Congressman Wants Ticketmaster Investigated For 'TicketsNow' Website
Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D) of New Jersey has asked the FTC and the Justice Department to investigate the relationship between Ticketmaster and its reseller website, TicketsNow, after consumers who tried to buy Bruce Springsteen tickets encountered technical problems that prevented purchase, and were then redirected to TicketsNow where prices were "hundreds of dollars above face value" (actually, more like "thousands of dollars," based on our check just a few minutes ago).
Update: Bruce Springsteen speaks out against the Ticketmaster/TicketsNow stunt, and reminds everyone why a Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger would be very bad. We've reprinted his letter below.
"I am troubled by how quickly tickets priced exponentially higher became available on the secondary market to thousands of rejected fans, many who also endured unfortunate technical problems on Ticketmaster.com," Pascrell said in a letter to U.S. investigators.
The real problem, beyond the eternal nuisance of scalping, is that TicketsNow began offering overpriced tickets almost immediately after they went on sale through Ticketmaster, and while Ticketmaster apparently lacked the technology to handle what should have been a predictable surge in customers, that was not a problem for TicketsNow resellers:
"There is a significant potential for abuse when one company is able to monopolize the primary market for a product and also directly manipulate and profit from the secondary market," [Pascrell] wrote. "The speed with which tickets were made available on Ticketmaster's official resale site raises questions about whether TicketsNow brokers were given preferential treatment."
About 30,000 tickets to the two Izod Center shows were sold in a little over an hour Monday morning. Many fans said they encountered error messages at the Ticketmaster website that prevented them from purchasing tickets before they were sold out.
Others were outraged that within minutes of the sale, hundreds of tickets were being hawked at TicketsNow.
"This burns me up. It's reprehensible," Pascrell said. "There has to be a deal cooking between the two companies, Ticketmaster and TicketsNow. One has no tickets and the other is selling them at three and four times the (original) price."
Nefarious under the table scheming? Incompetence? Whatever the explanation, we're sure if Ticketmaster and Live Nation merge then all of these problems will go away.
Here's the letter posted to Bruce Springsteen's official website today:
A LETTER TO OUR FANS:
We know there was much confusion regarding Ticketmaster and TicketsNow during last Monday's on-sale dates. We were as confused as you were, as we were given no advance notice of the major changes in the Ticketmaster-TicketsNow world. (Bear in mind that we are not clients of any ticketing company, and that all those arrangements are between venues and ticketing companies.)Last Monday, we were informed that Ticketmaster was redirecting your log-in requests for tickets at face value, to their secondary site TicketsNow, which specializes in up-selling tickets at above face value. They did this even when other seats remained available at face value. We condemn this practice.
We perceive this as a pure conflict of interest. Ticketmaster is there to ensure that we have a good, fair sale of our tickets at their face value plus normal ticketing charges. TicketsNow is supposed to be a secondary site where people who already have tickets may exchange, trade, and, unfortunately, speculate with them. We have asked this redirection from Ticketmaster to TicketsNow cease and desist immediately and Ticketmaster has agreed to do so in the future and has removed its unwanted material from their and our site.
We know the many cynical arguments some make in favor of the Ticketmaster system: There are rumors that some artists or managers participate in Ticketmaster charges—we do not. There are rumors that some artists or managers are receiving a percentage of the amount above face value at secondary outlets like TicketsNow—we do not. Some artists or managers may not perceive there to be a conflict between having the distributor of their tickets in effect "scalping" those same tickets through a secondary company like TicketsNow—we do.
While many of you have sent notes to us and your local promoters, you may also send accurate informational letters to Albert Lopez of Ticketmaster and he will try to address your questions.
A final point for now: the one thing that would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan than it is now would be Ticketmaster and Live Nation coming up with a single system, thereby returning us to a near monopoly situation in music ticketing. Several newspapers are reporting on this story right now. If you, like us, oppose that idea, you should make it known to your representatives.
The abuse of our fans and our trust by Ticketmaster has made us as furious as it has made many of you. We will continue to do our utmost now and in the future to make sure that these practices are permanently curtailed on our tours.
Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau and the entire Springsteen Tour Team
"Springsteen Sellout Leads to Call for Probe of Ticketmaster" [Bloomberg]
"Lawmaker: Investigate Springsteen ticket sales" [NJ.com](Thanks to everyone who sent this in!)
(Photo: alexik)
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nam malesuada commodo erat et molestie. Duis pellentesque aliquam bibendum. Suspendisse venenatis lobortis eleifend. Mauris id est sed lectus convallis aliquam.
Post a comment
Comments:
Only party harmed here is Springsteen - he's the one selling tickets way below market price, and if he wants to, that's up to him. Nobody else has any standing to complain, since nobody else has any claim on the tickets.
...And this is why I've given up on going to concerts. I can't stand the fact that any A-list band I want to go to ends up costing $400.00 for two tickets unless the stars align and I click at the right time on a Saturday morning at 10am.
Nine Inch Nails came up with a great idea on their last tour. Sign up on their website, buy good tickets off of a special site for a regular face value, and they would send you your tickets with your name printed on them. You needed to show your i.d. in order to get in and it would be matched to the tickets. More bands need to get in on this idea.
Oh of course, and same thing happened to me today, buying tickets for Sesame Street Live. The best tickets were unavailable through Ticket Master and I was conveniently redirected to Tickets Now "A Ticket Master Company" where the tickets I was looking for were $210 instead of $35.
Interestingly, the seats I was looking for are usually not occupied at the show and we usually move over anyway. Definitely shady stuff there.
These "resale" sites usually have plenty of tickets somehow available before the sale to the general public. The average person does not stand a chance of getting other than a nosebleed seat when buying a ticket online, even the first moments they go on public sale.
LiveNation screwed me multiple times when Phish tickets went on sale last Friday, timing me out multiple times on multiple different levels of the ticketing process and calling it "technical errors" with no other explanation. If your system can't handle a huge demand, maybe we should go back to buying concert tickets via record stores and Ticketron outlets.
Big tip o' the hat to FightOnTrojans who mentioned this in the comments of LiveNation - Ticketmaster merger thread.
@IT-Chick: I was able to avoid this by stopping by the box office in Madison Square Garden. I even saved the 10.50 per ticket "Convenience Fee". Luckily, its on my way home from work.
Moral is, whenever possible, go straight to the box office. (I know it might still be managed by Ticketmaster, but you can save some of the fees)
Not sure about the rest of you, but why dont you just go to a box office and buy the tickets?
We have tons of ticketmaster kiosks in stores here and Ive never had trouble buying them that way. Ive also never had trouble buying them online, but if you have a problem with the technology, avoid it.
"beyond the eternal nuisance of scalping"
Everyone is in favor of the first sale doctrine when it comes to the right to resell CDs, DVDs, games, etc.
If I were to buy a rare LP, painting, or automobile and turn around and sell it for a profit, no one would claim I'm doing anything wrong or illegal.
However, for some bizarre reason, when I buy a hard to get and rare ticket for a concert and turn around and sell it for a profit, suddenly laws are passed to stop me and I'm labeled a "nuisance."
Let the market set the price. If I'm able to find a buyer for my ticket, I should have every right to sell it to that buyer.
Well, that's what they get for trying to buy Springsteen tickets.
(Yeah, I'm not a very good Jersey resident, am I?)
@ekthesy:
Ha! Me too! If you haven't seen it yet, check this out before going to scalpers/eBay:
You'll have to request access through here (scroll down towards the bottom of the post):
@JustThatGuy3: You fail. If you're admitted to the bar, you need to resign for the sake of your clients.
I feel sorry for everyone who just wants to attend a concert at a normal price. However thankfully for me there are no bands that I would pay money to see at this point, but not everyone feels that way.
The only way to go to a decent priced concert these days is to find a good local band and go to a free or very inexpensive concert at a bar or similar venue.
I paid like an extra $20 in fees. I was really going to drive there, but it's still in presale here in Chicago and I have a headache.
I got my seats, not too bad, on the floor 6 rows from the stage. Off to the right, but no way in hell I am paying $210 a ticket to be centered. I love me some Elmo, but not that much.
