13 ms·

Ticketmaster: Rocking The Most Hated Brand In America

80 points by gatsby 15y ago

FreeKill 15y ago
No big surprise with that. When you have a dominating monopoly on most of the major venues in America, you probably don't lose any sleep at night worry about user experience. The only way that is ever going to change is if people vote with their wallets and stop going to Ticketmaster events...
- Anechoic 15y ago
  The problem is that those events are "Ticketmaster events" they are "events I want to attend that are only handled by Ticketmaster." So it really comes down to accepting the Ticketmaster model or pretty much not going to any live concert or sporting events. Of course the other annoying thing that the article didn't mention was TM's habit of "sharing" your email address with partners (which you couldn't opt out of) and then leaving it up to the individual to remove themselves from the subsequent spam lists. I bought a ticket to an NFL game a couple of years back and then spent the next six months trying to get TM partners to stop spamming me.
  - SwellJoe 15y ago
    So it really comes down to accepting the Ticketmaster model or pretty much not going to any live concert or sporting events. I haven't paid a TicketMaster fee in years, and I go to live music events all the time. How, you ask? Indie music. It is alive and well, and the best bands working right now are not playing in arenas. In any major city in the country on any given night (and at least once or twice a week in most mid-sized cities), you can see a great band for five to fifteen bucks. They'll be ecstatic that you showed up, you'll probably be able to sit or stand within spitting distance of the band if you want, and you'll share a unique experience with 50-300 like-minded individuals. You'll also meet more interesting people, be able to drink good beer (not that swill they serve at arenas for 9 bucks a pop), and you can do it all again the next night, and the next, if you want, without breaking the bank. I swore off of arena shows for reasons unrelated to TicketMaster, but it's an equally valid reason to opt out of the bullshit commercial entertainment industry and instead focus on artists for whom the work is the important thing, and not merely the money they're paid to do the work.
    - acgourley 15y ago
      Ticketmaster runs tons of stuff that isn't arena scale. Warfield/Grand Regency Ballroom/Fillmore in SF come to mind.
      - rationalbeats 15y ago
        I think he is referring to venues like Cafe Du Nord, and Bottom of the Hill.
      - vegashacker 15y ago
        A number of the venues allow you to buy tickets directly from the ticket window without the extra fees. (The Fillmore allows this during restricted times, e.g.) I will usually try to do this as a way of not supporting the Master--but, come to think of it, I actually don't know how the money is divided when I purchase like this.
  - FreeKill 15y ago
    Yeah, of course you're right but that is what Ticketmaster is counting on. They are kind of like the TSA in a way. They are hoping that you want what they are offering so badly you won't mind being taken advantage of to get it. It's not going to stop being that way while people take it.
Aloisius 15y ago
I talked to the old CEO of TicketMaster years ago about the fees and when I found out that most of the service fees are kicked back to the venues, I found them far less evil. They take all the blame that should be directed at venue owners.
- njl 15y ago
  That seems disingenuous. It is my understanding that the fees are kicked back to the venue owners only if they make TicketMaster their sole agent. If you sell tickets anywhere other than your box office or TicketMaster, you're not going to see a dime of those TicketMaster fees.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- orangecat 15y ago
  That supports my theory that TicketMaster's primary reason for existence is to be a scapegoat. Venues want to charge market-clearing prices, but don't want to be accused of "gouging" customers. So they bring in TicketMaster to take the reputation hit, in exchange for splitting the profits.
  - wdr1 15y ago
    In my time there, I would agree with that. My theory was Ticketmaster did well for theory reasons: 1) Venue relationships 2) Taking the fall on fees 3) Ability to scale People are often surprised by #3. Having seen many startups try & fail (as well as large entities like LiveNation), ticketing is a hard problem. In my time at Yahoo & Google, I believe they have the technology to build a ticketing company, but beyond on that, most -- startups to large entities such as LiveNation & CTS -- had big problems handling onsales for large U2-sized events. In fact, it always made me think "Good luck with that" when people would talk about the design of ticketing systems using relational DBs. :)
pforpal 15y ago
It's perplexing that they charge such a large premium when the industry must be saving many millions of dollars a year in printing costs, box office attendants, and sales.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  It's not perplexing at all. They have convinced the public the extra fees are justified. If you have a monopoly, your buyers are paying extra fees, and the cost of goods actually drops, you do not drop your prices.
  - gergles 15y ago
