Author Topic: Ticket ripoff!  (Read 17372 times)

Re: Ticket ripoff!
« Reply #105 on: October 21, 2005, 05:29:00 pm »
So someone who became a teacher or social worker should have worked just a little harder and become a lawyer?
 
 
Quote
Originally posted by challenged:
  I think all of the complainers here just need to work harder to make more money so that you won't feel compelled to bitch about the small dollar stuff.  
 
 Also, I bought tickets from Strathmore Hall for the Ben Folds and Elvis Costello shows.  There were no service charges at all and they have their own ticketing system.  It was very efficient.  The tickets, however, are ungodly expensive even without the service charges.  So, back to the first point...make more $$$.

challenged

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Re: Ticket ripoff!
« Reply #106 on: October 21, 2005, 05:37:00 pm »
Not necessarily a lawyer, probably you could make more money in internetting, rock club owning, car selling, real estate investing, investment banking, software sales, and the like, but if you want to be able to afford to go to shows without complaining about the prices of services charges and such, it sounds like you need to find a way to make more money.  
 
 All that being said, I only sporadically pay service charges for 9:30/IMP shows by buying tickets at the venue or making other arrangements.  Of the 3 shows I am attending/have attended this week (Vanderslice, U2, Death Cab), I only paid for U2 service charges, and those were reduced because I paid bono a fanclub fee of some sort.
 
 Enjoy.  Flame on Rhett.

Arlette

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Re: Ticket ripoff!
« Reply #107 on: October 21, 2005, 06:51:00 pm »
Some informational points:
 
 1.  Bands do participate in the ticket/convenience fees, most of them get a small kickback.  It depends on the negotiating skills and relative industry power of the artist.  
 
 2.  Ditto the venue.  The 9:30 Club almost certainly gets a kickback on the fees from tickets.com.  This all started a few years ago when tickets.com and Musictoday entered the business.  New competition made it more difficult for Ticketmaster to retain accounts, so dealmaking with venues began (on the club level. It started much earlier with sheds, stadiums and amphitheaters).
 
 3.  Most service charges and convenience fees are a percentage of the ticket cost.  It's not always rational.....does it cost more to ticket a $20 show than a $40 show?  Not necessarily.  But it's a business.....people who are willing to pay for $40 shows are willing to spend more money on many things.  (generally speaking)
 
 As everyone else said, there's a lot more to these fees than a stamp.  There's the price of the enveleope, the labor involved in stuffing the envelope, the call center staff who have to take the calls from morons who "lost" their tickets or entered the wrong address when buying the tickets, and...on and on and on.
 
 Are the fees too high in spite of all of the above?  Yes.  But the whole business model of the music industry is out of whack.  It's a greedy, sexy business run by mostly idiots who just want to do blow and get laid.  And if they can get rich while doing it, all the better.  Steve Jobs is turning the business upside down, let's see if it has an overall effect to get pricing more in line with the value of the product.

kosmo vinyl

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Re: Ticket ripoff!
« Reply #108 on: October 21, 2005, 08:41:00 pm »
It's interesting that venues and promoters get the complaints ticket service fees, but not the artists themselves.  Artists can take responsibility for such matters, for instance Eddie Izzard did an entire tour where the tickets sold through Ticketmaster didn't have service charges associated with them.  So agreements can be reached...
 
 As mentioned above bands have used other methods of selling tickets, bands could take the financial risk of handling all ticket sales.
 
 The 9:30 club could also put a velvet rope out front and admit only those on the guestlist.  Or thatguy could decide who he feels is worth of entering the club.  Of course vansmack would not like that scenario one bit...
T.Rex

Arlette

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Re: Ticket ripoff!
« Reply #109 on: October 21, 2005, 09:38:00 pm »
Quote
Originally posted by kosmo vinyl:
  It's interesting that venues and promoters get the complaints ticket service fees, but not the artists themselves.  
Exactly.  I have so much more to say....but you it the nail on the head.

