151–160 of 252 posts
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…
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.
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...
Since then Ticketmaster has only grown more powerful.
It's interesting to read this article in from that time in NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/15/arts/pearl-jam-bows-to-tic...
Can anyone offer any evidence to confirm or dispute the rumor I frequently see online in message boards that Ticketmaster is passing most of the profit from these fees onto the venues and it's really the venues that are doing the price gouging here? The idea that is frequently floated is that Ticketmaster bears the brunt of the hate from fans in exchange for letting the performers and venues collect most of the extra…
Second, the reason Ticketmaster, StubHub, AXS, etc. break out the fees is because it sells more tickets. Revenue will trump PR concerns every time. http://time.com/money/4018864/stubhub-fees-all-in-ticket-pri...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the main issue is not having a different way to buy tickets, but actually signing deals with bands/venues to sell them. There have been many companies that have tried to compete against them, and typically they only get bands that want to move away from TM (Pearl Jam).
It's focused on providing the platform for developers to build a better ticketing experience thus enabling bands/venues to jump ship.
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 is now part of LiveNation entertainment. LiveNation "owns, leases, operates, has booking rights for and/or equity interests in a large number of U.S. entertainment venues" If a large band is going on tour they're going to have to go through LiveNation/TM at a number of stops to use the premier venues. A small startup can take on ticketing (and many do). But taking on the the venue infrastructure is no sm…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sort of. Ticketmaster buys some venues (as LiveNation), and acquires exclusive online-ticket-sale rights to others. They enable this by pouring profit from fees into the venues (either to fund purchases or to afford licensing). The result isn't greedy venues letting TicketMaster take the heat - if that were the case box office tickets wouldn't be so much cheaper. Instead, it's TicketMaster/LiveNation using venue lock…
It's more complicated than that and has nothing to do with zoning at all. TicketMaster aggressively seeks out venues and lands exclusive contracts, which is a model that makes sense for many venues. They buy venues and operators/promoters. Some of these "facility" fees are really just payments going into the promoter/operators pockets. In many cases, those people are TicketMaster.
This is the point that so many people miss about Ticketmaster. The customer is the venue and not the ticket purchaser. For the venue, there is no one who offers as complete a package of services as Ticketmaster. They provide so much more than the consumer facing ticket sales website that is the only piece of Ticketmaster that most fans see.
The hidden service fee may not be legal under WA state's fairly strong consumer protections. You can and should report this to the AG's office at: http://atg.wa.gov/FileAComplaint.aspx If there are enough complaints, things can actually happen.
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.
I'm in the UK and I use Dice whenever I can and absolutely avoid TicketMaster.
They also work up the road from me.