@GMFish: this argument is weak. if you are buying a rare painting, its because there is usually only 1, thats why its rare. the tickets are only hard to get because you have a select number of people who will purchase the entire available supply, then when there is none left, they sell them at inflated prices. thats called market manipulation, not fare market value.
@GMFish: The problem is not the reselling of individual tickets. Companies are pre-buying tickets before they are actually sold. They are increasing the price of tickets because they are artificially lowering the supply.
@xtc46: I used to work at a record store with a Ticketmaster terminal when I was in high school, and I can tell you even back then the "best available" tickets that it would allow to be sold were never the truly best available tickets. It always appeared those tickets are never truly available at the face value of the ticket.
@Justin Barbieri:
Exactly. The laws of supply and demand cease to be relevant when they control the supply.
This happens for small acts as well, not just the big dogs.
I tried to buy Animal Collective tickets for a show at the Troubador in L.A. After receiving several error messages, it finally told me no tickets were available. So I tried ticketfast just to check (Not buy) and they had multiple tickets available for 3-4 times face value.
Ended up going to the bay and getting them from a music fan for a couple bucks above face.
Ticketmaster has gotten away with being an illegal monopoly for years. Can you blame them for continuing to push the envelope with more and more blatant rent seeking activities? No one seems to want to stop them, so why should they not take advantage and make more money?
I long for the days of the Doniac Schvice, and the days when Phish was far less popular.
Ticketmaster and other ticket outlets and promoters use the argument that since scalping is legal in most states, and people are willing to pay scalpers and ebay sellers massive $$$ over face value, they're simply ensuring that those extra dollars go to them and not individual scalpers.
all the more reason to support local music (though I don't because I dont buy music / go to concerts anymore)
If people continue to pay these fees and over the face value charges, then it will never stop. Supply and demand. Who pays these prices anyways? Nobody is worth seeing for more than face value of the ticket. My kids can scream all day long if they don't get to go to the circus or see Sesame Street, I still wont take them. I'm for less government but this is a perfect example where government needs to step in and control these bastards with regulations.
@xtc46: some venues and shows don't allow box office sales anymore, because of their deal with ticketmaster. Also i have seen where box office sales are possible, but require cash, and can only be sold when the venue is open for another show. Making the box office sale office pointless. Most ticketmaster retail outlets have also disapeared in favor of internet convenience fees. Less people to man the lines and increased revenue. Its an awesome scam that they get away with.
@GMFish: No, what you are suggesting is a terrible model for distributing this rare and TIME AND LOCATION SENSITIVE good. Once the date has passed, the ticket has no value. If the scalper is unable to find a buyer, not only is he out of money, the potential buyers (who may not know where to find him) are out of an opportunity to purchase the ticket. Furthermore, if the scalper prices himself out of the market, he has no recourse. He can't just lower the price and sell it at a later date.
For the inauguration, the commuter train system in Maryland sold special inauguration tickets. They sold out quickly, apparently because many scalpers scraped them up first. There were scalpers at the train station, but no buyers (probably because there was too much advanced planning necessary for someone to take a chance on a scalper having tickets at the last minute). The trains were far from full. Someone lost a lot of money.
@nicemarmot617: tickets now is owned by ticketmaster, cause the tickets are re-printed by ticketmaster.
We all know how popular soccer is in the United States, right? All of the tickets for the USA vs Mexico were "sold out" almost immediately, and yet there were already 800+ scalper tickets on TicketsNow. Definite conflict of interest there.
@bovinekid: I guess you feel the same way about AT&T (circa 1980) and Microsoft? Honestly, this is why we have anti-trust regulations and congress to investigate such actions. Monopoly is monopoly and abusing its power is wrong.
BTW-did you know that TicketMaster has successfully predicted its growth at 5% over the past several years? Do you know why they were able to do that? Because they have been setting more and more outlandish fees associated with ticketing. I mean really, I wanted to take my kid to see something the other day and the fees per ticket were 50% of the ticket price.
