available only through TicketMaster. (This was not the case for any previous show of his I've been to.) We're going to see him about an hour away and it's not like either of us really has the ability to head to the club while its box office is open to buy tickets, so we're pretty much stuck with TicketMaster, and it sucks. My boyfriend paid $67 for $40 worth of tickets.
I know a friend who works at TM and gets paid jack. Apparently, other than the free tickets working there was miserable, as I am told. So I'm wondering with their 1.2Billion in revenue, where does it all go?
I'm only halfway through it, but I'll hit a couple of points... Bill Clinton and the owners of ticketmaster had some mutual interests, that's how come it isn't considered a monopoly. It's called real world politics... certainly it sucks.
The only good thing about giving ticketmaster your email, is that they tell you who is coming to town, and when...
Boycott. It's the only answer.
I was going to see the Decemberists last year, but they cancelled their show. Ticketmaster sent out an e-mail saying we'd get out money back, which took over a month and a half to happen. Bastards.
Based on this article, it appears that Ticketmaster might be in violation of its merchant agreement with Visa and MasterCard, as retailers are precluded from adding a surcharge to cover their merchant interchange fee. More info at http://www.WayTooHigh.com - WayTooHigh.com - The Credit Card Interchange Report
http://www.mastercard.com/us/wce/PDF/MasterCard_Rules_5_08.pdf
I haven't been to a big concert in 11 years -- partly due to the guaranteed shitty seats (most of the good ones stolen by companies and promoters) and the ridiculous prices. Of course I can hardly blame Ticketmaster when customers are the ones flocking to buy $80 tickets. It's insane that people spend money on this racket. The best concerts I ever went to were $20 seats back in the 1980s.
I don't have as much of an issue with the rate at which events sell out. Most of the time, there are large blocks of tickets held out of the initial sale, whether due to fan club seating, promoter seats, or other preferred seating arrangements (i.e. season ticket holders). When you are talking about an in-demand event, such as a playoff game, where there are, say, 10,000 people trying at the exact same time to purchase perhaps 3-5000 'open' tickets, even if you are clicking at the first millisecond of availability, there's going to be more people clicking at that exact moment than there are tickets available.
What really bothers me though is the way Ticketbastard is now going after the secondary market for tickets. They offer the "Ticket Exchange" program, which not only allows them to get a second fee from you, the consumer, but then allows them to get a third fee from the person buying your tickets. (And interestingly enough, they don't allow you to sell your ticket below face value, even if you want to) They also sometimes have auctions, such as for Elton John, where you can bid on the 'best seats'. So those prime tickets are never released, and TM can pump the purchase price up to as high a price as the market will bear.
@Jim (The Canuck One): My partner and I just saw her in Indianapolis. It was pretty good, but the opener (Kelly of Shoes fame) was awful. She just stood on stage and did her shoes bit, which is great in a video format but completely pointless with her just standing on stage doing it!
My first concert was PJ Harvey in 99. 3 tickets 120 dollars for general admission. I have only done one concert since then and it was only because I got in free. Its just not worth it to me to pay the prices when I can see good local bands for 5-10 bucks around Jersey.
This is also the reason I dont do broadway either. Neither gives me any reason to spend hundreds of dollars for service about equal to a movie theater, and I dont go to the movies because I think ticket prices are insane.
While I typically agree with the attacks leveled at Ticketmaster, I have to relate a story which is on the other side of the coin.
I recently purchased 5 tickets to the Nine Inch Nails concert on Halloween in Nashville, TN. I did it through Ticketmaster online. After purchasing my tickets, I come to find out that I purchased 1 too many, due to a drop out from our group. I contacted Ticketmaster via their email service as soon as I knew, and was contacted back within a day via email. They offered to refund the extra ticket AND all the fees, despite their clearly stated policy not to do so. They were quick and polite, and it really impressed me.
So, until there's a different, better way to get tickets to events that matter to me, I guess I'll be using Ticketmaster. And seeing as how Nine Inch Nails (Trent Reznor) has abandoned his record label and is financing all of his own album production AND his tours, if there's a better way coming, I'm hoping that he finds it.
I've always hated Ticketbastard and there have been plenty of times after adding up all their charges I decided not to bother attending the event after all. It's a shame really. At this point the only band I'm willing to help make those a-holes rich for is The Cure.
"For the committed, there is really only one true alternative: abandon hope and the internet and take an urban field trip to the box office."
Except that TicketBastard operates large portion of those, too.
That company really must die.
@doctor_cos: I'm glad I'm not the only person who thought this. I would gladly support Amazon over Ticketmaster.
The last concert we attended was Weird Al. $39.95 per ticket, x2. The total was $119.90. $119.90 for $79.90 worth of tickets.
I go to a lot of concerts, so I've experienced this Ticketmaster ridiculousness. Thanks so much for this article, which was really informative.
I don't mind paying ticketmaster the extra $10-$20 surcharge, beats standing in line at the box office (half the time you can't even do that). I hate ticket broker sites (i.e. Stubhub), that charge four times as much as what ticket master would. I bought four Jason Mraz tickets for $160.00 and Stubhub has one ticket going for $265.00 - that's insane! Ticketmaster does better than most at trying to get tickets out. Look at what happend for last years World Series, nobody could get tickts because the Rockies used Paciolan, Inc for the online sales. The site crashed and everyone was out of luck.....Although ticketmaster did just buy Piciolan, so maybe they will be better.
