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Avoid Ticketmaster’s Ridiculous Fees
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I have nothing against Barry Diller or InterActiveCorp but when Ticketmaster (owned by IAC) wants to charge me a $9 “convenience charge” for a $38 ticket to see a concert at Merriweather Post Pavilion, then I think that’s a little excessive. I can almost understand a ten dollar service charge on, say, a hundred dollar ticket but when the service charge represents about a quarter of the final price of the ticket then we’re talking about a rip off.
To avoid this, the best solution is to buy the ticket from the venue itself. This is a hit and miss proposition but its your only shot at getting a ticket without paying the Ticketmaster fee. Your best bet is to call up the box office and ask if there is a service charge for buying a ticket there. Some will not charge any service fee, some will charge a Ticketmaster level rip-off fee, but some will charge a smaller fee (just to pay for the person attending the ticket booth). If it’s convenient, I’d recommend calling and buying the ticket in person. Another word of warning, many box offices won’t take phone or online orders, so you’ll have to physically go to the box office and buy it there.
I’m not in the camp that says Ticketmaster is trying to rip you off, they are providing a service after all, but I think that $10 on a $40 ticket is a little much… enough so that I’d be willing to drive up to the box office and pick a pair on my own (depending on how far it is, in this case Merriweather is a mile away).
Ahhh monopolies…
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I do not work for Ticketmaster, but I do work in the ticket industry. I can say this. All of those service charges are not Ticketmaster. They include facility fees, promoter fees, sometimes parking fees, box office fees, etc. Ticketmaster fees are only a fraction of that and are used to for technology development and the cost of business. They are not a monopoly because there are others competing against them such as Tickets.com and other in-house services such as Tessitura (used in arts organizations). I’ve always agreed that building the charges into the price of the ticket would lessen the blow consumers feel that they are delivered when making this purchase, but most of the people making these decisions have not worked in ticketing and do not deal with the public on a daily basis and seek better ways to keep them happy.
I think Tickets.com (owned by MLB) scales their service charges based on a percentage, but I do not know for sure if they build other costs into their pricing (before charges). I would assume so, because after all, they’re in the business to make money too.
Ticketmaster sells convenience. You will rarely ever have to stand in line for long or wait on hold or have problems purchasing tickets online. Generally by the time the customer has paid the money and seen the show and captured a great experience, the service charge doesn’t really matter to that person. Consumers tend to remember the experience, not the ticket charges when it’s all over.
I understand your argument though…I feel the same way about banks.
Dude, you did a great job of convincing us you are not an employee of ticketmaster. We are so glad you are not working for amazon! We don’t need to hear from you how little ticketmaster makes from fees. Just release the tickets to hundreds of online websites, we don’t need crappy ticketmaster.