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That "Minutes left to complete the purchase" is one of the oldest tricks in the sales book. I felt my blood pressure going up just looking at that gif, and I wa

That "Minutes left to complete the purchase" is one of the oldest tricks in the sales book. I felt my blood pressure going up just looking at that gif, and I wasn't even buying tickets! Edit: I know why they do it, but it isn't necessary for most ticket sales. Just turn it on when there's high demand.

jarjoura 10y ago
To be fair, it's 100x better than the old days of waiting in 6-8 hour lines to guarantee a ticket to popular events.
- jbverschoor 10y ago
  Have you ever tried to get a ticket for something popular with TM?
  - jandrese 10y ago
    At least there is no wait, the website just stops responding for 5 minutes then comes back with "all tickets sold (to scalpers)".
  - csydas 10y ago
    To elaborate for the above commenter, ticket master sales for popular events often sell out within seconds of the sale starting as a swarm of bots attacks the site and buy up available tickets. It usually takes just a few minutes for ticket sales to go up on Craigslist or eBay. Users see just a blank page or ticket masters internal loading errors while scalping bots buy up tickets. I remember trying to get tickets for my younger cousin to The International and I didn't evn have a chance. Even worse was neither Valve nor ticket master at the time has announced they weren't allowing ticket transfers so trying for tickets from those lucky enough to get some was useless as well. My uncle unfortunately was out $400some on eBay as a result; the guy I found on Craigslist was luckily way more understanding and when he was unable to initiate the transfer after a cash in hand meetup, he gladly offered to stay in contact until he could sort the issue on his side and transfer. It's honestly a mess and it leaves a lot to be desired for most users. I get that ultimately they can't satisfy all customers because we all want the same scarce product, but it's very hard to shake the feeling that botting and ticket scalpers get too many of the tickets, a
    - gpvos 10y ago
      So, if all tickets go to scalpers and no-one (including presumably the scalpers) can transfer a ticket, it must be that the venues remained empty. How is this a sustainable business for anyone?
      - jbverschoor 10y ago
        You can simply sell the tickets. Sometimes people were scammed by buying doubly sold e-tickets. ticketswap.com solves this problem in coop with also ticketmaster if I'm not mistaken
    - kingosticks 10y ago
      It's a great deal for TM and the like, they get paid 3 times! 1. Scalper pays fee when buying ticket. 2. Scalper pays fee when selling ticket on TM's reselling platform (stubhub?) 3. Concert goer pays fee when buying ticket from reseller platform. In the UK there's been some investigation into this business practice (select committee) but I doubt anything will come of it.
  - spelunker 10y ago
    Every year TM knows the Great American Beer Festival is going to be crazy popular and sell out within 10 minutes, and every year it's still a mess. I mean I get it's a hard problem and a large crowd like that can't be easy, but if anyone can do it, Ticketmaster should be able to.
- x0x0 10y ago
  In the sense you can not get tickets from the convenience of your couch!
firebird84 10y ago
It's really just a "countdown to being infuriated." I've had it lapse on me and I had to go back, find the right seats, and repeat literally the entire process all over again. "Give us your money quickly or we'll wage a bizarre form of psychological warfare on you." it seems to say.
drzaiusapelord 10y ago
Thats to stop DOS attacks by putting all seats in a shopping cart and having the next guy who logs in see no seats available. You need to hold them somehow as it takes a couple minutes for most people to pull out their credit card and fill out the form, so you use a timer. If they don't finish, the seat gets listed as open again. I don't think its a sales tactic at all, but certainly can be made to look more urgent than it needs to be to. Back when I was a teen we had to get up at 6am to buy tickets for popular shows and go wait outside our local reseller, which was usually a department store in the mall and join the long line of people ahead of us. I much prefer the web based system. Also its worth mentioning that TM is only as evil as venues allow them to be. A lot of the fees and charges are kickbacks to the venue. That's why there's no competition. Venues say, "Look we're getting an extra $7 per ticket with TM, can you beat that?" They're not interested in less fees as these fees are free money for them.
- jsmeaton 10y ago
  Yep. I hate most ticketing practices but the countdown is reasonable.
- lolc 10y ago
  Well that's a sensible explanation for events that sell out quickly. They shouldn't be trying to "upsell by default" on the smae page however.
lolc 10y ago
Is that really what it means? I was unsure about it because nobody would be that scummy. But then I have no previous experience with Ticketmaster.
ebbv 10y ago
How would you propose not doing this for any purchase of a specific product like a seat in a theater which must be held for the customer while they are making the purchase? Would you prefer they don't hold it for you and at the end of the process you get a message "Your seat has been sold to someone else."? Ticketmaster sucks but not because they hold your seat for you while you place your order.
firloop 10y ago
Not a huge Ticketmaster fan, but I actually don't have much of a problem with this as they have a complicated problem: allocate demand of a often scarce good (event tickets) in a way that's fair to non automated buyers. By placing a hold on the stock for a few minutes (rather than allocating at final checkout), it gives humans a fair chance to check out as their ability to secure the stock isn't based on how quickly they check out. Showing the time left to purchase is transparent to the buyer and eliminates confusion.
- qntty 10y ago
  Under certain circumstances, sure. But it doesn't make sense to enforce the time limit by forcing you to re-do the purchase when there are still available tickets not being held by an active checkout.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Retric 10y ago
  If they are selling out fast enough that Automated buyers are a problem then the price is to low. A 'presale' at 5x price that ticks down to normal prices over say 2 weeks would solve this problem. However, Ticketmaster makes more money getting a cut from scalpers without paying the bands their cut.
- Coincoin 10y ago
  I don't know if this is common elsewhere but to buy hockey tickets up here in communist canuckland, the local broker uses a virtual queue system. You can register up to 4 hours in advance and get placed in the pool. When the countdown reaches zero, they randomly, yes randomly, place you in the giant queue. When it's your turn, you just select what day and place you want and confirm. There is no slowdown unless you check in the pool at the last minute. If you register after the countdown, you get placed at the end of the queue and your chance of getting anything are basically zero.