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Re: Ticket ripoff!
« Reply #110 on: October 23, 2005, 10:40:00 am »
Hey- I have 4 tickets that I posted on Ebay - turns out my husband is going to be out of town and my friends wimped out. Here's the link:   http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6572501161...
 
 Did I mention that my husband is going to be out of town?

Seth Hurwitz

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Re: Ticket ripoff!
« Reply #111 on: October 24, 2005, 07:12:00 am »
well, I wanted to see how this would run its' course without me, and it was fun, but here's my usual response to this stuff:
 
 the bottom line is the bottom line - that is, add it all up and there's the price of your ticket...the only question left at that point is whether you want to pay that much to see that show
 
 the problem we run into is that because the fees etc are broken down, people are able to pinpoint where some of that money goes and somehow feel they can make an argument for it
 
 if the base ticket price were broken down into security/stagehands/band catering/insurance/band busses/band attorneys and the 50 other places that money goes, we'd have a topic thread for each, I guarantee you
 
 total cost of ticket...that's all you need to think about, the same way you think about buying anything else

Frank Gallagher

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Re: Ticket ripoff!
« Reply #112 on: October 24, 2005, 09:10:00 am »
Quote
Originally posted by The Walrus:
 
 
 Did I mention that my husband is going to be out of town?
...I'll be right over!  ;)

Frank Gallagher

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Re: Ticket ripoff!
« Reply #113 on: October 24, 2005, 09:38:00 am »
Quote
Originally posted by Seth Hurwitz:
 
 the bottom line is the bottom line - that is, add it all up and there's the price of your ticket...the only question left at that point is whether you want to pay that much to see that show
 
 
I don't disagree with you Seth, with one exception...the service charges should at least be relative to the actualy price of the ticket. If it's $6.50 service charge for a $30 ticket then is that concert worth $36.50? (plus the other bs charges of course but I'm just trying to make a point) But if an up and coming band are playing and it's a $10 ticket, then $6.50 makes a $16.50 ticket to check out a new band out of the question....that was the beginning of the end of me being a 3 night a week regular at the club.
 
 That's my only beef with the whole ticket rip off discussion....oh, and the 'convenience' charge should be per transaction, not per ticket...you've not been 'convenienced' any more buying a single ticket or buying four, so why pay four times as much for the same 'convenience'?

jeffnar

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Re: Ticket ripoff!
« Reply #114 on: October 24, 2005, 11:18:00 am »
my biggest beef with the pricing has been the HUGE jump in base tix pricing this year; $40 min. to see the black crowes, pixies, kraftwerk, coldplay, etc....shows i saw at 4 different venues (3 in NC, kraftwerk at 930), where last year the cheapies for these shows seemed like it would have been $25-30. and those shows were all before gas prices (read: higher travel costs for bands) went towards the roof.
 
 the extra surcharges were just adding insult to injury, and i have to agree with posters that say  a surcharge/handling fee that's 25-50% of the tix price is out of hand. a $7.50 fee for a $15 show? -no thanks; those $40 shows i saw didn't even have fees that high!!
 
 it's just the reality of the high costs of touring and biznesh that we're going to have to get used to. and, as many have noted, you just pick your battles one by one. i just go to less shows and try to find tix with a minimum surcharge. if i have to get tix online, i choose e-tix all the time now: it's usually the cheapest option, i can print them out right away, and i can reprint them should i 'lose' them, or e-mail a buddy's tix to them if we're going to meetup at a show.
 
 re: "the cat's cardle", i'm assuming that this is Frank Heath's Chapel Hill club Cat's Cradle and not some local place (newbie here, still learning all the local spots). that was my local place to see shows for the last decade, and their e-tix are great. you don't wait in line for willcall and then again to get in; you just show up in the main line and you're in. frank also would have tix to their shows at indie record stores like CD Alley or Poindexters where there would be real tix (for the "i want my tix stub" crowd) and NO service charge that i recall.
 
 i am sure that this discussion will continue to evolve as touring costs skyrocket, wages remain flat, and the economy worsens. alternatives to Ticketbastard will continue to emerge and many of the new models will adapt and incorporate user feedback to try to bring things in line for the lower/middle class show-goers. until then, we can just pick and choose which shows we can afford, continue to support the clubs and bands, and continue to voice concerns and alternatives to practices which can be seen as annoying/gouging. business models/practices will keep evolving, and so will the needed discussions about them.

