4 ms·

Hey, first off: chillllll out. Choose your battles carefully. Ticketmaster is not a great company, but it's become a lot better than it used to be. Truth! Anyh

Hey, first off: chillllll out. Choose your battles carefully. Ticketmaster is not a great company, but it's become a lot better than it used to be. Truth! Anyhow, you need to be aware that venues absolutely will charge a venue fee. Even purchasing tickets at my local club in Toronto from the front bar there is a 10% markup or $1 minimum, whatever is greater. You don't have to get tickets printed and mailed to you for $2.25. It's 2017 and virtual tickets work very well. In fact, they have advantages like being able to electronically transfer them to your friends in a way they can verify. That is better in every way except that you don't get a stub for your collection. Anyhow, your post is a sign that their business model is working: you think that TM exists to sell you tickets, but their actual and entire business model is to provide a layer of abstraction over the venues+radio+promoters so that they absorb all of your bad vibes. It's literally the only thing that they add, and they do it really well.

stoic 10y ago
They charge you to print your own tickets as well.
- notwhereyouare 10y ago
  digital tickets though. I've never had an issue pulling up the ticket on my phone and letting them scan it
  - Bartweiss 10y ago
    "E-ticket convenience fee" still applies though, at least much of the time.
  - huehehue 10y ago
    Not always an option. Some tickets even say that the venue will not accept a barcode on a phone, and the ticket must be printed out. Recently went to a Trans-Sierian Orchestra show where this was the case.
Bartweiss 10y ago
I'm not sure any of this is accurate. First: how has TM gotten better? Their fees have gotten higher, they merged with Live Nation to gain market control and raised prices, and they lost a class action suit but are still doing exactly what they were sued for the first time. Not all venues charge a venue fee - some of my local theaters are fee-free at the box office, some aren't. (They all take a cut somewhere obviously, but some build it into ticket prices and some even extract all their profit by selling merch and food at the show. $10 beer is damn profitable.) TicketMaster's website explains that they're merely collecting these fees on behalf of venues, but after their merger with Live Nation they own many of those venues, so this is pretty misleading. Virtual tickets work great, yes. Except that TM charges an "E-ticket convenience fee". And a "will call fee" if you try that. So if 100% of ticketing methods have a fee, it's just an extra cost dressed up as a choice. And no, they aren't just absorbing hate: when they do promotion as Live Nation, own the venue as Live Nation, and sell me the tickets as TicketMaster, they making every choice not given to the band.
- peteforde 10y ago
  > I'm not sure any of this is accurate. "We don't know that he's lying, but do we know that he isn't lying?" I have a long memory. You used to have to go to a physical location and wait in line while a student worker called up tickets on a green screen terminal. And TM's web checkout experience through the late 90s and last decade was AWFUL; none of the mapping, seat selection was there. You'd just sit there and refresh. You could also accidentally purchase two tickets by hitting Back. It was Not Good. First, a venue that isn't charging a fee is a rare exception and I have two shoeboxes full of paper tickets that prove this. I'm going to draw a line and say that Real Venues charge fees. The fact that there are >0 outliers is still an outlier. TicketMaster was acquired by LiveNation but functions as a separate business unit in all of the ways that serve their interests. So, of course they are collecting fees on behalf of venues. Just because they are all owned by the same corporate interests doesn't make this less true. Do you know that there are IT depts in major banks that charge other depts for installing network jacks? Different venues and different countries have different fees attached to pickup methods. Here in Canada, I can get a ticket by email/SMS that shows up as a QR code that I don't have to pay extra for. The order processing fee (total bullshit) is in a separate category from ticket retrieval fees. Anyhow, you're welcome to your opinion about whether TicketMaster exists to absorb hate or not. It doesn't make you any more correct, but if it makes you happier then I absolutely agree to whatever it is that you said next. Ticketmaster is awful, but not for the motivations that the OP suggested.

stoic 10y ago

They charge you to print your own tickets as well.

notwhereyouare 10y ago
digital tickets though. I've never had an issue pulling up the ticket on my phone and letting them scan it
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  "E-ticket convenience fee" still applies though, at least much of the time.
- huehehue 10y ago
  Not always an option. Some tickets even say that the venue will not accept a barcode on a phone, and the ticket must be printed out. Recently went to a Trans-Sierian Orchestra show where this was the case.

Bartweiss 10y ago

I'm not sure any of this is accurate. First: how has TM gotten better? Their fees have gotten higher, they merged with Live Nation to gain market control and raised prices, and they lost a class action suit but are still doing exactly what they were sued for the first time. Not all venues charge a venue fee - some of my local theaters are fee-free at the box office, some aren't. (They all take a cut somewhere obviously, but some build it into ticket prices and some even extract all their profit by selling merch and food at the show. $10 beer is damn profitable.) TicketMaster's website explains that they're merely collecting these fees on behalf of venues, but after their merger with Live Nation they own many of those venues, so this is pretty misleading. Virtual tickets work great, yes. Except that TM charges an "E-ticket convenience fee". And a "will call fee" if you try that. So if 100% of ticketing methods have a fee, it's just an extra cost dressed up as a choice. And no, they aren't just absorbing hate: when they do promotion as Live Nation, own the venue as Live Nation, and sell me the tickets as TicketMaster, they making every choice not given to the band.

peteforde 10y ago
> I'm not sure any of this is accurate. "We don't know that he's lying, but do we know that he isn't lying?" I have a long memory. You used to have to go to a physical location and wait in line while a student worker called up tickets on a green screen terminal. And TM's web checkout experience through the late 90s and last decade was AWFUL; none of the mapping, seat selection was there. You'd just sit there and refresh. You could also accidentally purchase two tickets by hitting Back. It was Not Good. First, a venue that isn't charging a fee is a rare exception and I have two shoeboxes full of paper tickets that prove this. I'm going to draw a line and say that Real Venues charge fees. The fact that there are >0 outliers is still an outlier. TicketMaster was acquired by LiveNation but functions as a separate business unit in all of the ways that serve their interests. So, of course they are collecting fees on behalf of venues. Just because they are all owned by the same corporate interests doesn't make this less true. Do you know that there are IT depts in major banks that charge other depts for installing network jacks? Different venues and different countries have different fees attached to pickup methods. Here in Canada, I can get a ticket by email/SMS that shows up as a QR code that I don't have to pay extra for. The order processing fee (total bullshit) is in a separate category from ticket retrieval fees. Anyhow, you're welcome to your opinion about whether TicketMaster exists to absorb hate or not. It doesn't make you any more correct, but if it makes you happier then I absolutely agree to whatever it is that you said next. Ticketmaster is awful, but not for the motivations that the OP suggested.