jarjoura 10y ago

To be fair, it's 100x better than the old days of waiting in 6-8 hour lines to guarantee a ticket to popular events.

jbverschoor 10y ago
Have you ever tried to get a ticket for something popular with TM?
- jandrese 10y ago
  At least there is no wait, the website just stops responding for 5 minutes then comes back with "all tickets sold (to scalpers)".
- csydas 10y ago
  To elaborate for the above commenter, ticket master sales for popular events often sell out within seconds of the sale starting as a swarm of bots attacks the site and buy up available tickets. It usually takes just a few minutes for ticket sales to go up on Craigslist or eBay. Users see just a blank page or ticket masters internal loading errors while scalping bots buy up tickets. I remember trying to get tickets for my younger cousin to The International and I didn't evn have a chance. Even worse was neither Valve nor ticket master at the time has announced they weren't allowing ticket transfers so trying for tickets from those lucky enough to get some was useless as well. My uncle unfortunately was out $400some on eBay as a result; the guy I found on Craigslist was luckily way more understanding and when he was unable to initiate the transfer after a cash in hand meetup, he gladly offered to stay in contact until he could sort the issue on his side and transfer. It's honestly a mess and it leaves a lot to be desired for most users. I get that ultimately they can't satisfy all customers because we all want the same scarce product, but it's very hard to shake the feeling that botting and ticket scalpers get too many of the tickets, a
  - gpvos 10y ago
    So, if all tickets go to scalpers and no-one (including presumably the scalpers) can transfer a ticket, it must be that the venues remained empty. How is this a sustainable business for anyone?
    - jbverschoor 10y ago
      You can simply sell the tickets. Sometimes people were scammed by buying doubly sold e-tickets. ticketswap.com solves this problem in coop with also ticketmaster if I'm not mistaken
  - kingosticks 10y ago
    It's a great deal for TM and the like, they get paid 3 times! 1. Scalper pays fee when buying ticket. 2. Scalper pays fee when selling ticket on TM's reselling platform (stubhub?) 3. Concert goer pays fee when buying ticket from reseller platform. In the UK there's been some investigation into this business practice (select committee) but I doubt anything will come of it.
- spelunker 10y ago
  Every year TM knows the Great American Beer Festival is going to be crazy popular and sell out within 10 minutes, and every year it's still a mess. I mean I get it's a hard problem and a large crowd like that can't be easy, but if anyone can do it, Ticketmaster should be able to.
x0x0 10y ago
In the sense you can not get tickets from the convenience of your couch!