Julian, Alleged Computer F**kface

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Re: Ticket ripoff!
« Reply #115 on: October 24, 2005, 11:44:00 am »
Quote
Originally posted by jeffnar:
   frank also would have tix to their shows at indie record stores like CD Alley or Poindexters where there would be real tix (for the "i want my tix stub" crowd) and NO service charge that i recall.
 
Well to be fair though, the two members of the "we collect ticket stubs" club who were discussing Cat's Cradle live over 2 hours away, so this isn't really a viable option.

Bombay Chutney

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Re: Ticket ripoff!
« Reply #116 on: October 24, 2005, 11:54:00 am »
Quote
Originally posted by jeffnar:
   if i have to get tix online, i choose e-tix all the time now: it's usually the cheapest option,
If you're talking about TicketMaster's TicketFast option, that's not usually the cheapest way to go.  They charge a few bucks for the .pdf tickets, but they'll snail-mail hard tickets at no extra cost.

jeffnar

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Re: Ticket ripoff!
« Reply #117 on: October 24, 2005, 12:51:00 pm »
username edited wrote:  
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Well to be fair though, the two members of the "we collect ticket stubs" club who were discussing Cat's Cradle live over 2 hours away, so this isn't really a viable option.  
i should have been more specific about where those cd stores were: chapel hill club having tix available at a Durham and Raleigh and Chapel Hill cd store, is like a DC club having tix available 15-30 miles away from the venue; definitely doable for the outlying fans. for someone living 2 hrs.+ away?!, ....uh, move!

distance

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Re: Ticket ripoff!
« Reply #118 on: October 24, 2005, 01:00:00 pm »
Quote
Originally posted by jeffnar:
  i should have been more specific about where those cd stores were: chapel hill club having tix available at a Durham and Raleigh and Chapel Hill cd store, is like a DC club having tix available 15-30 miles away from the venue; definitely doable for the outlying fans. for someone living 2 hrs.+ away?!, ....uh, move!
i live approximately 2.5-3hrs from chapel hill and 1.5-2 hours from dc (depending on traffic).  it makes it moderately 'easy' to go to shows at either place if i so choose (or both).
 though i do plan on moving, living in between allows me basically equal opportunity to see shows at either/both places, something that living very close to one or the other wouldn't allow.
 
 of course, if i lived in dc, philly/baltimore wouldn't be very far away for catching a second/other show.. but if i lived in chapel hill, what the hell is really "close" to there?  atlanta is almost as far away from there as dc.
 
 also, re: the ticket stubs.  i said i like to have ticket stubs, but i wouldn't skip a show i wanted to go to just because i couldn't get a ticket stub.  i've gone to a good number of shows where there weren't advance ticket sales and i've been to a few shows where i was guestlisted and never got stubs.  i never said it was a requirement -- it's just nice to have, especially when buying the tickets in advance.

Seth Hurwitz

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Re: Ticket ripoff!
« Reply #119 on: October 25, 2005, 06:20:00 am »
Quote
Originally posted by Roadbike Mankie:
   If it's $6.50 service charge for a $30 ticket then is that concert worth $36.50? (plus the other bs charges of course but I'm just trying to make a point)
and that's simply  the question you need to answer for yourself...is that concert worth the total price per ticket?
 
 deciphering which part goes to who doesn't change the answer to that question