A couple of months ago, Pee Wee Herman announced that he'd finally be returning to the stage after 25+ years for a limited engagement series of performances at the Music Box Theater in LA. As a lifelong fan, I jumped at the chance to see this once-in-a-lifetime show. I called as soon as the tickets went on sale, purchased a pair (about $100) and scored a reasonably priced plane ticket (roundtrip Baltimore to LA for $250).

The stars had aligned and I was going to see Pee Wee Herman on November 14th. I couldn't believe it!

...then it all went to shit.

Two days ago, I received the following email notification from Ticketmaster:

Due to popular demand, the Pee-wee Herman Show is moving to a larger venue and has new dates. It will now take place in downtown Los Angeles at Club Nokia, LA Live. The new dates are rescheduled for January 12, 2010 through February 7, 2010.

As a previous buyer, you have an exclusive opportunity to exchange your tickets for any one of the new shows. Simply call Ticketmaster at 1-800-653-8000 and provide us with your original confirmation number. Seats will be exchanged on a first come, first serve basis. This exclusive opportunity will begin on Wednesday, October 7, 2009 at 10:00am and will end on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 10:00 pm. Tickets will be available to the general public on Thursday, October 15, 2009 at 10:00 am.

But....but....but....I had already purchased my plane tickets. And what about all of those people who booked hotel rooms?! What were they going to do? This couldn't be happening. The Pee Wee I remember wouldn't have done this to me.

But I sucked it up. After-all, this was my one chance to see the man who had once inspired me to drunkenly do the "Tequila" dance on top of a bar. I couldn't miss this. No matter what.

I should have known better than to listen to myself. I'm an idiot. I should never listen to myself. And today at exactly 9:55AM EST, I began what would turn out to be a VERY long day with Ticketmaster.

9:55AM - First call to Ticketmaster....busy.

9:56AM to 10:05AM - Multiple calls to Ticketmaster...still busy.

10:06AM - Phew. I finally reach a Ticketmaster representative.

10:07AM - Ticketmaster representative informs me that the email that read "10:00AM" should have read "10:00AM PST". I hang my head in shame.

12:55PM (EST) - I begin calling Ticketmaster all over again. Busy.

12:56PM to 1:45PM - I call Ticketmaster more than 150 times on three different phones. Busy x150.

1:46PM - I reach a Ticketmaster representative. She seems confused about the ticket exchange. She tells me that her system won't let her access the event. I need to call back in one minute. I inform her that I had already been calling for more than an hour. She doesn't care. I begin to think that she secretly hates Pee Wee.

1:47PM to 2:15PM - I start over. Busy x75.

2:16PM - FINALLY. I get through to someone who can help me! She seems aware of the whole Pee Wee situation. By the tone of her voice, it sounds like a nightmare. She stays on the line with me as we pick the perfect tickets.

2:20PM - YES!!! I have tickets! Not only do I have tickets, but I have THIRD ROW tickets. It was a long process, but totally worth it. Third row. Wow!

And then God punched me in the face.

5:30PM - I begin reading people's complaints on Twitter about their ticket situations. Some people can't get through to Ticketmaster. Others couldn't get tickets that were comparable to the ones they had originally purchased. Others were being charged extra for their new tickets.

5:31PM - Wait. Being charged extra. I better check my bank account.

5:33PM - Fuck.

5:34PM - Fuck fuck.

5:35PM - It sinks in that I had just been charged $160 for this "exchange". That means I'm down $100 for the original tickets, $160 for this new and improved "exchange" pair of tickets, $250 for the airline tickets (PLUS whatever else they'll charge me for switching my flight)....oh, and....$30 for an overdraft fee.

Wait. Overdraft fee?! Yes. The helpful representative FORGOT to tell me that this was not the typical "exchange" most people in the free world are used to.

This exchange would require me to buy NEW, more expensive tickets without my knowledge.. And would require me to wait 2-3 weeks for a refund on my old tickets. And would force me to over-withdraw on my bank account.

5:36 PM - 8:45PM - I spend these next three hours on hold, occasionally talking to Ticketmaster representatives. Once in a while, I get through to a representative who inevitably transfers me to the next representative. I ask for supervisors. I get put back on hold. I ask for new departments. Back on hold.

