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Why is concert ticket buying such a ripoff?

madoka

madoka

Diamond Member
I haven't been to a concert in years. But the Flight of the Conchords is on tour this year.

So tickets went on sale this morning for $35-60, which is pretty reasonable.

When I went to buy those tickets, every single one was already sold out. WTF!?!!?

I was forced to buy a pair from stubhub for $600!

If I paid $600 directly to the Conchords, I wouldn't mind; I would want to support them as artists. But knowing that some middlemen are get the bulk of my money is pretty upsetting.
 
Timing is everything with stubhub. You need to wait until the close to the concert date to buy. Prices will plummet, especially for something like Flight of the Conchords. 🙂
 
I just paid $20 for tickets to Disturbed and Breaking Benjamin. It partially matters WHERE you buy them from.
 
Pearl Jam is playing next month in my city (relatively small town/venue) and tickets went on sale in January. Within minutes entire chunks of tickets were gone. If I went and checked craigslist there were hundreds of tickets being offered through 3rd party sites for 5x-10x over list price.

Somehow these places are prebuy/reserving tickets and scalping the shit out of them.
 
vi edit said:
Pearl Jam is playing next month in my city (relatively small town/venue) and tickets went on sale in January. Within minutes entire chunks of tickets were gone. If I went and checked craigslist there were hundreds of tickets being offered through 3rd party sites for 5x-10x over list price.

Somehow these places are prebuy/reserving tickets and scalping the shit out of them.
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Yup, this system is broken.

I love live music but I have taken to voting with my wallet. I will buy tickets from the first seller and no where else, no matter how badly I might like to see the show. It's not perfect (affects gift-giving) but I kind of like the must show ID/CC policy that some places have experimented with.
 
The system is broken but don't expect anyone to fix it. There will be no push to fix it because the system works well if you have money and are willing to part with it. When you have a limited item and way more people that want it how do the folks with money insure they have a better shot at it than you or I -- well the system we have is the answer.

There's a reason the front rows of basketball games and the like are filled with celebs and business types. Yeah, some of it is season tickets, but a good deal of it is being able to pay top dollar for the seats that are available. If your net worth is, say, $100M, and you want to see Adele you can buy the $150 seat for $5000 and that would be like you or I paying a couple bucks. Having the prices so high that common folk can't buy means the limited items is more readily available to those with money.

Again, this isn't going to change anytime soon as there's no way the folks in power will want to change the game. Too many politicians owe too much to the very folks that benefit from the system. On top of that, you can bet that some/many of the folks buying up millions of dollars worth of tickets are themselves doing OK financially or they wouldn't have the money to buy millions of dollars worth of tickets.


Brian
 
madoka said:
When I went to buy those tickets, every single one was already sold out. WTF!?!!?
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money talks. When a venue/concert opens sales to the public they are really only offering about 30% of available seats at any given venue. The others are already spoken for (i.e, resellers).
 
I haven't bought tickets in a couple years due to being a new parent but prior to that I usually had no issues buying tickets from TM or AXS at face value for artists like U2, Eagles, Tom Petty, etc. Credit card presales are great too and cost nothing extra other than being a cardholder.
 
Brian Stirling said:
The system is broken but don't expect anyone to fix it. There will be no push to fix it because the system works well if you have money and are willing to part with it. When you have a limited item and way more people that want it how do the folks with money insure they have a better shot at it than you or I -- well the system we have is the answer.

There's a reason the front rows of basketball games and the like are filled with celebs and business types. Yeah, some of it is season tickets, but a good deal of it is being able to pay top dollar for the seats that are available. If your net worth is, say, $100M, and you want to see Adele you can buy the $150 seat for $5000 and that would be like you or I paying a couple bucks. Having the prices so high that common folk can't buy means the limited items is more readily available to those with money.

Again, this isn't going to change anytime soon as there's no way the folks in power will want to change the game. Too many politicians owe too much to the very folks that benefit from the system. On top of that, you can bet that some/many of the folks buying up millions of dollars worth of tickets are themselves doing OK financially or they wouldn't have the money to buy millions of dollars worth of tickets.


Brian
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Why would politicians need to be involved?

If it really was a huge problem, like you say, the industry would fix it. If it affected the performers as much as you say, their unions would get it fixed.

The reality is it doesn't really need fixing.
 
1200 bucks to see a band? wow no thanks.

and you are part of the problem, stop bitching about ridiculous ticket prices.
 
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It would be nice if automated ticket buying systems weren't allowed to interface with ticketmaster, etc. All the tickets are gone before a real human can even start browsing.
 
Midwayman said:
It would be nice if automated ticket buying systems weren't allowed to interface with ticketmaster, etc. All the tickets are gone before a real human can even start browsing.
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Ticketmaster itself is ridiculous. I bought a concert ticket the other day and the only way I could find to do so was through Ticketmaster...with a $15 fee.
 
jlee said:
Ticketmaster itself is ridiculous. I bought a concert ticket the other day and the only way I could find to do so was through Ticketmaster...with a $15 fee.
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I'm okay with the TM fee itself, they gotta make their money somehow.

$3 to print the tickets at home is recockulous though.
 
slayer202 said:
umm, because you paid it...
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Pretty much.
They asked $600 for what may be a <$60 ticket. It still sold.


Two ways of pricing: Markup beyond cost of goods and labor, or what the market will bear.

Bottled water has an enormous markup, but people think it's worth something, so they pay the asking price. The seller's not going to say "Oh goodness no, you keep that dollar. We'd be fine with 10 cents."
 
You bought at the absolute worst time.
Never buy the week of the sale. That's when all scalpers list.
You either get them at pre-sale or a few days before, or in person the day of.
 
edro said:
You bought at the absolute worst time.
Never buy the week of the sale. That's when all scalpers list.
You either get them at pre-sale or a few days before, or in person the day of.
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shhhhhhhh, please stop educating my customers.
 
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