@GMFish: Can I let the market set the price for the crack cocaine I want to sell? If I can find a buyer for my crack, I should have every right to sell it to that buyer, correct?
And if I'm your wife and you're bad in bed and not buying me the Louis Vitton purse I want, shouldn't I have every right to you know… persuade the Saks manager to give it to me?
And if I want to package a bunch of b.s. mortgages into Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) and sell them to the highest bidder, shouldn't I have every right to sell that CDO to the highest bidder?
And if I buy a CDO and I'm worried I paid too much for it, shouldn't I have every right to let the market set the price on a Credit Default Swap (CDS) and be permitted to purchase a CDS for whatever the market will bear?
And if all of my CDOs and CDSs come crashing down shouldn't I have the right to have the taxpayer bail me out and protect my presumed profits from the investments in those CDOs and CDSs?
And hey, while we're at it in this fantasy land, why not let the market set the appropriate price on hitmen? If I get tired of your inability to understand the subtle differences between a rare LP and this particular situation, don't you think the free market should set the price for how much it would cost to hire someone to shoot you?
The point is that the best tickets at ticketmaster are never actually available. It's all a façade. Much like Milton Friedman's economic world view.
@copious28: I didn't say it wasn't wrong. I'm saying that they've been doing something wrong for a long time, and no one has tried to stop them, so it's not at all surprising that they would continue to do worse and worse stuff as long as no one tries to stop them.
@GMFish: That might be true if it were actually a free market, but in fact what's likely going on is that Ticketmaster is making backroom deals with certain people to control the market. That's not a market pricing mechanism (though the resales might be).
Also - there is a good reason why many shows get sold at prices lower than their "market value". Let's say that they price tickets to a concert at $1000. There are probably some people who would pay that, and if there are enough of them it might even be more profitable than pricing the tickets at $50 (since you would only have to sell 1/20th the volume). But if they're too expensive, then what you get is a lot of empty seats, even if doing that maximizes profit. Having a lot of empty seats might make the concert less enjoyable for people. So there are some intangible factors to weigh here.
@nicemarmot617: I saw a program on this some time ago. I can't remember the company name (might have been TicketsNow) but one of the executives was interviewed stating that they had a computer program to defeat the captcha and were able to purchase many tickets at once. Of course he tried to defend the practice of reselling the tickets at a higher price with very lame arguments.
Unfortunately these parasites put the price of tickets out of reach for the average person. Obviously if my favourite artist or sports team decides that $100 (or whatever) is the going rate for a ticket to the concert, and I like the artist, I will pay said amount. The artist of course does not get the entire $100 because there are many other people (plus overhead) who need to be paid. However, I am reasonably assured that all these people are adding some sort of value to the concert (the other musicians, the road crew hauling the equipment and setting up the stage show, the agent who books the tour, and so forth). Ticket resellers, on the other hand, do NOTHING to add value. The idea that they sell closer to market price is bullshit. It would be similar to going to the gas station to buy gas, only instead of paying $2 a gallon, some smarmy dude is standing in front of the pump and you have to pay him $20 a gallon because he bought up all the gas from the station. He didn't drill the oil, refine the gas, or transport it from the refinery to the station, yet because he has a lot of money and got to the station the moment they opened for business in the morning, he drives up the price tenfold. And forget about going elsewhere because he bought up all the gas elsewhere as well.
they should be shut down. absolutely silly how this charade works. nothing ethical about. ditto for the Phish tickets as was the case with Springsteen- instantly 1000's tix available from TM resellers who funnel their purchases to TicketsNow. I am glad someone in Congress is acting on this.
My wife bought tickets for an upcoming skating competition in LA. Plenty of tickets are available for $25/$35, yet the cheapest price for far worse seats on TicketNow are at least $75, with most $100+? If you look at how the Ticketmaster website works when a venue has multiple ticket prices, you can select a combo of price/location that is impossible to buy, and it will tell you that those are sold out, and will offer to take you straight to TicketsNow.
This has aslo happened here in LA last yr for a radio station concert alot of people got cheesed. It's a total Monopoly and their prices are soooo expensive and they charge you to print on you're own printer,paper and ink.And now that they are going to
Get with live nation forget it!