8:46PM - I start losing it.

8:47PM - I begin realizing that I've just spent (ref: wasted) my entire day trying to fix problems related to Pee Wee Herman tickets. I'm too old for this.

8:49PM - I get through to a supervisor. In the wrong department. Of course.

8:50PM - I inform the supervisor of my situation and that: "I need this fixed now. No more waiting on hold. No more transfers. Just a resolution. I want my $30 overdraft fee back."

8:51PM - Back on hold. Supervisor needs to talk to Customer Service supervisor. Of course I wasn't talking to a Customer Service supervisor. That would make sense.

8:56 PM - Supervisor returns. He informs me that there's nothing they can do, but if I want, I can be put back on hold to talk to the Customer Service department.

8:57 PM - I tell him to have the Customer Service department call ME. Back on hold.

9:00 PM- Supervisor tells me that they don't make outside calls.

Ryan isn't the only person angry over the postponement, or even the only Consumerist reader. We wish we had secret powers over the mysterious fortress known as Ticketmaster.

Fans of Pee-wee Herman angry over show's postponement [LA Times]

(Photo: nyki_m)

The Competition Commission, which regulates antitrust matters in the U.K., warned that the merger would likely block the ability of German ticketer CTS — which has a pending deal with Live Nation — from competing in the U.K., said the commission's deputy chairman, Christopher Clarke.

As the second-largest ticket agent in the world after Ticketmaster, with considerable experience and expertise in other countries, CTS's entry would have increased competition in ticket retailing to the benefit of customers - whether fans, promoters or venue owners.

Ticketmaster and Live Nation responded with a statement that, "both our companies are committed to this merger and look forward to addressing any and all issues that the commission deems necessary."

U.S. officials are expected to weigh in next month. If the merger is blocked, nobody expects Ticketmaster and Live Nation to suddenly stop charging crazy fees or partnering with resellers. So, yeah, the universe hasn't really been saved. But competition does tend to help limit some excesses, and avoid, as Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl said this summer, "one company with a stranglehold on all segments of the concert business."

UPDATE: UK Regulator Against Ticketmaster, Live Nation Merger [WSJ.com]
Previously: Mergers: Ticketmaster And Live Nation Agree To Merge

You can understand Chris's confusion, since Ticketmaster posted a picture of the Teen Idols next to the listing. The Star Tribune writes:

So you can imagine Stout's surprise when he got his tickets in the mail with these names posted on them: Mickey Dolenz, Peter Noone and Mark Lindsay, performers closer to their 90s than they are the 1990s. Turns out, Ticketmaster mistook the pop-punkers for the pop-geezers from the Monkees, Herman's Hermits and Paul Revere & the Raiders, respectively, who are touring together on the so-called "Teen Idols Tour." Wait, wasn't Davy the idol in the Monkees?

Ticketmaster offered Chris a refund minus $13 in "convenience fees," but the Star Tribune interceded and Ticketmaster issued a full refund to Chris and any others who were inconvenienced with the accidental bait-and-switch.

Ticketmaster mixup sends out pop-geezers, not pop-punkers [Minneapolis Star Tribune]
(Thanks, Elise!)

I wanted to write in about a recent success I had with a chargeback scenario that I recently had - and given the popularity of the event, I thought it merited a letter to Consumerist.

My awesome girlfriend got me one hell of a birthday gift this year: a pair of three-day passes to All Points West, the music festival put on by Goldenvoice (the guys behind Coachella) that takes place in Jersey City's Liberty State Park. Unfortunately, the weather was less than ideal. It rained for most of the day on Friday, and if you bought a single-day pass at the door that day, Goldenvoice also let you in to either Saturday or Sunday (it was the ticketholder's choice) for free. While I don't quite understand the logic behind this decision (the tickets said 'rain or shine,' no acts were canceled and people do have access to Weather.com), I simply accepted this and was happy to be at the festival.

Saturday was gorgeous - but Goldenvoice did absolutely nothing to clean up the parksite, leaving festival-goers to trudge through ankle-deep, manure-laden mud for the rest of the festival. Again, I was fine with this - shit like this really doesn't matter on the day where you're about to see My Bloody Valentine for the first day in your life.

