The Ticketmaster Con

[exboyfil]

I just bought tickets to three concerts. Two of them were at our local university. Within five minutes I had the seats selected and the tickets printed. Service charge of about $5

Then my wife just had to see Mannheim Steamroller. $35 in service charges and I have to get my tickets through my smatphone. Tickets still haven't shown up, and I will have to be white knuckle all the time until I get into the venue hoping my smartphone or the app doesn't crap out.

F_ck modern technology.

[Shermann]

1. Can you still print them if you had the tickets shipped?

I haven't been to a concert in a while but used to always request the tickets be shipped. It makes it easier to unload them if you have to.

Service charges suck, they should just invoice that as "extra profit" which is what it is. But, if they can still sell out, free market rules apply. For me it is frustrating to pay a lot for tickets and see a lot of empty seats there.

[ProfessorGAC]

2. How Much Was Each Ticket?

$17.50 service charge per ticket seems ridiculously high unless these were $180 seats.
Also, is this a per ticket upcharge? Because the "service" provided for 2 tickets is exactly the same as for one. It either means each additional ticket requires a fee that provides no value or that one ticket would require $35 extra. Either scenario is nonsensical.

[Arthur_Frain]

3. Ticketmaster has been dealing in nonsense for a while now.

Convenience fees are all per ticket.

[ProfessorGAC]

7. So, Zero Value Added Per Ticket

Charming business model.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

4. I hate ticketmaster,

but you should be able to download the tickets to your phones wallet so you don't need cellular service to get them. Do it all the time with NBA tickets.

[Yavin4]

5. What are these service fees? It's all computers.

There are no humans involved in the transaction outside of the buyers. What service are they talking about?

Govt. needs to regulate these "service fees".

[Deminpenn]

6. Ticketmaster no longer allows printing tickets

bought online at home. They're too easy to copy and resell. At least that's the explanation I got from my local NFL team. Ticketmaster is a sponsor of the NFL. The NFL makes it very difficult to avoid using Ticketmaster because it actually manages NFL season ticket accounts now. You can get printed tickets, but you have to request them, then drive to the NFL stadium to pick them up within a certain timeframe when the customer service windows are open.

Ticketmaster is even creeping down into high school and prep sports with deals with local state athletic governing bodies for championship game ticketing.

Ticketmaster is basically a monopoly against whom the federal govt should take action imo.