Ticketmaster's website is notorious for not being able to handle the rush of traffic that large music and sporting events can create. For the 2007 college football season, Penn State used ticketmaster as the only way to get tickets for the first time. It was first-come, first-served for all student tickets (Freshman, Sophomore, etc.) at the same time. The servers couldn't handle it, people using Internet Explorer got crazy errors, and the countdown timers didn't know what was going on. It took me over an hour of wait time to get my tickets and many people were screwed over.
For the 2008 season, it was much improved as they sold each class of tickets on different days, but for more "popular" tickets like Freshman and Sophomore, there were still problems.
Excellent post, Carey.
Perhaps as we enter the financpocalypse TicketBastard will find no one can afford to buy their sh!tty tickets.
I'd be willing to guess that it would, in this day of the internets, be far easier to do the sort of thing Pearl Jam attempted back in the mid-90's.
And I agree that the biggest problem is not so much the final price of the tickets (although that is a big problem) but the fact that the tickets are listed as being "$25" or whatever but then end up totaling $40 after the surcharges are added and you don't know that until you try to buy the tickets. If that's not a bait-and-switch I don't know what is.
This is the one of many reasons I prefer to patronize good local talent instead of giving my money to Ticketmaster. Bottom line is, I can't afford it. All the fees and the hassle of getting to the venue and finding a parking place, waiting in line in massive crowds...versus the local guys, where $5 gets you in the door and you park less than a block away. You get to sit a lot closer to the band too, and they're always good to fans.
Living in the New York area, it's especially annoying because I can never get through to ticketmaster and any event is sold out instantly. i would have to pay more for tickets on stubhub etc. I wish the yankees, giants, etc would just sell tickets the boxoffice ONLY. that way real fans can wait in line and get them everytime. Years ago, I wait in line for 5 hours to get Nets NBA Finals tickets. I tried calling ticketmaster on my cell while waiting and it's amazing that i got tickets from the box office and never got through on the phone.
@KateGauth: This may be spam, since you've never posted before, but thanks for the info, nonetheless.
@darkjedi26: That's the real trouble with ticketmaster, forget the fees. (We're all used to hidden fees by now anyway.) But I don't know if that's ticketmaster or the venues.
Support local music, guys. I go to 2-3 shows a month and see great bands that are coming up - and I never pay more than $7 a show, no stupid fees. Even hayseed towns generally have at least 2 venues in the area that host small shows.
It's just not worth it to me to pay to see a "big" band perform at a stadium. Ridiculous markup? Nosebleed seats? No thanks. I'll go to a local show and stand 3 feet from the stage any day. And I'll probably have a better time (and not pay $8 for a damn beer).
@KSPRAYDAD: I've had the same problem. The 'box office' at most venues is just another TicketMaster point of sale. This lets you avoid the 'convenience charge' but you're still stuck with the service and processing fees. You save a dollar, maybe, out of the $8+ in fees. The promise of big savings by going straight to the box office is, unfortunately, often a myth.
> Within 10 minutes, all the available tickets were gone. Real fair.
Sounds like your definition of "fair" equals "I got a ticket".
Please outline your "fair" system to sell 25,000 tickets to 250,000 people who want them.
(my idea? auction)
"...the Justice Department ruled that people were only indirect buyers, and that Ticketmaster's true customers were venues, since they were the ones consuming Ticketmaster's services."
Wait a second, we're not customers? We're the ones paying the money to Ticketmaster. Then Ticketmaster gives a portion of that money to the venues (hush money?).
Saying that the venues are their customers is like saying the customers of a restaurant are the waiters.
@BeeBoo: a boycott won't work, you're asking millions of people not to go see any entertainment anywhere.
This was an excellent article.
Dear Gawker Media:
Why is Carey getting fired again?
In a perfect world, the box office would have the initial onsale. I would gladly line up for a shot at tickets from the only source. Ticketmaster would then get to sell whats left starting that evening. I remember when MSG instituted a policy directly opposite of this. You would see an ad and in small print it would say "if tickets remain, available at the box office the following day at 9am."
MSG said it couldnt handle the lines. If there is a single venue in the world that is designed to handle a couple thousand people waiting for tickets, it's msg.
I live in portland now. Alot of the big shows here are at the roseland theatre. There is no way whatsoever to get tickets w/o a service charge. No box office. I bought tickets at the venue once and was charged a full service charge. They use ticketswest who is just as evil really. $20 ticket, bought from an outlet the straight up service charge was 8 bucks. I decided i didnt really need to go to the show....
Oddly enough a couple of venues that do use ticketmaster (the wonder ballroom, the crystal ballroom, the alladdin theatre) charge $1 per ticket if bought from the box office. Which i totally think is fair in comparison.
Someone in congress needs to get involved. If they advertise a $30 ticket, and there is no way to actually purchase a ticket for $30, isnt that misrepresentation? false advertisement? something?
and dont get me started on the paying extra to print out your own ticket on your own paper with your own ink. I personally think those paper tickets are tacky, i like my actual stubs.
A proper boycott of this evil would be if nobody paid ticketmaster and we all just show up at the venue with cash in hand. It'd be like trick or treat, but we'd say "Show or riot." But that would take collective cooperation. We need a really good hacker to get into their system.
The last "big" concert I attended was Blink-182 in 2001. Two tickets on the lawn came up to around $70. The inflated ticket prices just aren't worth it anymore.