But Sunday is where the poorly organized festival truly came to a head. We got to the festival at about 12:30 or so because I really wanted to see Todd Barry (he was performing around 1:30). It was pouring down rain - but Todd was going to be in a tent. My girlfriend and I bought ponchos, and began the 20 minute walk to Liberty State Park. By the time we got there, staff was on-hand with a megaphone telling people to return to the light rail station or ferry docking point to seek shelter - and that the festival wouldn't be opening its doors. My girlfriend and I waited in the pouring rain for two hours, and decided that it wasn't worth it to deal with this. Our tickets said 'rain or shine,' and Goldenvoice failed to prepare for the weather and deliver on its promise.

At 4:30, the doors finally opened, but at this point I was back in Brooklyn, enjoying the Internet backlash against APW via Twitter and Facebook. Another friend of mine was actually held captive on a ferry boat in the pouring rain - so I guess things could've been worse.

But what I couldn't believe was that after APW extended a perk to single-pass owners on Friday due to a little bit of rain (as opposed to the torrential downpour on Sunday), that nothing was being done for the cancellation of acts and general poor public relations that took place on Sunday. Details about the fate of the festival were kept to an absolute bare minimum on Twitter and the APW official site, and festival goers were kept in the dark.

I knew that if I attempted to get a refund through Ticketmaster, I would be absolutely screwed - the tickets said no refunds. But I didn't want a complete refund; I just wanted Goldenvoice to compensate us for what they did on Sunday.

After we got home (while the festival was still occurring), we requested a chargeback for 198 dollars - an amount equal to two single day passes, plus some of the ridiculous service fees leveled at us by Ticketmaster. The passes were purchased on my girlfriend's Chase credit card. A couple of days later, she received a phone call at work and confirmed the details of what happened: how Goldenvoice was issuing free passes left and right, how we didn't actually use our passes at the festival and how Goldenvoice didn't follow through on its promise of "rain or shine."

Today, her credit card was credited with the money. I'm glad we got paid back for tickets that we weren't actually able to enjoy, but I can't help but think about everybody else who was also ripped off by Goldenvoice.

Which is it? Is the policy "rain or shine" or "everybody spend four hours in the train station during this torrential downpour"? Yes, bad weather is to be expected and planned for during an outdoor concert, but not on the scale that acts were canceled and concertgoers confined to a train station.

While letting Friday's ticketholders in for a second day wouldn't cost the promoters anything, providing refunds to Sunday's would. Still, does that doesn't make the disparity fair? Would you have fought for a refund of Sunday's ticket price?

(Photo: Flyinace2000

He writes:

I am an Atlanta Falcons season ticket holder. The Falcons, and perhaps the entire NFL, has partnered with Ticketmaster to be the official ticket reseller. Through the Falcons website, you are able to connect to the NFL Ticket Exchange website at Ticketmaster.com. I set up to sell my two tickets at two separate games. The set up was painless, getting payment for the sale was not. ... The tickets are sent by email, so this should be instantaneous.

I posted and sold all of the tickets on August 25. On my account page, under status for each order it said, "Finalized." This would indicate to any reasonable person that payment should now be received. On August 28, I contacted customer service to see why I had not received payment yet. I was told that the Falcons had trouble getting the ticket information to Ticketmaster. This was understandable, however, Ticketmaster made no attempt to email season ticket holders of the issue. I was told that payment on one of the two orders was triggered, and the other one should be done soon.

On September 1, I contacted customer service to see if the other transaction had been triggered. I was told that it had not been. Apparently, the only person who could do that was out of the office on September 1 and September 2. I was told that no one else could handle triggering the payment. On September 2, I called again to request that my commission fees be refunded for the lack of communication. I was told that that would not happen (a whopping $7.50). The supervisor I spoke to, Armando, said he would trigger the payment that night. I asked how this was possible since I was told only one person had the authority to do that, and he was gone. He indicated that he was given that authority just that day because of the person's absence. It was after hours, so the bank wouldn't get the information until Thursday, Sept. 3. Still no email regarding the delays.

I received the following email today:

Your payment for PO Z 3133554 was issued by direct deposit today. If you have any questions or concerns please call 888-635-5944. thank you.

Definitely something to keep in mind if you want to turn your tickets around on Ticketmaster for some quick money.

