Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ticketmaster is a horrible company

hjhart.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 252 posts

Re: Ticketmaster is a horrible company

#141

Post by toddmorey »

zdean wrote: post #87
jandrese wrote: post #13

That insurance scam is only reason #8382 not to use Ticketmaster. Of course there is one reason to use Ticketmaster: you often don't get a choice anymore. The Venue box office is a joke, and Ticketmaster has an exclusive agreement for the rest so it's either them or pay even more to a scalper. This is why I go to barely any shows anymore. The ones I do go to are at the one local venue that doesn't use Ticketmaster (W…

"It is a testament to our weak antitrust laws that Ticketmaster has been able to gouge the public for decades with no repercussions whatsoever." Genuinely interested to know what is keeping a nimble new startup from stepping in and blowing this up.

Dating myself by mentioning this, but when I was in college Pearl Jam (huge at the time) tried to go around Ticketmaster and got their asses handed to them. They basically had to end up cancelling and offering refunds.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/pearl-jam-taking-on-t...

Re: Ticketmaster is a horrible company

#142

Post by giarc »

jonlucc wrote: post #86
giarc wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: the time ticker. Is that true, because if you let that timer expire, you are indeed kicked back to the "Select Tickets" page and have to browse again.

I think the parent means that they would revoke the tickets from you and put them back for sale, but there was no reason for the time crunch, because there weren't other people looking for tickets at the time.

The parent author responded and so I changed my comment here.

Originally I had said TM can't predict traffic after you put tickets in cart, so it makes sense to limit timing. However, it seems like originally the timer only was enabled when there were other users browsing the same event which makes sense.

Re: Ticketmaster is a horrible company

#143

Post by st3v3r »

zdean wrote: post #87
jandrese wrote: post #13

That insurance scam is only reason #8382 not to use Ticketmaster. Of course there is one reason to use Ticketmaster: you often don't get a choice anymore. The Venue box office is a joke, and Ticketmaster has an exclusive agreement for the rest so it's either them or pay even more to a scalper. This is why I go to barely any shows anymore. The ones I do go to are at the one local venue that doesn't use Ticketmaster (W…

"It is a testament to our weak antitrust laws that Ticketmaster has been able to gouge the public for decades with no repercussions whatsoever." Genuinely interested to know what is keeping a nimble new startup from stepping in and blowing this up.

The venues have no reason to want to deal with a new company.

Re: Ticketmaster is a horrible company

#144

Post by unclenoriega »

wickawic wrote: post #126
ishields wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "In any case the market drives the show prices for the most part" I completely disagree. Maybe for the ticket face value that may be true but look at the provided example: $18.50 face value for a ticket (driven by the market/demand) + $1.50 "facility charge" + $4.50 "service fee" + $4.00 "order processing fee" + $2.25 "shipping" so no you're paying $18.50 for the ticket plus $12.25 in fees just in order to get your…

The dirty secret is that those fees are really part of the ticket price. It is still the market at work, albeit a dark and slimy kind of market that makes you feel bad about the future of commerce. If in your example you truly couldn't/wouldn't pay more than 18.50 once you saw the fees, someone else would.

Just to add on, here's a link if someone is interested: http://www.laweekly.com/music/ticketmaster-and-servants-band...

Re: Ticketmaster is a horrible company

#145

Post by droithomme »

> "If I can help it, I will never order another ticket from them again."

I find these to be weasel words.

I don't use Ticketmaster. Full stop.

If your concert uses Ticketmaster, I'm not going to that.

It's not a problem because all the cool acts don't use Ticketmaster. Only lame old decrepit acts use Ticketmaster anyway. And if I wanted to see those, I'd go to Vegas, and at least get a comped all you can eat buffet as well.

Brown Paper Tickets is an alternative that is fair and reasonable. Oddly, many fantastic acts I've see such as The Orb use them for ticket sales instead of the vile corrupt corparate boondoogle that is Ticketmaster.

https://www.brownpapertickets.com/

Ticketmaster was corrupt and horrible 30 years ago. If you are still using them or claiming to buy tickets from them for any reason then you're either a corporate shill or terminally clueless.

Re: Ticketmaster is a horrible company

#146

Post by natetharp »

smallnamespace wrote: post #93
zdean wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It is a testament to our weak antitrust laws that Ticketmaster has been able to gouge the public for decades with no repercussions whatsoever." Genuinely interested to know what is keeping a nimble new startup from stepping in and blowing this up.

Ticketmaster either owns or has deals with all the venues. I wouldn't be surprised if all those deals specified exclusivity. No venue will switch to a new entrant unless the new entrant can guarantee the same demand, so you have the normal chicken and egg program.

Of course the venues use exclusive deals. It would be foolish to try and maintain multiple ticketing systems, extra overhead with no benefit.

The venues provide the demand, not the ticketing system. The venues will use the ticketing system they can get the best pricing from.

Re: Ticketmaster is a horrible company

#148

Post by olalonde »

ishields wrote: post #123
ams6110 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be fair is an auction. Then the price would be more representative of the market value. The reason those tickets all sell out in 30 seconds is that they are too cheap.

While this may be true in a pure capitalistic sense, many believe that experiencing the arts isn't something that should be limited to the rich

Being physically present in the stadium is not necessary to watch the game and in a way, those tickets subsidize the game for the rest of us at home. This is especially true for the arts since many artists make most of their money from concert tours (a great example of price discrimination).

Re: Ticketmaster is a horrible company

#149

Post by pvg »

parthdesai wrote: post #139
pvg wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stadium in Toronto seats 31k people, for the most important game of the year in front of a home crowd. El Clasico is a game famous for quality, prestige and tradition but doesn't decide anything. It's played in some of the largest venues in Europe - Camp Nou seats nearly 100k and the Bernabeu seats 81k. It's probably not Ticketmaster's fault the venue is not nearly large enough for the demand.

The stadium seats 31K for a side that wouldn't even probably be good enough Segunda division. 2nd Leg of El Classico is usually crucial for title race. Ticket prices for CL final are : Category 4: €70 Category 3: €160 Category 2: €320 Category 1: €440 [0] It IS Ticketmaster's fault that fans don't even get a decent shot at buying the tickets. How do you justify site not loading at 1:00pm and tickets selling out at 1:…

I didn't miss your point, it just makes your comparison even worse. You're comparing secondary market ticket prices to tickets with artificially lowered prices sold through a lottery. Decent El Clasico tickets cost a lot more and the median income in Spain is about half the Canadian one.

The relative quality of the games also doesn't really matter, what matters is there are a lot more people in Toronto who want to see an MLS final than there are places to put their butts in. Maybe there should have been a lottery for them but that's also not up to Ticketmaster.

Re: Ticketmaster is a horrible company

#150

Post by st3v3r »

ams6110 wrote: post #59
parthdesai wrote: post #41

I wanted to buy tickets for MLS final in Toronto this year. General Sale was at 1pm. I log on at 1pm, site doesn't load. Keep refreshing and all tickets are sold by 1:01pm. And rows appear on stubhub at 1:20pm for ~$500 a ticket. I can fucking watch Real Madrid vs Barcelona (arguably the biggest soccer game in the world after CL final) for a ticket price cheaper than that. Fuck Ticketmaster.

What would be fair is an auction. Then the price would be more representative of the market value. The reason those tickets all sell out in 30 seconds is that they are too cheap.

No, the reason they sell out in 30 seconds is because of cheating.
Post reply on HN