Ticketmaster Is Evil And Must Die http://hellotxt.com/l/D80O to you by SimonUFord via Google Reader: Ticketmaster Is Evil AndMust Die [Complaints] via Consumerist by Carey on 12/10/08Ticketmaster is an evil monopoly that steals cash from defenselessconsumers. They are infinitely more evil than their hated 30% surchargewould suggest, and they must be destroyed.A Modern MonopolyDid you know you aren’t Ticketmaster’s primary customer? Sure, you andyour friends bought 141 million tickets last year, but Ticketmaster’sloyalty belongs to their true customers: venues and promoters.Ticketmaster secures its monopoly by goading them into multi-yearagreements that empower Ticketmaster to act as their exclusive vendor.In exchange, Ticketmaster gives them money. Lots and lots of money.Several million dollars upfront, sometimes.Ticketmaster doesn’t earn a cent from a ticket’s face value. It allgoes straight back to the venue, promoter, and talent. To sweeten thedeal, Ticketmaster also shares a slice of its exorbitant fees, givingvenues and promoters an incentive to support Ticketmaster’s outrageousmarkups. “It’s not us!,” they can whimper. “It’s that damnTicketBastard!”Ticketmaster’s 9,000+ exclusive agreements makes them the gatekeeper to90% of the nation’s arenas and amphitheaters, 70% of our clubs andsmall theaters, and most of our basketball, hockey, and football games.So What Am I Paying For?- The Service ChargeThis is Ticketmaster’s cash cow. The majority of their $1.2 billion inrevenue comes from this all-encompassing charge. It appears on alltickets, and cannot be escaped.- The Facility ChargeThis is the venue’s cash cow. Sure, they also take a slice from theticket’s face value, but they want more, dammit, and they get it here.- The Processing ChargeWait a minute… didn’t you pay a service charge? What’s the differencebetween processing and service? Right, there is none. Well, technicallythat’s not true. The service charge is refundable and the processingcharge is not. Ticketmaster claims that the processing charge coverstheir expenses for taking your order and finding you seats. Sounds likeservice to us.- The Convenience ChargeBy far, the most annoying name for a fee. It’s the price you pay forprinting out the tickets you bought, even after paying a service andprocessing fee. All in all, the fees usually add up to 30% of theticket price, sometimes even more for cheaper shows. And these are thefees that consumers pay. If you’re in a band, Ticketmaster demands 3.5%of your gross sales, plus an administrative fee to cover the cost ofprocessing credit card fees, which you would think might fall under theaegis of a “processing fee.”It’s supposedly an accomplishment that Ticketmaster is even willing todisclose its fees, but knowledge in this case leads to anger, notpower. In any other instance, pricing transparency by itself is a goodthing because it empowers consumers to compare prices and shop around.Ticketmaster’s exclusive agreements, however, undercut any potentialprice shopping.Why Hasn’t Anyone Destroyed Ticketmaster?Pearl Jam tried and failed. The band landed before Congress to publiclybrand Ticketmaster as an evil monopoly.The heart of their issue was ticket pricing, but Ticketmaster had ahistory of screwing Pearl Jam:- For a Seattle concert, Ticketmaster agreed to donate $1 of their$3.25 service charge to charity. Right before the tickets were set togo on sale, Ticketmaster reneged and threatened not to sell the ticketsunless they could boost the service fee by $1 to cover the cost oftheir “charitable” contribution. Ticketmaster ended up stiffing thecharity.- Ticketmaster then wanted to charge a $3.75 service fee on an $18ticket. Pearl Jam forced them to list the charge separately, and itwasn’t until the band threatened to go to another venue thatTicketmaster acquiesced.- When Pearl Jam tried to bypass Ticketmaster in Detroit by sellingtickets through their fan club, the ticket giant threatened to sue theconcert promoter for violating their exclusive agreement. Ticketmasterended up disabling the promoter’s ticket machine.- In New York, Ticketmaster threatened the Paramount Theater forviolating their exclusive agreement after Pearl Jam told fans over theradio to visit the theater to buy tickets at the box office.In their Congressional testimony, Pearl Jam said: “all of the membersof Pearl Jam remember what it is like not to have a lot of money, andwe recognize that a teenager’s perceived need to see his or herfavorite band in concert can often be overwhelming.”For the band’s 1994 tour at the height of their popularity, they triedto cap prices at $18 and limit surcharges to 10%. Ticketmaster refusedand the tour was canceled.How The !