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Ticketmaster is a horrible company

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Re: Ticketmaster is a horrible company

#71

Post by jasode »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #3

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…

Fred Rosen was the former executive at Ticketmaster who came up with the idea to give the venues a cut of the service fee:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/business/12tickets.html

Whether that cut is "most of the fee" or 50/50 or a smaller percentage like 20% is unspecified. We'd probably need an ex-employee from one of those venues familiar with a Ticketmaster contract to disclose that figure.

Re: Ticketmaster is a horrible company

#72

Post by evv »

This is why you want to be a winner in a market with network effects. You can treat customers however you'd like once you've won.

Ticketmaster has 'earned' this spot in the ecosystem, and the benefits that comes with. To challenge that would be to challenge the nature of capitalism itself.

As a consumer I'm infuriated but as an entrepreneur, I can relate- why would I stick my neck out there if the potential benefits don't outweigh the costs? Every entrepreneur in the valley wants to be the "Tickermaster of X" or "Uber for X". Everybody wants the luxury of answering to nobody, including customers.

Re: Ticketmaster is a horrible company

#73

Post by mi100hael »

sean_patel wrote: post #33

I take issue with the title itself. > Ticketmaster is a horrible company, and I won't give them my business anymore Ok, but what choice do you have, if Foo Fighters are playing in your City and you want to go? Or Manny Pacquiao is fighting Floyd Mayweather and you want to go? It's not like there's a choice. There is, and that is to not go to the event. Because the core premise of TicketMaster's scam is the exclusive…

Usually they have an exclusive contract for online sales. You can still go line up outside your local arena and buy tickets from the box office just like your parents used to do.

Re: Ticketmaster is a horrible company

#74

Post by yardie »

> I’m going to go hop on my scooter and drive 15 minutes out of my way to the theatre’s box office to go pick up a single ticket. Out of spite!

I have some really bad news for you. The venue is probably also using Ticketmaster as their POS and some of those fees will be the same.

Other than that completely agree, Ticketmaster is a racket.

Re: Ticketmaster is a horrible company

#75

Post by amelius »

Bartweiss wrote: post #60
amelius wrote: post #32

Perhaps time to start a facebook awareness campaign, and have TM boycotted by artists and fans (?)

TM uses venue lock-in to prevent this. Multiple artists have tried, but they quickly have to choose between dealing with TM and abandoning fans in smaller cities that only have a few venues available, all of which are TM-contracted.

Perhaps the campaign should include a petition then, to address this through politics.

Re: Ticketmaster is a horrible company

#76

Post by CoryG89 »

tptacek wrote: post #23

I understand the psychology here, but it seems pretty irrational. Even after every modifier Ticketmaster applies, tickets to major events are underpriced , as evidenced by the fact that things like the Japandroids show this person bought tickets for almost certainly sold out, and by the fact that the secondary market for tickets clears. I too would rather get one simple straightforward price, rather than the pointles…

In Atlanta I have purchased tickets from Ticketmaster the day before or even the day of a show on numerous occasions. Seems like shows always sell out here in the bay area, but I don't know if that's true for the majority of shows across the country. From my experience it more rarely happens in the southeast.

Re: Ticketmaster is a horrible company

#77

Post by Bartweiss »

giarc wrote: post #67
meifun wrote: post #48

I used to do web contract work for a company that was eventually bought by Ticketmaster. I left before the sale. I was actually "let go" because I didn't comply with design goals. One of the things that was encouraged in the design was to "hide away" things that detracted the user from checking out quickly. This included: * Smaller font for things that you would gloss over or not even read, when you really needed to…

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.

You're kicked back, but it still creates artificial urgency in the sense that it's applied to shows that will take weeks to sell out any given section.

That wouldn't be so bad (airline tickets are similar) except that the "best available seats" function is very unreliable, and sometimes the only choice for picking seats. With no 'new seats if available' option, you're forced to pick blind and under time pressure whether to give up what you have for the possibility of better seats.

Re: Ticketmaster is a horrible company

#78

Post by justinholmes »

shaklee3 wrote: post #65
justinholmes wrote: post #45

Trying help disrupt TM by building a Stripe version of ticketing to provide nice APIs/grpc etc. https://ticketscale.io/ (still very much alpha)

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.

Re: Ticketmaster is a horrible company

#79

Post by giarc »

buildbuildbuild wrote: post #31

The unfortunate truth is that it is impossible for a live music fan to completely avoid Ticketmaster in 2017 without missing many of the best shows. They strongarm venues into exclusivity agreements: all phone and online tickets at those venue must be sold through Ticketmaster. Even walking up to buy a ticket at some box offices results in a venue using Ticketmaster as point of sale. Their parent company Live Nation…

I would disagree that they strong arm venues into exclusive agreements. If I owned a concert hall or arena, signing an exclusive agreement would be an easy decision. Have your tickets sold and processed by one of the well known and experienced companies. So what if it has a bad reputation, it doesn't stop people from buying up all the tickets. It's probably the easiest decisions as a venue owner. I'm not saying I agree with it, but if you think about it, Ticketmaster is a great resource for owners.

Re: Ticketmaster is a horrible company

#80

Post by v89 »

"Surely I wouldn’t be charged this facility charge if I went directly to Neptune Theatre and purchased tickets"

Yes you would, because the venue pays Ticketmaster a small slice of every ticket sold to use their system.

They just don't explicitly tell you as part of the transaction.

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