Today I tried to buy two tickets to see my favorite band, O.A.R., play a concert on July 23 at the Comcast Theater in Hartford, CT. Here is the link to the concert, if you are interested.
Tickets are reasonably priced. $32.50 for the pavilion (where you get actual seats) and $23.50 for the lawn (general admission). Can't really argue with that, especially for a really nice outdoor venue in July.
But let's not forget about the inevitable -- and unavoidable -- Ticketmaster fees. Want to see an affordable concert become unaffordable in two easy steps? Let's go.
Concert ticket = $23.50
Facility charge = $6.00
Convenience charge = $10.00
Total = $39.50
Ticketmaster has slapped $16 worth of "facility" and "convenience" charges onto a single $23.50 ticket. That's a 68% markup. 68%! Talk about sticker shock.
Oh, it gets worse. You can't buy these tickets anywhere else. If you go to ticketmaster.com, this is what you have to pay. If you go "directly to the source" then livenation.com will simply direct you back to ticketmaster.com, where you are stuck with the same prices. The cheapest ticket on StubHub, by the way, is currently $49 so that isn't a good solution.
Here's the best part. Ticketmaster "recommends" that you select TicketFast: NOW which means you get the tickets delivered to you by email, "for free." Email, of course, costs Ticketmaster absolutely nothing. So what happened to the $16 worth of additional fees you just paid? You guessed it: pure profit for Ticketmaster/LiveNation.
I once took an Entertainment Law class at UConn Law School. Turns out, there's virtually nothing we can do about this. It's legal. Granted, LiveNation has a stranglehold on pretty much every desirable concert venue and performing artist, but there are other options out there in the music world, so it's not a monopoly. They're not breaking any laws, antitrust or otherwise.
So we're stuck. They have us trapped. There's no way to see these concerts without getting exploited by these phantom fees. My only question is, at what point do we just say no? Why don't we say no to Ticketmaster fees, traffic jams, $10 parking, overpriced beer, crowded venues, and more traffic jams? Why go to a concert with all these headaches when you can get the music for free...in your living room?
Thursday, April 29, 2010
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I agree with you Jay. I tried to buy some $5 tickets for the Yankees and after the fees, they were no where close to as affordable.
ReplyDeleteHere's one way to get around the Ticketmaster fees: go to the venue and buy it from them directly. Cut out the middle man (Ticketmaster) and save yourself a lot of money.
Now the real moneymaker is Stubhub. They do absolutely nothing and make 25% on every deal (10% from the buyer, 15% from the seller). And they've basically legalized ticket scalping. Talk about a good business!
Andrew - I agree and disagree. Yes fees have grown exponentially over the years and seem unreasonable, but I don't think it fair to say stubhub doesn't do anything.
ReplyDeleteThey maintain a secure website providing their services and customer service operations. They provide a money back guarantee. Is it legalized scalping? Pretty much, but at least you have a guarantee that your tickets are real, which is the greatest danger of scalping.
They are in business to make money, and make money I am sure they do (they are a private company so their financials are not public record) but I can vouch that maintaining their ecommerce operations is not an inexpensive endeavor by any stretch.
Maybe it was a bit over the line to say that Stubhub does nothing, but they carry no risk. "They" don't provide the money back guarantee--the seller does. So if the tickets are fakes, the seller's credit card get charged. I'm sure it's not inexpensive to maintain their website, but other than that a customer service base, they're not really doing much else.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying that they're "bad" in any way. I'm just saying that if we're going to throw Ticketmaster and LiveNation over the fire for making money as the middleman, we have to throw Stubhub in that list as well.
damn right. down with the collective "man".
ReplyDeleteexcept for the "man" that signs my paychecks. he can stay
ReplyDeleteJay - This has been a problem for a while now (5 + years). This type of thing totally turns me off, it's just terrible. Interesting to hear it from legal perspective, but why is this tolerated? Live Nation just merged with TM so this has to be a monopoly.
ReplyDeleteAs for getting around fees, I've noticed that's changed too. For instance, if you go to Comcast or Chevy box office, the do charge a fee now. Granted it's less but still. Take your ticket as example
$23.50 - price of ticket
$6.00 - buliding charge, you still get charged for this. Keep in mind though that this fee is actually acceptable because it pays for parking. This isn't bad, just compare this to Fenway for example
$5.00. surcharge
$34.50 - you saved a whooping $5. Bad news, it cost you gas money to drive there so you really didn't save much of anything.
And I agree, I don't go to as many shows now bc of this. I'm only willing to take the fee on my favorite can't miss shows.
I guess the difference is sporting events. If you buy Yankee tickets from Ticketmaster, you get charged a "convenience charge" for EACH of the tickets (and this goes up based on the price of a ticket, but, for example, is $5.70 per ticket for $22 grandstand seats). THEN, they charge a delivery fee if you want the print-at-home AND a "Order Processing Fee" of $3.30 for good measure.
ReplyDeleteAll those fees disappear if you go to Yankee Stadium. You get charged $22 a ticket. Nothing more. It's the same at MSG and other sports arenas I'm sure.