@#$ Is This Not A Monopoly?We dunno, but President Clinton’s Justice Department thoughtTicketmaster’s arrangements were a-ok. Pearl Jam retained theüber-corporate lawyers at Sullivan and Cromwell to needle the JusticeDepartment into investigating Ticketmaster for antitrust violations.After a brief investigation, the Justice Department ruled that peoplewere only indirect buyers, and that Ticketmaster’s true customers werevenues, since they were the ones consuming Ticketmaster’s services. Thevenues weighed in on Ticketmaster’s side and seemed to voluntarily handover their business, so there was apparently no monopoly.If Only They Weren’t So EvilTicketmaster might be less reviled if it wasn’t so frustratinglydifficult for consumers to beat out resellers and other middlemen tobuy tickets for themselves to popular events. Chicagoist’s failedattempt to get tickets to the American League Championship Series isall-too familiar:A refresh of the page gives us a new scrambled word to fill in and thenwe’re thrown into a que. Wait time estimated at 15 minutes or more!WTF? We watch in anticipation for the number to get smaller and after afew minutes, it does. Now it says 11 minutes. A few minutes more, andit’s down to 7 minutes.But wait! Now it says 14 minutes! What’s going on here? We thinksomething fishy’s going on, so we open another browser window to seewhat those wait times do. It remains at 15 minutes. The first one keepsjumping from a short as 6 minutes all the way back to 15 minutes again.Not goodFinally, we seem to be getting close. Now this is about 25 minutesafter Noon, but it’s finally at 4 minutes. Then 2 minutes, back to 4,then 2, now 1 and then…We get some sort of warning because another Ticketmaster window isopen! We close that window, but in the meantime the first window sendsus back to the original event page to select quantity and level again.We’re shit out of luck! There will be no ALCS tickets for Chicagoist,all because Ticketmaster’s computer system isn’t built to handleexactly the type of transactions that are most critical to theirbusiness.The same thing happened to us last year when we tried to buy playofftickets for the Rangers. We were working computers, phones, anythingwith a hook into Ticketmaster, but we couldn’t connect to anyone.Within 10 minutes, all the available tickets were gone. Real fair.Are There Any Viable Alternatives?Cracks are finally starting to form in Ticketmaster’s money-encrustedshell, but the competition doesn’t inspire confidence. Everyone looksat Ticketmaster’s 30% surcharge and thinks how good all that undeservedcash would look in their pocket.Live Nation, the largest U.S. promoter, is in the process of ditchingTicketmaster to build their own ticketing system, but only because theywant to upsell junk and expensive packages while keeping the lucre forthemselves.Major League Baseball bought up a stake in Tickets.com, which will soonbecome their primary ticketing agent, but Tickets.com also levies a 30%service fee. MLB also ditched Ticketmaster for secondary ticket salesin favor of StubHub, which charges the buyer and seller a combined 25%fee.TicketWeb was once an alternative for smaller shows, but they weregobbled up by Ticketmaster. Bandsintown is still around as anaggregator for small shows. While they don’t sell tickets directly, thesite will point you to Ticketmaster alternatives, if any are available.You can also try using Brown Paper Tickets, which bills itself as “FairTrade ticketing,” but it can be difficult to find a participating venue.Oh Come On, There Has To Be Some Viable AlternativeFor the committed, there is really only one true alternative: abandonhope and the internet and take an urban field trip to the box office.PREVIOUSLY: Why Do Ticketmaster Events Sell Out Instantly?Ticketmaster Levies Entirely Believable $327 Per Ticket ConvenienceChargeLive Nation To Challenge Ticketmaster, Sell Fans More JunkThings you can do from here:- Subscribe to Consumerist using Google Reader- Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all yourfavorite sites
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