    Uh, no, they haven't "convinced the public" - it's not as if there's any other way to purchase the tickets to events without engaging TM and their extortionate fees. Trying to pretend like TM is a paragon of the free market winning again is just wrong.
- commandar 15y ago
  One thing in this article that I found extremely interesting was that the infamous charge to print your own tickets -- essentially charging the customer for saving Ticketmaster and the box offices money -- is apparently driven largely by the venues. It claims that Hubbard has been successful in getting a third of their partners to drop the fee, which suggests that two-thirds of venues are holding out, and more responsible for some of the egregious fees than Ticketmaster themselves are. I definitely came away with the impression that Hubbard may be the right guy for the job. It seems clear he understands exactly what consumers hate about Ticketmaster, and appears to be trying to address it as best he can.
  - jergason 15y ago
    I find it even stranger that they don't simply raise the price of the ticket and hide the cost of the fee that way. If a ticket is $25 and then it has a $5 fee I would be upset, but I wouldn't notice if it was just a $30 ticket.
cdcarter 15y ago
The LiveNation merger certainly did seem to spark them to update parts of their product, but the user experience is awful. Unfortunately, there's no real major competitor now on that scale. Sure, there are solutions like AudienceView and Tessi but they don't fit the same business model. And who'd want to compete? LiveNation is owning more and more venues by the minute.
techtalsky 15y ago
Well, I'd like to take this time to recommend Brown Paper Tickets (out of Seattle). They do a fantastic job, and it's very common to see them used in Seattle. A great, ethical service with minimal fees. Especially for small, local events. Even cooler: if your event is free, their service is free.
- orionlogic 15y ago
  I second to Brown Paper Tickets, i love their perspective in ticketing business. Please take time to read this old article: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/03/14/taking_aim_at_ticketmaster http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/03/14/ta... And here is the details from BPT website: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/faq.html http://www.brownpapertickets.com/faq.html Ticketmaster is evil, and it's not just in America, it has lots of child companies all around world and doing the same unfair and awful business model.
andrewflnr 15y ago
This Hubbard guy sounds really smart. My favorite quote was "If we don't disrupt ourselves, someone else will." It seems like a lot of big business failures would have been prevented if the companies had the courage to disrupt their own business model. Microsoft and their foot-dragging on the web comes to mind. Obviously they haven't failed yet, but wouldn't they be healthier if they had embraced the change and pushed it forward instead of trying to hold their position against it? Anyway, I hope Hubbard has what it takes to pull off his vision.
- cmer 15y ago
  A great book explaining exactly this: The Innovator's Dilemma (http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Technologies-Cause-ebook/dp/B004OC07GM/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2 http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Technologies-Cause-... -- I don't make money from this link) I think every entrepreneur should read and understand the theories illustrated in the book. It made me realize a lot of things, and understand better why old/established businesses are often replaced by startups.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
seannui 15y ago
If you like going to the rock show, wrestling with algorithms that deal with high currency, social media analysis on a crazy complete data chain versus the regular induced douchebaggery, building a credible alternative to TicketMaster, or just run-on-sentences, you should come join our team of pirates at Ticketfly in SF.
kloncks 15y ago
The thing that irks me the most about Ticketmaster is their absolute monopoly on this market. There's no denying just how crappy of a product they have, which is likely due to not having an incentive or need to innovate as there are no competitors. Having the unfortunate experience of dealing with them every time I (attempt to) buy football tickets for my college, I really am bothered by the simple lack of innovation in this field. A friend summarized it really well in a tweet a while back: @Ticketmaster you have absolutely the worst product imaginable. Your employees should be ashamed of the company they work for.
- riffic 15y ago
  You (the consumer) are not Ticketmaster's primary customer. Ticketmaster's primary customers are the venues and promoters. The product is actually the best one available, which is a system in place designed to sell large amounts of tickets, in some cases very quickly.
shadowpwner 15y ago
Reddit has an interesting comment on Ticketmaster: http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/gmyhv/over_ten_dollars_in_fees_including_a_455_delivery/c1ortyh http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/gmyhv/over_ten_d...
tgraydar 15y ago
It's a CEO Speedwagon! The story is a nice antidote to the Pearl Jammed version of Ticketmaster's evilness. There's lots of nuance. And, though it might have made a grab for fees early on, Ticketmaster--and Live Nation--finally seem to be innovating, creating services that actually make concerts better.

