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Ticketmaster Ticketfast Barcode Format

georgiecasey.com

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Re: Ticketmaster Ticketfast Barcode Format

#21

Post by nsfmc »

rtanaka wrote: post #5

Has this happened to anyone? What would happen if you showed up and find that your ticket is invalid. I'm guessing it varies by venue but is there any recourse? I can't imagine they'd just turn you away without at least a little investigation.

this hasn't happened to me, but i witnessed it at Outside Lands SF this year and it is devastating to watch. there is basically zero recourse for the buyer of the ticket that scans invalid and many of them have very legitimate looking pdfs and emails they got from craigslist.

neither the ticketmaster folks nor the venue folks tend to be super compassionate in my experience. it's a real mess though, the venues often have no in-and-out privileges (possibly due to how scanning invalidates some 24-hour key), so even as a law-abiding consumer, you're stuck at an event for the whole time just to deal with ticketmaster's implementation details.

i'm sure others have said this, but that is definitely a business that wants disrupting. there's so many bits of tech that could make this experience better and safer for consumers, but i suspect ticket fees are more profitable than user experience.

Re: Ticketmaster Ticketfast Barcode Format

#22

Post by fredup »

rtanaka wrote: post #5

Has this happened to anyone? What would happen if you showed up and find that your ticket is invalid. I'm guessing it varies by venue but is there any recourse? I can't imagine they'd just turn you away without at least a little investigation.

You almost certainly aren't going to see the show.

In theory it should be simple to identify who you are in conflict with if the ticket is not general admission. They would just have to send an usher to the seat. However, it is difficult to determine who defrauded who without a whole lot of investigation.

You would have to establish the entire chain of custody for both of the tickets. Three possibilities with different culprits are: the original purchaser double sold the tickets, a third-party got the barcode and sold a fraudulent ticket to whoever is in your seat, or the person in your seat made the fraudulent ticket themselves.

Re: Ticketmaster Ticketfast Barcode Format

#23

Post by georgiecasey »

pbreit wrote: post #15

Is this one of those theoretical problems that doesn't show up in reality?

OP here. Well I've never heard if it being abused yet so I suppose you're right, but it seems so easy. For the festival I referred to in my post, it only has a capacity of 40k, yet I ended up with 6 of these tickets that I gleaned from eBay and local auction sites.

Re: Ticketmaster Ticketfast Barcode Format

#24

Post by batiudrami »

tehwebguy wrote: post #19
derrik0709 wrote: post #7

As someone who works in the industry (but not Ticketmaster) and has spoken frequently to higher ups at TM, people should realize that the majority of the time "handling charges" are a way for performers to generate more revenue from sales while deflecting the bad PR to Ticketmaster. That's one of the services TM provides to their clients (performers/venues). If you're a performer and you want to sell tickets for a fa…

I've never heard of TM sharing ticketing fees with artists. In my experience TM fees are for TM. They may share with the venue , but the venue isn't sharing that with the artist. In fact they are taking a cut of the face value from the artist directly. In fact I've even seen TM take a small percentage of the gross face value!

But sharing with the venue means that the artist is taking a higher cut of the ticket than you'd expect.

I read once that some parts of the US have laws requiring X% of the ticket price to go to the performer and that Ticketmaster fees were partly designed to allow the venue to charge its venue hire fees at a higher percentage than is allowed by these laws. Any truth to that?

Re: Ticketmaster Ticketfast Barcode Format

#25

Post by LeoPanthera »

tehwebguy wrote: post #20
pbreit wrote: post #15

Is this one of those theoretical problems that doesn't show up in reality?

You'd think so but people actually post pictures like that. Not sure if it's been taken advantage of but I have a feeling this has: https://twitter.com/search?q=my%20new%20credit%20card%20pic....

A handy real time feed: https://twitter.com/NeedADebitCard

Re: Ticketmaster Ticketfast Barcode Format

#26

Post by derrik0709 »

tehwebguy wrote: post #19
derrik0709 wrote: post #7

As someone who works in the industry (but not Ticketmaster) and has spoken frequently to higher ups at TM, people should realize that the majority of the time "handling charges" are a way for performers to generate more revenue from sales while deflecting the bad PR to Ticketmaster. That's one of the services TM provides to their clients (performers/venues). If you're a performer and you want to sell tickets for a fa…

I've never heard of TM sharing ticketing fees with artists. In my experience TM fees are for TM. They may share with the venue , but the venue isn't sharing that with the artist. In fact they are taking a cut of the face value from the artist directly. In fact I've even seen TM take a small percentage of the gross face value!

You're splitting hairs between who is considered the TM client: venue or performer. Of course there may be any number of organizations between you the ticket buyer and the actual person singing and dancing onstage (venue, promoter, manager, record label, etc.).

Regardless of which of these is getting the biggest cut of the "fees", the reality is that in most cases the "fees" are line items used to increase revenue without raising ticket face prices, and TM is not the primary beneficiary.

Re: Ticketmaster Ticketfast Barcode Format

#27

Post by scintill76 »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #25
tehwebguy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd think so but people actually post pictures like that. Not sure if it's been taken advantage of but I have a feeling this has: https://twitter.com/search?q=my%20new%20credit%20card%20pic....

A handy real time feed: https://twitter.com/NeedADebitCard

Anyone know a story behind this? Some of these have to know exactly what they're doing, so are they trolling or joking or something?

Re: Ticketmaster Ticketfast Barcode Format

#28

Post by bjohnso5 »

ilikemustard wrote: post #18
codyb wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's generally not the people at the doors job to investigate. If your ticket doesn't scan they assume you're the one with the fake or that someone went in and came out with multiple tickets to get more people in. Generally, as far as I've seen, you'd be SOOL. (Shit out of luck, is that an acronym yet?)

From what I've seen, the acronym typically doesn't include "of", and is simply "SOL".

I think it's generally abbreviated that way because it's phrased "Shit Outta Luck"

Re: Ticketmaster Ticketfast Barcode Format

#29

Post by cdcarter »

disposition2 wrote: post #13
derrik0709 wrote: post #7

As someone who works in the industry (but not Ticketmaster) and has spoken frequently to higher ups at TM, people should realize that the majority of the time "handling charges" are a way for performers to generate more revenue from sales while deflecting the bad PR to Ticketmaster. That's one of the services TM provides to their clients (performers/venues). If you're a performer and you want to sell tickets for a fa…

Hard to tell considering they have a monopoly on the original purchase industry (most venues, and I'd venture to guess 90%+ of venues that would actually attract large acts) and the reseller industry as well . The worst is going to the box office to buy a ticket and being told that they can't sell the ticket at the box office, you have to buy through TM or you have to pay the same fees as if you bought through TM's s…

Regarding your last point (and also from the POV as someone who works in ticketing but not for TM) -- many organizations I work with (non-TM venues) and for are now transitioning to a lower unified fee structure. That is, a single fee that is the same no matter the sales channel. This trains our customers to expect a small fee at all times, we can keep that fee very consistent, and is often more in line with the nature of the agreement held with the performer regarding net adjusted gross income.

Re: Ticketmaster Ticketfast Barcode Format

#30

Post by cdcarter »

dan1234 wrote: post #14

One festival I bought tickets for not only had standard barcodes but also sequential ticket numbers!

Many times the order item numbers will be sequential within the order, but each order will have a different number.

You can order three tickets and you'll get 08737401, 08737402, and 08737403, but the next person to order three tickets will get 08343201, 08343202, and 08343203.

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