(Photo: phototaker)

As part of the agreement, TicketsNow will cease operating any Web sites that have misleading domain names and will refrain from affiliating with any Web sites that use similarly deceptive tactics. As a result of Madigan's investigation, TicketsNow has already disabled more than 100 suspect Web sites.

"Our investigation revealed that consumers who purchased concert tickets at TicketsNow Web sites often believed they were purchasing tickets from the actual event operators for their original value," Madigan said. "This agreement will substantially impact how the TicketsNow online brokers market popular event tickets so that consumers clearly understand that they are making purchases from a ticket reseller at marked-up rates."

In the course of the investigation, Madigan's office determined that TicketsNow, which is based in Rolling Meadows, Ill., was operating hundreds of affiliated ticket resale Web sites with misleading domain names that incorporated into the Web site URLs unique names of local venues, sports teams or performers. The TicketsNow-affiliated Web sites failed to clearly state that they were ticket resellers and had obtained tickets from secondary sources, such as season ticket holders, event promoters and venue operators, in advance of the public sale. As a result, consumers did not realize that they were ordering marked-up tickets from a TicketsNow-affiliated reseller.

The wires aren't yet saying how long TicketsNow will need to wait before reselling tickets at inflated prices.

This isn't the first time Ticketmaster has been pressured into abandoning questionable business practices. Back in February, Ticketmaster settled a complaint from New Jersey's Attorney General by agreeing to stop linking directly to TicketsNow. It just goes to show how many questionable practices Ticketmaster exploits.

MADIGAN: TICKETMASTER AGREES TO SHUT DOWN DECEPTIVE TICKET BROKER WEB SITES (Press Release) [Illinois Attorney General]
TicketsNow, Illinois Atty Genl Reach Agreement On Marketing [The Wall Street Journal]

Azoff reiterated his oft-quoted comment that he wouldn't have purchased TicketsNow if he had been CEO at the time of the deal. His rationale: Artists don't get any money from resellers like TicketsNow. As Azoff sees it, "dynamic pricing" of tickets is fine, as long as musicians (and, presumably, their managers) are able to share in the take.

The CEO brushed aside complaints from artists such as Bruce Springsteen that Ticketmaster abuses its near-monopoly power over the concert-ticket business, saying that "everything we do revolves around what's good for the artist and what's good for the fan. That's our new model." Pushed for more details, Azoff made it clear who he thinks is really the boss: "I would say that Bruce is uninformed about the potential of what this could be for him."

"We haven't done enough dynamic pricing for tickets, and we should, and that will help make people happy," he said. We assume those happy people will include Irving Azoff and, oh, Irving Azoff. And, conceivably, anyone willing to pay a premium for tickets. The rest of us may just have to face a Tenth Avenue freeze out. Or worse. In response to one audience question, Azoff warned that "we have to keep the press from chastising artists that use dynamic pricing." Good luck with that.

Irving Azoff, CEO of Ticketmaster Entertainment [All Things D]
D7 Video: Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff and Kara Swisher

RELATED:
Congressman Wants Ticketmaster Investigated For 'TicketsNow' Website
Ticketmaster Tries To Evade California Law By Calling "Gift Card" A "Discount Card"
Who's Scalping Those Concert Tickets? Artists And Agents, Frequently
Ticketmaster Agrees To Stop Linking To TicketsNow

(Photo: nerdy girl)

It's #5 Ticketmaster VS #1 AIG!

This is a post in our Worst Company In America 2009 series. The companies nominated for this honor were chosen by you, the readers, and seeded according to number of nominations. Keep track of all the goings on at consumerist.com/tag/worst-company-in-america. Download the bracket here.

#1 AIG

#5 Ticketmaster

#2 Bank of America

...and #3 Comcast!

Reader Robert isn't happy that Ticketmaster is violating California law, and filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau:

Complaint Description
They refuse to honor my giftcard because it "expired." Under California law, gift cards do not have expiration dates.

Complaint Summary
I have a $50 gift card (Code: 8002-5000-5641-0868) that TicketsNow says is "expired." Under California law, gift cards do not expire.

Resolution Sought
I want to be issued a working $50 gift certificate. In addition, so others do not have the same problem, I want their billing system to recognize all "expired" gift certificates as valid, at least in California.