80 points by gatsby 15y ago

No big surprise with that. When you have a dominating monopoly on most of the major venues in America, you probably don't lose any sleep at night worry about user experience. The only way that is ever going to change is if people vote with their wallets and stop going to Ticketmaster events...

Anechoic 15y ago
The problem is that those events are "Ticketmaster events" they are "events I want to attend that are only handled by Ticketmaster." So it really comes down to accepting the Ticketmaster model or pretty much not going to any live concert or sporting events. Of course the other annoying thing that the article didn't mention was TM's habit of "sharing" your email address with partners (which you couldn't opt out of) and then leaving it up to the individual to remove themselves from the subsequent spam lists. I bought a ticket to an NFL game a couple of years back and then spent the next six months trying to get TM partners to stop spamming me.
- SwellJoe 15y ago
  So it really comes down to accepting the Ticketmaster model or pretty much not going to any live concert or sporting events. I haven't paid a TicketMaster fee in years, and I go to live music events all the time. How, you ask? Indie music. It is alive and well, and the best bands working right now are not playing in arenas. In any major city in the country on any given night (and at least once or twice a week in most mid-sized cities), you can see a great band for five to fifteen bucks. They'll be ecstatic that you showed up, you'll probably be able to sit or stand within spitting distance of the band if you want, and you'll share a unique experience with 50-300 like-minded individuals. You'll also meet more interesting people, be able to drink good beer (not that swill they serve at arenas for 9 bucks a pop), and you can do it all again the next night, and the next, if you want, without breaking the bank. I swore off of arena shows for reasons unrelated to TicketMaster, but it's an equally valid reason to opt out of the bullshit commercial entertainment industry and instead focus on artists for whom the work is the important thing, and not merely the money they're paid to do the work.
  - acgourley 15y ago
    Ticketmaster runs tons of stuff that isn't arena scale. Warfield/Grand Regency Ballroom/Fillmore in SF come to mind.
    - rationalbeats 15y ago
      I think he is referring to venues like Cafe Du Nord, and Bottom of the Hill.
    - vegashacker 15y ago
      A number of the venues allow you to buy tickets directly from the ticket window without the extra fees. (The Fillmore allows this during restricted times, e.g.) I will usually try to do this as a way of not supporting the Master--but, come to think of it, I actually don't know how the money is divided when I purchase like this.
- FreeKill 15y ago
  Yeah, of course you're right but that is what Ticketmaster is counting on. They are kind of like the TSA in a way. They are hoping that you want what they are offering so badly you won't mind being taken advantage of to get it. It's not going to stop being that way while people take it.

Aloisius 15y ago

I talked to the old CEO of TicketMaster years ago about the fees and when I found out that most of the service fees are kicked back to the venues, I found them far less evil. They take all the blame that should be directed at venue owners.

njl 15y ago
That seems disingenuous. It is my understanding that the fees are kicked back to the venue owners only if they make TicketMaster their sole agent. If you sell tickets anywhere other than your box office or TicketMaster, you're not going to see a dime of those TicketMaster fees.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
orangecat 15y ago
That supports my theory that TicketMaster's primary reason for existence is to be a scapegoat. Venues want to charge market-clearing prices, but don't want to be accused of "gouging" customers. So they bring in TicketMaster to take the reputation hit, in exchange for splitting the profits.
- wdr1 15y ago
  In my time there, I would agree with that. My theory was Ticketmaster did well for theory reasons: 1) Venue relationships 2) Taking the fall on fees 3) Ability to scale People are often surprised by #3. Having seen many startups try & fail (as well as large entities like LiveNation), ticketing is a hard problem. In my time at Yahoo & Google, I believe they have the technology to build a ticketing company, but beyond on that, most -- startups to large entities such as LiveNation & CTS -- had big problems handling onsales for large U2-sized events. In fact, it always made me think "Good luck with that" when people would talk about the design of ticketing systems using relational DBs. :)

pforpal 15y ago

It's perplexing that they charge such a large premium when the industry must be saving many millions of dollars a year in printing costs, box office attendants, and sales.

