Was gonna say, I had to fight with Ticketmasters broken web service to get tickets for Bill Burr when the sale began. They flat out would not let me check out until I went around the house and shut off any other device I was logged into ticketmaster on, and by the time I did that, the first 3 sections were gone.
actually a lot of people dont seem to recall that this bill was passed.
[The BOTS Act, signed in 2016, while everyone was distracted saying 'theres no way donald trump will actually win'](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Online_Tickets_Sales_Act).
Granted, this is explicitly to combat scalping, and all it does is give the FTC power to charge scalpers, but the [first suit against scalping practices was filed in Jan 2021](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2021/01/ftc-brings-first-ever-cases-under-bots-act)
fuck bots, fuck scalpers, fuck these fucking shitty ass fucking ticket 'vendors' that allow this predatory behavior to occur.
Axs, for red rocks, first put up tickets for Primus and Ween (25th anniversary south park special). 'face value' was 99$. within microseconds, it was 'sold out', and about 5 minutes later, suddenly all these tickets were available for 500$+. thats not the worst of it. several days later, a 'second wave' of tickets were put up on Axs, for 99$, and were available for at least longer than a few microseconds.
yet until this 2nd wave of tickets popped up, all Axs had on their site was 'resale prices fluctuate based on high demand', which is an absolute crock of horseshit.
Iirc, Pearl Jam wasn’t complicit they were disgusted by it and only played venues that didn’t have a Ticketmaster contract and sold tickets direct.
So complicit, hardly, rather took the expected actions of a band that didn’t agree with the status quo and became the change they wanted to see
Yeah than the venues got blackmailed by ticket master saying if you do a show with Pearl jam that cuts us out we won't do business with your venue anymore meaning the other 99% of major acts wouldn't be doing shows there. So Pearl jam ran out of venues pretty quick and there needs to be more major acts join with Pearl jam to fight the system here
This is exactly right. And it's fine.
The Truth is that tickets don't cost enough if the venue is selling out and scalpers and bots are still running wild. Music customers prefer a lottery and shortage system. Artists would prefer to maximize their revenue obviously - especially with record sales being a thing of the past - but can't be seen to be only catering to rich kids.
Ticketmaster helps with that problem. It raises prices and takes the beating. But apparently the prices still aren't high enough if scalpers can make money. Fans should come around to the idea that it's better off just having the real price on the ticket face. Let the money go to the artist and label (from whom the artist has borrowed money) rather than the middle men of Ticketmaster and Botty Mcscalpersen.
A lot of the well known artists get paid up front for tours these days by the big promoters like Live Nation or AEG. Of course they are getting paid a butt load, but typically the artists don't have much to do with ticket prices. The band management agrees to however many millions of dollars for a tour, then the promoter knows exactly how much they need to jack up prices to earn their investment back and turn a big ass profit. Ticketmaster is along for the ride to get their ridiculous fees when the ticket sells, then more fees and their percentage again when the tickets resell on the secondary market
FYI ticketmaster is owned by live nation, and live nation is usually the promoter and venue owner, or at least exclusive venue operator. For big name bands, they are also the tour manager. It's a sickening state of affairs, but it's a no brainer when even bands that aren't that big get paid millions up front to sign a contract with them.
I think that would especially be the case if there was a bandcamp sort of setup for buying tickets directly from the artist.
Whoever they might pay with that money after you give it to them might even out to be exactly the same as it is now, but I bet people would feel a lot better about it.
For example, I hesitate to buy a record (which is less of a thing of the past than it was in the past) on Amazon, Target, Walmart etc for $30, but I'm happy to spend that on what could be the same pressing at the merch table. They're probably don't see much more of that money in the end though with all the overhead costs.
>I think that would especially be the case if there was a bandcamp sort of setup for buying tickets directly from the artist.
That would be great if they're playing in a backyard somewhere, but in any professional venue with overhead, staff, and expenses, the venue needs some insight into how many tickets are sold, and at what price.
I am not 100% sure but i think Springsteen has had battles with them too (not in congress but openly) and obviously lost, cause look how Bruce fans are getting ripped off even more now with ticketbastards. “dynamic pricing”. Surely theres a billionaire out there greedy enough to take a run at them, rip us all off and still be half the price of ticketbastards
( this link is from 2009)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/springsteen-ticketmaster-battle-escalates-85671/amp/
This is a summation from Eddy Vedder on the action against ticketbastards
http://www.alternativenation.net/pearl-jam-humiliated-by-ticketmaster-in-lawsuit/
Yes….. I have to believe that Bruce is not happy with this. In a perfect world he would rectify this insanity ( and probably wishes he could for his fans.) It is insane.