Ticketmaster quickly responded with nine sentences, eight of which are utter fluff.

We are in receipt of your recent complaint submitted to the Better Business Bureau. Ticketmaster regrets any inconvenience you may have experienced in connection with your recent online ticketing experience, and thanks you for bringing your concerns to our attention. As a service oriented company, the satisfaction of our customers is always our utmost concern. Please be aware that your valued feedback will be provided to the proper group responsible for the concern you described, and will be instrumental in helping us improve the products & services that we offer. . As you may recall, you are requesting that we honor a $50.00 Ticketmaster gift card with the CODE: 8002-5000-5641-0868 that you have in your possession. This is a Discount Code not a Gift Card and it did have an expiration date of December 31, 2005. Please be assured; Ticketmaster complies with all relevant ticketing laws, including those of your state. We closely monitor ticketing law and take care to ensure we do not violate them. We trust that this explanation will fully resolve the matter. Sincerely, Pam Shafer Consumer Support Specialist

Robert responded:

Hi Pam Shafer. You must be mistaken. Please consult the picture of my gift card under dispute that I have uploaded to the the internet for your convenience. Notice that it clearly says "$50 Gift Card." I have reason to believe you are circumventing California law. I have reason to believe you are lying to me and telling me the $50 I have is not really $50 dollars. Thank you for your time. With regards to my time, I would like to be issued a check now for $50 because of the hassles I have had to put up with. I am also inclined to post my story to the website The Consumerist.

Ticketmaster offered a final salvo:

As stated previously, you are requesting that we honor a $50.00 Ticketnow gift card with the CODE: 8002-5000-5641-0868 that you have in your possession. This is a Discount Code not a Gift Card and it did have an expiration date of December 31, 2005. You have also spoken with a Ticketsnow representative and he stated that you understood that this was a promotion code that cannot be validated as it has expired. Please be assured; Ticketmaster complies with all relevant ticketing laws, including those of your state. We closely monitor ticketing law and take care to ensure we do not violate them. We trust that this explanation will fully resolve the matter. Sincerely, Pam Shafer Consumer Support Specialist

But don't worry, because Ticketmaster complies with all relevant ticketing laws, including those of your state or whatever.

So does this mean someone can stab Ticketmaster's general counsel and get off scot-free because "involuntary insertion of a retributive object" somehow isn't the same thing same as stabbing?

Complaint ID: 98404063 [Los Angeles Better Business Bureau]

4) How pricy [Brooklyn Vegan]
RELATED: Worst Company In America: Ticketmaster VS Citibank

It's #5 TicketmasterVS #4 Citibank:

This is a post in our Worst Company In America 2009 series. The companies nominated for this honor were chosen by you, the readers, and seeded according to number of nominations. Keep track of all the goings on at consumerist.com/tag/worst-company-in-america. Download the bracket here.

It's #5 Ticketmaster VS #12 United Healthcare:

This is a post in our Worst Company In America 2009 series. The companies nominated for this honor were chosen by you, the readers, and seeded according to number of nominations. Keep track of all the goings on at consumerist.com/tag/worst-company-in-america Download the bracket here.

It's Ticketmaster VS Time Warner Cable:

This is a post in our Worst Company In America 2009 series. The companies nominated for this honor were chosen by you, the readers, and seeded according to number of nominations. Keep track of all the goings on at consumerist.com/tag/worst-company-in-america. Download the bracket here.

Last night, word spread like wildfire on numerous Phish fan message boards that tickets for the band's recently announced 4-night stand at Red Rocks Amphitheater were available for purchase on Ticketmaster.com. Fans were in disbelief, since the public onsale date for the Red Rocks concerts is scheduled for Thursday, March 26. But sure enough, those brave enough to enter their account information received immediate confirmation emails from Ticketmaster.

After the window closed, fans immediately began speculating about how this could happen and whether or not Ticketmaster would honor the purchases. Considering Phish's rabid fanbase, the limited capacity of Red Rocks (9450), and that these would be Phish's first Red Rocks dates in 13 years, these tickets promised to be the most difficult to secure of any for Phish's summer tour. Those who successfully ordered the tickets were overjoyed at the ease with which they'd just gotten 4 day passes and at face value!

