i just wanna vent and get some opinions on this one.

I'm heading over to the global dance festival in two weeks to see sasha and digweed and benny benassi and what not, so i'm trying to buy tickets. turns out the only place to buy them is livenation.com, which wants a $15 dollar surcharge on each one so that i can print them out at home.

i always thought ticket master charging 8 was a crap deal. they're breakin my balls with this crap, i don't wanna show up at the door and have them be sold out. i'd happily pay 80 bucks at the door as long as i knew the extra money was going to the concert and not some twat middle man with a website.

is this a red rocks thing? anybody else have an (angry) opinion?

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-Raptor

Well, you aren't gonna like this but real soon Live Nation will = Ticket Master. :-p

They are in the process of a merger and in the end everything wil be under the Live Nation brand. It's taking awhile because they are having to take extra steps to avoid antitrust issues (they've met with the DOJ over it a couple times already), but it's expected to be completed by the end of the year.

When tickets are sold at places like Live Nation or Ticketmaster, it'ps becasue the venu has an agreement with them. It would always cause chaos with events like Monster Massive, because they would sell tickets through Groovetickets.....which was annoying because if you did that and got a ticket through Groovetickets, you then had to exchange it for a Ticketmaster ticket when you get to the LA Sports Arena before you can go through the gates.

35% commission is pretty typical these days. ticketmaster is worse because they jack you at variable rates with multiple excessive charges...



Ticketmaster charges a fee for ticket delivery, even if the ticket is in the form of an automatically generated virtual "e-ticket", which buyers must then print out themselves, at their own expense (at a lower cost to Ticketmaster than any other medium). Buyers may also be charged an extra fee to collect the ticket(s) from the venue. E-ticket convenience charges have been known to be issued even when purchasing a ticket directly from Ticketmaster box offices.

As an example of a fairly typical markup, a ticket to see Motörhead at Brixton Academy, London 2006, cost £25, plus £3.75 per ticket service charge, plus £4.95 postage and packing per order. In this example, the fees are approximately an additional 35% of the cost of the ticket. Tickets to see Feist in Vancouver in 2008 are $49.50, plus a $10 "convenience fee", plus a $2.50 "Building Facility Charge", plus a $4.35 "Order Processing Charge", plus optional express postage. More expensive tickets would have higher charges, but generally proportionately less relative to the total: tickets to see Pavarotti at Chatsworth House were selling for £85 for the ticket, £8 service charge per ticket, and £2.50 per order for either postal delivery or box office collection.

While 35% is typical, it can be considerably more. Take for example, a $25.00 ticket to see Symphony X at the Pearl Room, just outside Chicago, has a $7.25 service charge, no option for will call or printable ticket, and $14.50 as the least expensive method of delivery. With the final processing charge of $2.40, this makes the total $49.15. With not even a "building facility charge" at the Pearl Room, this is a 97% increase in the cost of the ticket.

These price increases are predictable, considering that Ticketmaster is often the sole vendor of tickets (many venues do not even offer ticket sales for their own events).

Another charging practice is Parking Fees and excessive shipping. Although Ticketmaster reports this as being charged by the vendor, this is rarely the case. One example of this being a $25.00 ticket to a 2007 Dream Theater concert at the Fillmore in Detroit, MI including an $8.60 service charge, a $9.65 shipping fee (the ticket coming in an envelope with a 23.5 cent bulk stamp), and a $5 parking fee at a venue that doesn't have parking.

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wow, my soul hurts. i'd be interested to see how much of the market ticket master and live nation each have now, and how much they will control once combined. It seems to me like they have a pretty clear monopoly now, but maybe that's just the concerts i go to.

i also have a strong urge to stick it to the man and not get a ticket till i get to the door. i think i'll give that a shot. i'll send them a message with my wallet, cause the customer is always right and one man can make a difference! (they'll never notice or care) that'll show em!

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-Raptor