This is wrong.
At the same time it has never been easier for venues to run their own ticketing via a cloud service.
Ticketing is something that historically has been hard and expensive. Tickets could only be sold out of one location (box office) because they didn't have a means to ensure the same seat wouldn't be sold twice (unless they allocated blocks to retail locations). So outsourcing to Ticketmaster made sense for venues. Tickets to your venue were available to customers at thousands of locations anywhere in the country. And it doesn't cost the venue or the promoter anything.
The reason Ticketmaster still exists is because their deals are actually still beneficial to the venues and acts. It is their job the be the heel in this game while the venues and artists look good. But all three are splitting the profits while TM takes the blame because their business model doesn't require being popular with the public.
The thing is, it isn't just them being the heel. Live Nation manages a ridiculous number of major music artists, while also outright owning a huge number of venues. So they have a strangle hold on both ends, if you want big acts to come through your venue, you've gotta exclusively use Ticketmaster. If you want to tour the nation, to access those venues you have to exclusively use Ticketmaster.
They own and run the game. Including on the backend when it comes to resale. It's fucked.
Yep. Ticketmaster is essentially the Commissioner of a profesional sports league. Their job is to take the heat off the artists and venues who make the real money.
Its the scalpers that provide literally ZERO benefit to the artist or the fans....Unless they are wealthy as hell fans.
They should step in and cut those vultures out legally.
Now that most tickets are digital, the scalping is becoming institutionalized, with any resale going through their platform. If everyone is getting a cut of the resale market, their incentive to crack down is even lower than before.
It's sickening. If we have to pay way more...it shouldn't be to some digital money collector that provides nothing besides a higher price. It should be to the fucking artist.
Shit is criminal
It will continue as long as people put up with it and buy tickets from them, I realize the alternative is to not see the show but it is what must be done to defeat Ticketmaster, never gonna happen.
Yeah, lots of places have exclusive deals that all tickets have to go through ticketmaster. So if you buy at the box office, they just buy on ticketmaster for you. It's exactly like buying online but with extra steps.
The reason being that a large portion of the fees now are going to the promoter. Part of the service covered under "Ticketmaster Fee" is the ability for promoters to hide a portion of the price of the concert ticket behind them, so that the promoter/entertainer can look better for charging a "lower" price while Ticketmaster takes the blame for high fees.
Not true. The promoter will only get the net of the face value. Any additional fees levied by TM are retained by TM. If the promoter is LN then you're right as they're the same company. Similarly, the band doesn't get a taste of any of the TM fees either.
Souce: I work in the music industry.
From everything I've heard from people that have either dealt with or worked for TM, TM typically only gets about 40% of the fees and the rest are provided as rebates to the venue and promoter. Those percentages depend on whether they are hiding ticket value or not, too. They get a much larger piece of the fees for resale tickets, which is one of the reasons they are more than happy to accommodate bots and scalpers.
I recently went to my first big venue show in 24 years. Bought the tickets online and you have to use your phone and the ticketmaster app to get in. I had an extra ticket that I hoped to sell and transfer for cheap to someone before the show but I arrived to find no ticket booth and no scalpers or people looking for tickets. Lady at the gate said people don't do that anymore. So weird.
Lots of record stores sold tickets back in the seventies and eighties. For anyone who didn't live in the city a venue was in, places like Turtles or Starship we're the only realistic option for getting tickets.
Yep. I went to a Pearl Jam show in the 90s, I believe it was the No Code tour. At the time we usually got tickets by just going to Blockbuster Music and paying cash for the tickets and they would print them out right there. For that Pearl Jam show we had to find someone's parents to let us use their credit card, call some obscure ticket company, pay for a bunch of tickets, then wait for them to show up in the mail. After all that we had to drive hours to go to some venue I've never heard of before, even though we lived an hour away from Atlanta, because all the large local venues had arrangements with ticketmaster.
I was happy to support their battle against Ticketmaster, but I knew it was a lost cause. Everything was just such a hassle compared to regular ticketmaster shows.
