Dear Ticketmaster,

[oogabooga]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
how did you get hannah montana tickets so cheap? :Q

He's a bot. I'm not sure why he bought so few though.

Ticketmaster's 2.50 to print the ticket is what really gets me. If you want to charge me some absurd fee to buy it online fine, but really? 2.50 more per ticket to be able to just print em out myself and save YOU paper? That's why I no longer buy tickets to things They've nickel and dimed the hell out of it.

 

[altonb1]

Originally posted by: tw1164
It's funny that they charge you $2.50 to print your ticket.

It's funnier that people pay it. I make them mail the tickets to me, or I'll pick them up at will call. Why use my paper, my ink, my printer AND PAY THEM on top of it?

Ticketmaster blows.

 

[buck]

Originally posted by: lokiju
TicketAlternative.com

/theread

I apologize for being blunt, but your comment is worthless. I even went through and searched for my venues and artists at that site with no luck. Please read the threads before responding.

 

[alien42]

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: Ns1
You can buy tickets at normal price at the venue (usually). Just go to the venue.

Definitely NOT usually. For low end concerts and shows probably, but anyone on national radio/TV/etc will be a Ticketmaster show and tickets are only available through them.

i typically go to 2 to 4 concerts a month and very rarely pay any ticketmaster fees so i would say you are incorrect.

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: Argo
To top it off, ticketmaster site always crashes whenever there's a high demand show (like a plaoff game, etc).

I can't wait for somebody else to get into the ticket distribution business.

I guess you weren't around when Telecharge were their direct competitors? I think they are relegated to broadway shows or something...

that was some 15-20 years ago when TM ran them out

 

[buck]

Originally posted by: altonb1

Originally posted by: tw1164
It's funny that they charge you $2.50 to print your ticket.

It's funnier that people pay it. I make them mail the tickets to me, or I'll pick them up at will call. Why use my paper, my ink, my printer AND PAY THEM on top of it?

Ticketmaster blows.

I totally agree, but if I want to see a band, I have no other choice.

 

[zinfamous]

also, I'm fortunate that the majority of bands I see live have their own ticket distribution system, and they're released before ticketmaster gets their grubby paws on them. I can understand why the majority of club bands can't run something like this, but an arena or stadium band has no excuse for not providing this service, imo.

 

[Injury]

Not that I DON'T think it sucks, but the taxes are required. Can't help that. That's a legal thing. Fortunately it's the smallest charge.

The "processing charge" is total BS, but it's less than $4. That should really be a part of the convenience charge. It's equatable to paying the wages of fast food workers to prepare your food after you've ordered it. Passing that expense along to the consumer is a shitty business practice.

The "Ticketfast" thing looked to be optional. Stupid that they charge for it, but you accepted it so you really only have capitalism to blame.

Like I said, it's all really stupid, but if people weren't willing to pay for it they wouldn't be in business. It's not like you agree to be billed and the randomly choose charges to throw in. They are upfront before you are charged so if you don't like it, you just shouldn't buy the tickets.

 

[aldamon]

Originally posted by: UNCjigga
I'm so glad I live next to the 930 club in DC now--they use Tickets.com which isn't as bad as Ticketbastard, but I'd still be paying $4-$6 in fees on top of a $12 ticket.

Yeah, they're not much better. What I can't figure out is why the venue don't sell their own tickets online. It can't be that hard now that we have the Internet.

 

[Dubb]

don't forget that they've been complicit in the scalping industry...they were blatantly allowing the use of bot software to snap up tickets as they went on sale.

At least, until someone called them on it. now they're pretending to care but still allowing it.

I remember one show where there were 2,000 seats in the venue, and ~1150 tickets on stubhub alone the day after onsale. I'd wager that 3/4 of the tickets went to scalpers.

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: aldamon

Originally posted by: UNCjigga
I'm so glad I live next to the 930 club in DC now--they use Tickets.com which isn't as bad as Ticketbastard, but I'd still be paying $4-$6 in fees on top of a $12 ticket.

Yeah, they're not much better. What I can't figure out is why the venue don't sell their own tickets online. It can't be that hard now that we have the Internet.

Because Ticketmaster/Clear Channel Media controls that industry. If you don't use Ticketmaster they don't book your venue. An artist is not free either to go against this...at least if they want to get heard on the radio and have nationally sold albums.

 

[imported_Imp]

I agree. Last time I bought from them, a $30 ticket became a $40 ticket for a "convenience charge". Pisser was that there was no other way to get it.

 

[alkemyst]

You got out cheap for only $10. I do printing online and many have a couple other fees that were mentioned above (I was trying to find one of my invoices...it wasn't for parking I don't think, as I had to pay like $10 for that too at the venue) and my tickets are usually 2x the face value. IMHO scalpers are more fair in many cases especially when I didn't know about a show I wanted to see. I don't agree with the methods they can use now and electronically order up dozens of seats.