firebird84 10y ago

It's really just a "countdown to being infuriated." I've had it lapse on me and I had to go back, find the right seats, and repeat literally the entire process all over again. "Give us your money quickly or we'll wage a bizarre form of psychological warfare on you." it seems to say.

drzaiusapelord 10y ago

Thats to stop DOS attacks by putting all seats in a shopping cart and having the next guy who logs in see no seats available. You need to hold them somehow as it takes a couple minutes for most people to pull out their credit card and fill out the form, so you use a timer. If they don't finish, the seat gets listed as open again. I don't think its a sales tactic at all, but certainly can be made to look more urgent than it needs to be to. Back when I was a teen we had to get up at 6am to buy tickets for popular shows and go wait outside our local reseller, which was usually a department store in the mall and join the long line of people ahead of us. I much prefer the web based system. Also its worth mentioning that TM is only as evil as venues allow them to be. A lot of the fees and charges are kickbacks to the venue. That's why there's no competition. Venues say, "Look we're getting an extra $7 per ticket with TM, can you beat that?" They're not interested in less fees as these fees are free money for them.

jsmeaton 10y ago
Yep. I hate most ticketing practices but the countdown is reasonable.
lolc 10y ago
Well that's a sensible explanation for events that sell out quickly. They shouldn't be trying to "upsell by default" on the smae page however.

lolc 10y ago

Is that really what it means? I was unsure about it because nobody would be that scummy. But then I have no previous experience with Ticketmaster.

ebbv 10y ago

How would you propose not doing this for any purchase of a specific product like a seat in a theater which must be held for the customer while they are making the purchase? Would you prefer they don't hold it for you and at the end of the process you get a message "Your seat has been sold to someone else."? Ticketmaster sucks but not because they hold your seat for you while you place your order.

firloop 10y ago

Not a huge Ticketmaster fan, but I actually don't have much of a problem with this as they have a complicated problem: allocate demand of a often scarce good (event tickets) in a way that's fair to non automated buyers. By placing a hold on the stock for a few minutes (rather than allocating at final checkout), it gives humans a fair chance to check out as their ability to secure the stock isn't based on how quickly they check out. Showing the time left to purchase is transparent to the buyer and eliminates confusion.

qntty 10y ago
Under certain circumstances, sure. But it doesn't make sense to enforce the time limit by forcing you to re-do the purchase when there are still available tickets not being held by an active checkout.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Retric 10y ago
If they are selling out fast enough that Automated buyers are a problem then the price is to low. A 'presale' at 5x price that ticks down to normal prices over say 2 weeks would solve this problem. However, Ticketmaster makes more money getting a cut from scalpers without paying the bands their cut.
Coincoin 10y ago
I don't know if this is common elsewhere but to buy hockey tickets up here in communist canuckland, the local broker uses a virtual queue system. You can register up to 4 hours in advance and get placed in the pool. When the countdown reaches zero, they randomly, yes randomly, place you in the giant queue. When it's your turn, you just select what day and place you want and confirm. There is no slowdown unless you check in the pool at the last minute. If you register after the countdown, you get placed at the end of the queue and your chance of getting anything are basically zero.