I'm with others, I just don't go to concerts any more. And, I've got a case of the sads because I very much enjoy live music and have fond concert memories from college and from when I was a kiddo and my hippie parents took us to concerts multiple times a year (I assume the tickets were cheap b/c we had no money). The last concert I went to was Bob Dylan, paid an arm and a leg, seats were in the rafters and he sucked.
Now if I want live music, I walk down town with Mr. Sam and the dog and we often see some some great bands that cost us nothing (except we buy drinks and we tip the band too).
Sounds like the same thing that happened to me when trying to buy Phish tickets from Live Nation on Saturday. I thought about setting up a camera and recording the process, I had an underlying feeling the system would be bogged, slow, and over run. It was. Long waits, error messages, inconsistent pages, waiting lines/pools, nothing then something. then nothing. I spent 2 hours in front of 2 computers to get nothing. What more could I have possibly done??
TicketsNow had them for sale before they went onsale thanks to the pre sale phish did directly to the fans. plenty of other auction sites as well. It's been ten years since I saw them, one of my favorites. but $135 for 1 ticket, suck it.
I'm more of an indie tickets type o guy now anyway. large venues blow...
@JustThatGuy3: Just because someone CAN charge $1000 for something doesn't mean they should or that they want to. One of the big complaints with a lot of tickets is that they are priced too high for most people to buy. Bob may WANT to see a show, and may be sort of willing to spend $1000, but he may realize that anything beyond $100 is unfeasible for his financial situation.
@Justin Barbieri: By that standard as the supply decreases it would be unlawful to increase the value of anything even if no one company bought all of a product.
No one is forcing these people to buy the tickets. They weigh the cost(s) of the ticket against their desire to see Springsteen (Springsteen, really?). If their desire outweighs their intelligence they will make the purchase (which if you're paying more than a few bucks to see 'the boss' you deserve it). The only person possibly being harmed is Springsteen. As he has agreed to a contract for a set monetary value, in reality he is not being harmed at all. He has received his money to do the job.
By your argument if I sell a 1963 Shelby Cobra in mint condition for over face value, I should be required to find Carol Shelby and pay him a percentage of my earnings from selling the car since I sold it for over face value
GMFish: If the artist (Springsteen in this case) wants to keep the tickets priced at a lower level why should you be able to make money by selling them above face value? I am paying to see Bruce, you should not be able to dictate to me a price that is above the one he wants to charge.
@Justin Barbieri: "this argument is weak. if you are buying a rare painting, its because there is usually only 1,"
Who cares how many there are? It simply does not matter. There are plenty of cars which are rare, and yet there are more than one. There are plenty of LPs that are rare, but yet there are more than one.
The ticket is rare is because there is a finite number available each night and a much much larger group willing to fill that finite number. This is called supply and demand. It is not manipulating the market, it's called the market setting the price.
I have decided to boycott any arena that does business with Ticketmaster, if others want to pay the fees to be treated like an old rotting pile of garbage, that is their decision.
No more IZOD center shows, no more MSG, etc etc
It is only by exercising our purchasing power that we can reform a corrupt system.
This has an easy answer. Just turn the entire arena into a dutch auction. Every seat in the house is assigned a rank by desirability. Everyone who wants a ticket enters an amount they are willing to pay. The amounts are sorted by seat rank and the sale is cut off the day before the show. You get to the arena swipe your card to prove your identity and get you tickets. If you get to the end of the auction and your bid doesn't get a seat you are willing to sit in you drop out and the next guy in line gets that seat.
@Justin Barbieri: Nope they're just charging what the market will bear. No one is forcing you to buy the tickets. You are not entitled to buy tickets at the price you want. If they can't sell the tickets, then they make nothing from the sale of them.
Just because you can't have things exactly the way you want them, it doesn't mean there's a conspiracy to make it that way. Sorry buddy.
It's been obvious there's a "deal" between them for a long time, as in they are basically the same company and Ticketmaster has set up yet another scam to rip people off. It fits well with their entire existence, which is also basically a scam to rip people off.