sliverstorm 15y ago
It's not perplexing at all. They have convinced the public the extra fees are justified. If you have a monopoly, your buyers are paying extra fees, and the cost of goods actually drops, you do not drop your prices.
- gergles 15y ago
  Uh, no, they haven't "convinced the public" - it's not as if there's any other way to purchase the tickets to events without engaging TM and their extortionate fees. Trying to pretend like TM is a paragon of the free market winning again is just wrong.
commandar 15y ago
One thing in this article that I found extremely interesting was that the infamous charge to print your own tickets -- essentially charging the customer for saving Ticketmaster and the box offices money -- is apparently driven largely by the venues. It claims that Hubbard has been successful in getting a third of their partners to drop the fee, which suggests that two-thirds of venues are holding out, and more responsible for some of the egregious fees than Ticketmaster themselves are. I definitely came away with the impression that Hubbard may be the right guy for the job. It seems clear he understands exactly what consumers hate about Ticketmaster, and appears to be trying to address it as best he can.
- jergason 15y ago
  I find it even stranger that they don't simply raise the price of the ticket and hide the cost of the fee that way. If a ticket is $25 and then it has a $5 fee I would be upset, but I wouldn't notice if it was just a $30 ticket.

cdcarter 15y ago

The LiveNation merger certainly did seem to spark them to update parts of their product, but the user experience is awful. Unfortunately, there's no real major competitor now on that scale. Sure, there are solutions like AudienceView and Tessi but they don't fit the same business model. And who'd want to compete? LiveNation is owning more and more venues by the minute.

techtalsky 15y ago

Well, I'd like to take this time to recommend Brown Paper Tickets (out of Seattle). They do a fantastic job, and it's very common to see them used in Seattle. A great, ethical service with minimal fees. Especially for small, local events. Even cooler: if your event is free, their service is free.

orionlogic 15y ago
I second to Brown Paper Tickets, i love their perspective in ticketing business. Please take time to read this old article: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/03/14/taking_aim_at_ticketmaster http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/03/14/ta... And here is the details from BPT website: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/faq.html http://www.brownpapertickets.com/faq.html Ticketmaster is evil, and it's not just in America, it has lots of child companies all around world and doing the same unfair and awful business model.

andrewflnr 15y ago

This Hubbard guy sounds really smart. My favorite quote was "If we don't disrupt ourselves, someone else will." It seems like a lot of big business failures would have been prevented if the companies had the courage to disrupt their own business model. Microsoft and their foot-dragging on the web comes to mind. Obviously they haven't failed yet, but wouldn't they be healthier if they had embraced the change and pushed it forward instead of trying to hold their position against it? Anyway, I hope Hubbard has what it takes to pull off his vision.

cmer 15y ago
A great book explaining exactly this: The Innovator's Dilemma (http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Technologies-Cause-ebook/dp/B004OC07GM/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2 http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Technologies-Cause-... -- I don't make money from this link) I think every entrepreneur should read and understand the theories illustrated in the book. It made me realize a lot of things, and understand better why old/established businesses are often replaced by startups.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

seannui 15y ago

If you like going to the rock show, wrestling with algorithms that deal with high currency, social media analysis on a crazy complete data chain versus the regular induced douchebaggery, building a credible alternative to TicketMaster, or just run-on-sentences, you should come join our team of pirates at Ticketfly in SF.

kloncks 15y ago

The thing that irks me the most about Ticketmaster is their absolute monopoly on this market. There's no denying just how crappy of a product they have, which is likely due to not having an incentive or need to innovate as there are no competitors. Having the unfortunate experience of dealing with them every time I (attempt to) buy football tickets for my college, I really am bothered by the simple lack of innovation in this field. A friend summarized it really well in a tweet a while back: @Ticketmaster you have absolutely the worst product imaginable. Your employees should be ashamed of the company they work for.

riffic 15y ago
You (the consumer) are not Ticketmaster's primary customer. Ticketmaster's primary customers are the venues and promoters. The product is actually the best one available, which is a system in place designed to sell large amounts of tickets, in some cases very quickly.

shadowpwner 15y ago

Reddit has an interesting comment on Ticketmaster: http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/gmyhv/over_ten_dollars_in_fees_including_a_455_delivery/c1ortyh http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/gmyhv/over_ten_d...

tgraydar 15y ago

It's a CEO Speedwagon! The story is a nice antidote to the Pearl Jammed version of Ticketmaster's evilness. There's lots of nuance. And, though it might have made a grab for fees early on, Ticketmaster--and Live Nation--finally seem to be innovating, creating services that actually make concerts better.