More skeptical fans went into overdrive, reading Ticketmaster's terms of service. Upon close inspection, they found the Ticketmaster escape clause:

If the amount you pay for a ticket is incorrect regardless of whether because of an error in a price posted on this web site or otherwise communicated to you, or you are able to order a ticket before its scheduled on-sale or presale date or you are able to order a ticket that was not supposed to have been released for sale, then: Ticketmaster will have the right to cancel that ticket (or the order for that ticket) and refund to you the amount that you paid. This will apply regardless of whether because of human error or a transactional malfunction of this web site or other Ticketmaster operated system.

Phish fans awoke this morning to find that Ticketmaster had indeed canceled all orders overnight. Fans who had missed the "magic window" rejoiced that they still had a (slim) chance of getting tickets at face value through the public onsale. Fans who suffered the cancellations debated how best to express their dismay. Suggestions included mass emails to members of Congress, phone calls to promoter AEG, class action lawsuits, and other fanatical measures.

Conspiracy theories raged. The most popular centered around the idea that a Ticketmaster insider briefly "opened the window" to allow ticket brokers access to tickets before the public onsale date.

This evening, Phish issued the following statement, found on the front page of their website.

Eventually, jilted fans received an email directly from Ticketmaster North America President David Butler. The text follows:

Dear Phish fan:
Unfortunately, the tickets that you ordered from Ticketmaster for performances of Phish scheduled at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre between the dates of July 30th and August 2nd, 2009 were put on sale inadvertently, allowing you to order tickets before they were supposed to have been released for sale to the general public. The sale of these tickets prior to the scheduled onsale date was the result of an inadvertent error on the part of Ticketmaster. While we strive to be perfect, errors do occur, albeit rarely. Per our stated policy and our practice Ticketmaster refunds purchases in such situations and cancels the tickets. In this case, while we asked the credit card companies for an authorization code at order time, we did not and will not charge your card for the purchase price and have canceled your order for tickets.

In addition, we'd like to show our sincere regret for this error by providing you with a gift certificate in the amount of $50.00 that is redeemable for any purchase for tickets to qualifying events on Ticketmaster.com or through our call centers as long as your order was in accordance with our standard order guidelines. You should receive this gift certificate in the next two weeks.

We are sorry that we were not able to provide you with the tickets you ordered and hope that we will have the chance to serve you better in the future. We encourage you to visit Ticketmaster at the scheduled onsale for Phish at Red Rocks currently scheduled for Thursday March 26, 2009 at 12:00 pm MT.

Sincerely,
David Butler
President
Ticketmaster North America

People are shocked that Ticketmaster engaged in such a good will gesture. Guilty conscience much?

Anyway, fans would obviously rather have the tickets than a $50 voucher that will be worth $27 after handling fees and convenience charges. As it stands, very few fans will be able to beat out the scalpers and their automated ticket bots to purchase tickets at face value, and most people who get to attend the Red Rocks shows will undoubtedly pay $500+ for each night's ticket.

No offense to your Phishfandom, but this sort of thing makes us feel really lucky to not like any band well enough to buy from a ticket scalper. Fun should not be this stressful.

Here's a copy of the email he just sent to TicketsNow:

I've been a long time customer of TicketMaster and thier services, and never had a problem in the past. This is my first experience with TickerMaster's TicketsNow division, and I find the level of service received to be unacceptable.

I am writing once again to inquire as to the status of a refund. I have tried calling several times, but after I speak to customer service my call continually gets disconnected once I mention the word "refund". I have e-mailed several times, received only one response. Inquiries to the status of my refund have been ignored. With all charges and fees I spent a total of $313.95 on tickets that were completely unusable. This is not acceptable, and I would like a refund for the tickets.

* I mailed the tickets back Feb 13, 2009 as instructed by TicketsNow customer service via USPS.
* We learned the show /no longer existed/ the day before the event was supposed to take place (after we were set to travel to the show).

[Order details redacted]

I have done everything asked of me by TicketsNow, but when I ask about the status of a refund I get no answer. It's been almost a month, and I would really appreciate an update as to what is going on.

Do you see that, Ticketmaster? Sean isn't even demanding a refund—he just wants to know what's happening on your end! If you're not giving him the refund, just tell him already.