So instead of these 4 tickets being $88, they came out to be $114.10 on Ticketmaster (since I opted not to pay more for the print at home) Ridiculous
Troper -- this isn't a monopoly for the same reason that Andrew suggested earlier. If you don't want to pay Ticketmaster's ridiculous fees, you can go to the Comcast Theater box office and buy tickets there. That's why LN/TM is not a monopoly...there are other ways to buy tickets because Comcast can charge whatever price it wants. Although it's a little less advantageous now that you've mentioned that the box office still has surcharges.
ReplyDeleteSaving $5 is meaningless if you had to spend money (gasoline) and time (driving) to get the tickets directly from the box office. It totally cancels it out. I guess you're better off just buying them from your desk on ticketmaster.com
One last thing. Troper is right because a lot of people are just refusing to fork up the money. Concert attendance has suffered (not for huge shows like Bon Jovi, but for smaller performances). The question becomes *when do people start boycotting these fees*. At what point do we just say, enough is enough, stop squeezing concertgoers. Why spend $75 to see O.A.R. at MSG when you can buy the Blu Ray concert DVD for $20?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure we're there yet, but it's coming. Just think...5 years ago, who even heard of LiveNation??
Here is one interesting thought that NOBODY has mentioned. It also shows that Andrew's point about Yankees tickets is valid for baseball games but NOT for concerts.
ReplyDeleteLiveNation (which is a friggin beast) has become an absolute monster now that it merged with Ticketmaster. It OWNS many of the concert venues it holds shows in. So now it might actually be bordering on monopoly status. Why? Let's see.
Suppose LiveNation owns the Comcast Theater in Hartford. It also owns Ticketmaster. So it owns the venue, the venue's box office, and the website that sells tickets on behalf of the box office. It can SET THE PRICES FOR ALL TICKETS, whether you buy them online or in person at the box office. Boom. Huge profits.
So, my earlier comment about how this isn't a monopoly will ONLY apply if LiveNation/Ticketmaster doesn't own the concert venue. If it's an independent arena/pavilion/stadium then you can still buy tickets whose prices aren't set by the juggernaut. A monopoly doesn't exist in that scenario.
Other people -- very important people and federal agencies -- are concerned about this. From Wikipedia:
-----------------------------
Bruce Springsteen said "...the one thing that would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan than it is now would be Ticketmaster and Live Nation coming up with a single system, thereby returning us to a near monopoly situation in music ticketing".
In a January 25, 2010 press release, the TicketDisaster.org group--a coalition of consumer rights and anti-trust groups--also issued the following statement about the proposed Live Nation-TicketMaster merger:
"Despite its "monopoly-like dominance" controlling 70 to 80 percent of all concert ticket sales, Ticketmaster is unabashedly seeking to grow its empire - all to the detriment of the average fan. Ticketmaster is now trying to dampen competition by merging with Live Nation, the nation's largest concert promoter and second largest primary ticket seller. That merger is coming under heavy fire from consumer and industry groups and Members of Congress, particularly because of the clear anti-consumer and anti-competitive effects.
"As the Department of Justice reaches the final round of reviewing this merger, only one question must be answered: will the merger lead to increased prices, poorer service, or less innovation?"
I think it is a monopoly because there are no other pricing services. The box office shouldn't really count, who has the time of day to make the trip? Also, tickets go on sale at funky times, 10:00 a.m. during the week. Am I going to take a day off work to get Rush tickets?
ReplyDeleteAlso, as an individual who attends the same event at multiple venues, the box office thing doesn't work. Concert tix for multiple venues go on sale the same time so there's no way I could buy tix for 3 shows via box office. Furthermore, there are pre-sales which basically have most the tix which are avaialble only on-line.
Sorry, but this just pisses me off. It's not just the $, it's also having to accept the fact of getting screwed.
I totally agree with you Troper. That's why I posted about this. The system, as currently set up, is designed to screw us over.
ReplyDeleteThere was a big Bruce Springsteen ticket catastrophe last year. The tickets sold to some of the concerts on his last tour were not being told through Ticketmaster, but only directly through the venue (and their online retail outlet). So what did Ticketmaster do? When you clicked on the concert you wanted (not knowing that Ticketmaster was not selling them directly), Ticketmaster automatically linked you to TicketsNow, which is there version of StubHub. They basically fooled you into thinking no tickets were available and that you had to buy scalped tickets, when in fact, the direct sale tickets were still available. I almost ran into this problem but fortunately I found out where to buy the tickets. Others were not as fortunate, as the main Ticketmaster site stated that it was down for routine maintenance and once redirected to TicketsNow, fans were under the impression that all direct sale tickets were sold out. What's worse - a good chunk of the tickets didn't exist and it took months for people to get their money back.
ReplyDeleteSpringsteen and his management were livid about the situation. He posted a letter on his website condemning Ticketmaster for ripping off his fans. The FTC and Ticketmaster finally settled, after the FTC charged Ticketmaster with intentionally trying to trick their consumers with this so called "glitch."
yeah, I see now. I didn't notice your post as I was posting.
ReplyDeleteBen - I remember this. I went to Springsteen last year and I did notice this once as I was looking. I didn't buy tix from Tickets.now but I remember thinking to myself, what the hell is this?
I didn't realize it escalated to such a diaster though