Artists' reputations may take a hit if they price their tickets overly high, as it's seen as gouging fans. Instead, Ticketmaster charged multiple hidden fees f

Artists' reputations may take a hit if they price their tickets overly high, as it's seen as gouging fans. Instead, Ticketmaster charged multiple hidden fees for each ticket, often including a venue fee, service fees, and other interestingly named fees that are different based on the event, venue, and tour (although all events in some tours might have a similar fee, some some venues might have a similar priced venue fee across all events...). Some of these are collected and go right back to the artist, promoter and venue. Fans are unhappy about this, but they place the blame on Ticketmaster, not the artist or venue. This is the reputation shield Ticketmaster offers. They take the blame for higher prices while passing a lot of those fees back to the artist and venue. They take a cut for processing the order, and probably a higher than normal cut for taking the negative PR, but both Ticketmaster and the artists and venues make more money in the end.