(Photo: jragon)

Although that by itself isn't exactly the worst thing in the world—artists surely can charge whatever they feel like for tickets if they think customers will buy them—Tickemaster takes great pains to mislead the consumer and hide the true seller from the public on their secondary ticket sites like TicketExchange and TicketsNow:

Joseph Freeman, Ticketmaster's senior vice president for legal affairs, says that the company's "Marketplace" pages only rarely list tickets offered by fans.

...

Virtually every major concert tour today involves some official tickets that are priced and sold as if they were offered for resale by fans or brokers, but that are set aside by the artists and promoters, according to a number of people involved in the sales.

The WSJ story notes that for a recent Britney Spears concert, secondary market tickets priced at over $1000 were "offered in small batches, each at a price, such as $1,164.01, that mimics prices set via online auctions," and marketed with the phrase, "Browse premium seats plus tickets posted by fans." Ticketmaster removed the "fans" line after WSJ contacted them with questions.

We think when artists sell tickets, they should announce whether they're selling the inflated tickets themselves. It's not like that's gonna turn away superfans who'll pay out the nose—Prince is quite transparent in his astronomical ticket prices, and he doesn't exactly play to empty houses.

The recent Bruce Stringsteen ticket fiasco didn't involve such reselling—Springsteen said through his manager that "we do not ever release tickets to the secondary ticket market nor do we ever accept payment from them." But otherwise, if it's a major act and you think it's a random, faceless person on the other side of the page gouging you for tickets, it's quite possibly the artist doing it, with Ticketmaster helping to hide their identity.

"Concert Tickets Get Set Aside, Marked Up by Artists, Managers " [Wall Street Journal] (Thanks to Ibid!)
(Photos: Jon Bon Jovi, Anirudh Koul; Celine Dion, Anirudh Koul; Billy Joel, Samira Khan; Dr. Rockso, Anirudh Koul)

• 1. No more linking to TicketsNow directly from a Ticketmaster transaction screen. This applies nationwide.
• 2. Ticketmaster will pay New Jersey $350,000 to cover the cost of the investigation.
• 3. Ticketmaster will stop an advertising agreement with Google which redirected Ticketmaster searches to the TicketsNow website.
• 4. Ticketmaster will hold a lottery to sell 2,000 Springsteen tickets at face value to customers who complained about the botched sales. Another 1,000 customers who don't win the lottery will be given $100 gift certificates and an opportunity to purchase tickets to an upcoming NJ Springsteen concert.

All in all, it's a pretty good smackdown of Ticketmaster's misleading and unfair business practices, although we suspect Ticketmaster caved so quickly partly to improve its reputation as the government begins to look at their upcoming merger with Live Nation.

"Ticketmaster will stop linking customers to subsidiary" [NJ.com] (Thanks to Doug!)

RELATED
"Congressman Wants Ticketmaster Investigated For 'TicketsNow' Website"
(Photo: alexik)

My story is from Jan 31 2009 when I logged onto Ticketmaster at 9:59am for Jimmy Buffett at DTE Aug 13 2009 and I unknowingly was redirected to TicketsNow to complete my purchase that I still thought was Ticketmaster. After a few minutes and receiving confirmation of my order I realized someting was wrong. I paid $877 for 2 Seats. My timestamp on my purchase was 10:02AM. Two minutes after tickets went on sale. Tickets now policy is they will not sell any tickets that are not in their hand (I have the email from their customer service agent). Also the seats they sold me do not exist. My row goes up to 50 and they sold me 99 & 100. I called DTE today to confirm that yes those seats do not exist.

We don't know if there was a glitch or if Diana simply wasn't familiar with TicketsNow and didn't realize Ticketmaster was pushing her to their secondary ticket market, but it illustrates one of the problems with Ticketmaster operating its own secondary ticket market and connecting it with regular ticket sales so seamlessly. We won't even go into the issue of how tickets could be available for "resale" at more or less the exact same time they went on sale to the general public.

Diana and her husband are now looking at their options for getting a refund, but in the meantime she just wants to get the word out about what happened. "I know what the mistake did to our family emotionally and mentally. I do not want to see anyone experience this too."

If the tickets are for seats that don't exist, Diana, they're not authentic tickets and you should be able to get 100% of your money back. Also see here.

