Reader Brent was furious to find three lawn tickets bought through Ticketmaster, priced at $13 each, came to the ridiculous total of $106.20. First there’s the facility fee, then there’s the mandatory parking, a processing fee, and the “convenience” charge for purchasing the tickets online. After all the fees were piled on, the $13 tickets now cost $35.40 each. Brent’s letter, and a breakdown of the charges, inside:

My nephew asked me to order May Day tickets for him since all the surrounding TM outlets are no longer TM agents so I agreed to do so. He wanted 3 lawn tickets priced at $13 each and he knew there would be fees so he collected $25 from each of his friends to cover them. I told him that I doubted that he had collected enough but we pressed on and placed the order.

As you can see from the attached image, we paid 172% i fees which brought our $39 tickets to $106.20. What a sickening feeling to know that TM engages is such thievery and there’s only one thing you can do about it. Don’t go.

A tip of the hat for Pearl Jam for spending years boycotting TM for the excessive fees they were charging even if it resulted in hurting Pearl Jam more than TM.

Sincerely,

Brent

Actually, Brent, you want to subtract the amount of the tax before dividing, so they’re taking 4% less than you thought, which probably doesn’t make you feel any better. These fees may be “standard,” but that doesn’t make them any less bogus. We’d suggest you try to dump them on some other sucker, but who’s going to pay more than 168% markup to see 3 Doors Down?

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