YOu should also see this page, where TicketsNow announces that they will no longer allow tickets to be posted for resale until after the initial tickets go on sale. Unfortunately, this change was announced just last week, a bit late for your purchase, but you might still want to contact them and point out the obvious problems with your purchase.

(Photo: Don_Gato)

Diller blames artists for your lousy ticket experiences, by the way:

"Ticketmaster does not set prices, Live Nation doesn't set prices. Artists set the prices," Diller said on a conference call. "Everyone else is just a distributor or a service provider."

Lawmakers say they'll give the merger a supposedly thorough review:

The agreement would "send ticket prices through the roof," U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said today in an e-mailed statement.

"I will take a very close look at this merger before anything moves forward," said Schumer, who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee and called on the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission to view the deal skeptically.

The new company will be called Live Nation Entertainment, which Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff confirmed on a conference call was a deliberate attempt to get away from the negative associations of his current company.

Oh, also, it was Visa's fault that they couldn't sell those Springsteen tickets more fairly. Diller said so.

"Live Nation, Ticketmaster to Merge in All-Stock Deal " [Bloomberg]
(Photo: gruntzooki)

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)

"Ticketmaster, Live Nation in merger talks" [Reuters] (Thanks to WeSeed!)
(Photo: Anirudh Koul)

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.

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 über-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

Brown Paper Tickets is one of several alternative online ticket vendors for anyone hosting a ticketed event. Might be a ball, a fundraiser, a race, a concert, or an exhibit. At Long Now we've used them and can recommend them highly.

Brown Paper Tickets bills themselves as "fair-trade" ticketing. What that means is that they offer a fair deal to both the consumer and the venue. BPT provides the lowest consumer fees on tickets (99 cents and 2.5%), with no add-on overcharges, and free first class postage. For hosts setting up an event, they offer fantastic 24/7 live-person phone support, a clean usable website, and cheap (10 cent) printed secure tickets. They offer venue hosts other goodies too. You have control over when to stop sales, how to customize the ticket, ways to manage multiple events, means to offer media tickets, assigned seating, and so on.

Plus, they give you real-time sales, and pay up promptly! Try that with Ticketmaster.

Now the bad news: you can't use an up-and-comer like Brown Paper Tickets unless your venue can, which makes the whole issue rather academic for now. What you can do is make sure your favorite local venues know about BPT so they can look at it for themselves.

Brown Paper Tickets: Fair Trade Ticketing [Cool Tools]
(Photo: Jakob.Enos)

Here's your first "Sweet 16" match-up: #1 Comcast VS #17 Ticketmaster.

Here's what some of you had to say about these two companies:

Comcast:
"In my experience, Comcast employees don't even TRY to do their jobs. It's like they have no motivation."

If Comcast does not win then the entire fun of this whole contest has been wiped out for me.

Ticketmaster:
"This is a no brainer: Ticketmaster is the worst by far."

"Go Ticketmaster go! You're in my top 5!"

This is a post in our Worst Company In America 2008 series. The companies nominated for this honor were chosen by you, the readers. Keep track of all the goings on at consumerist.com/tag/worst-company-in-america.

Santiago writes:

To whom it may concern at IAC,

Recently I found out you are the owners of Ticketmaster, I don't know if you are aware but in April 19 tickets for the Radiohead concert in Toronto went up for sale by Ticketmaster at 10:00 a.m. At 10:00 a.m. it was already impossible to find tickets, they had sold out. Instead Ticketmaster was offering the chance of going to their partner website Ticketsnow.com, and buying the tickets from there, which of course meant that a ticket with a regular price of $70.00 could now be found with a value of up to $500. I intended to purchase two tickets and I am not willing to pay $1000 for them. It is not clear to me how tickets might sellout in the first minute of their launch. Should Ticketmaster and your company be abiding by a business code of ethics this wouldn't happen, I refuse to buy tickets from scalpers and even more so when those scalpers are linked directly (and protected) to the company that was supposed to provide us with the tickets initially.

I expect this letter to cause no effect whatsoever in your companies policies, but would just like to let you know the frustration that my girlfriend, me and many fans of Radiohead feel towards your company and Ticketmaster.

Sincerely,

Santiago