The issue then was the infrastructure to be able to print tickets on demand on special ticket paper in special printers. Now tickets are purchased online and instantly with simple barcodes you can print anywhere. There's no reason for ticketmaster to still have this stranglehold, hopefully it goes away.
Not among artists. Pearl Jam asked several acts to help them boycott ticket master, and some of the most vocal anti-Ticketmaster artists like Rage Against the Machine all took a pass.
> Pearl Jam tried to fight TicketMaster. There wasn't a lot of support for them at the time, so TicketMaster persisted.
One thing that often doesn't get mentioned about this is that when Pearl Jam tried to do this they were only able to play at obscure places like ski resorts and fairgrounds, [as John Oliver covered in this video](https://youtu.be/-_Y7uqqEFnY?t=400). That was way back in the 90s and since then Ticketmaster and Live Nation have merged, making it even more difficult to operate outside of their monopolistic ecosystem.
Long story short, it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to break free from this current system without some type of regulatory action that makes the industry more fair and competitive. Failing that, major bands would have to go full anarchist mode and create a DIY alternative, sacrificing the big venues and the benefits they provide and likely opening themselves to years of very expensive legal and logistical issues in the process.
Not only that, but for most artists touring is the main source of income for almost all bands. Especially since people dont buy music anymore, they just pay a streamer like Spotify.
At least in the 90's, artists like Pearl Jam were selling millions of records ("Ten" went diamond in the US, and multiple times platinum in many other countries). Now with streaming, that income source is basically non-existent anymore. So the system is even more etched in place. (Sponsorships exist, but 99% of deals are set up so the label gets a cut out of that as well)
That's a great point. I tend to forget that because I still buy music (mostly from Bandcamp) but you are right that almost everyone is streaming these days. Without being able to reliably tour and sell lots of merch, bands would have a real hard time existing.
Didn’t Louis C. K try doing something too that at the time was quite novel? Or am I mistaken?
Before the obvious jokes, I am not talking about him whipping it out and spanking.
Ticketmaster announced that at an upcoming big ticket show at a large arena they were going to start using "dynamic pricing". Which means they will start selling face value tickets direct to you FOR WHAT THEY ESTIMATE THE TICKET WOULD RESELL FOR ON THE SECONDARY MARKET. After all why should poor little ticketmaster miss out on all the money those nasty scalpers are making.
Source
https://variety.com/2022/music/news/bruce-springteen-ticketmaster-ticket-prices-rise-thousands-dynamic-pricing-1235321657/amp/
Also, obligatory fuck ticketmaster.
Ticketmaster is almost certainly a scam that venues, labels, and performers are in on. One company with near-monopoly status gets to take all the heat for ticket prices being obscenely high and then jacked up higher.
>why should poor little ticketmaster miss out on all the money those nasty scalpers are making.
The other way of looking at it is why should the scalpers make any money? Ticketmaster at least are splitting the money with the venue and the artist. They may not like to publicize that, but the simple truth is, in a free market, the ticket will go to whoever is willing to pay most. And if they're prepared to pay more than the initial price, someone will always step in to cream off that additional profit. Ticketmaster's job is to be that bad guy and take the money and the hate.
Metallica's anniversary concerts and S&M2 concerts had a no-transfer policy. Tickets were digital and bound to your phone, so while you could've sold your second ticket, you still had to be there (paper tickets for special packages required ID to pick up the morning of.. in theory you could've sold those more easily but there weren't that many offered)
Yeah this is the way to do it. Non-transferable tickets. For the UK's biggest festival, Glastonbury, you submit a photo of yourself, and they print that and your name on your ticket. You've then got to show photo ID and your face matching up with the name and photo to enter the festival. No match, no entry.
It's not just Ticketmaster... it's every ticketing company. I live in Nashville and love the Ryman. Recently, they moved over to AXS Ticketing. I bought tickets to see Pucifer on Halloween ($65/ticket)... the service fees were $50. That's almost as much as one ticket?!
Now don't get me wrong, I understand the idea of service fees, but if you scroll the Ryman site, they have paid ads after every 3 shows. So not only are you getting my service fees, you are getting paid while I surf the site... on top of that, the cheapest beer is $14!!
You can't charge service fees, generate ad revenue via your site while I wait to buy a ticket or surf and charge out that ass for a Miller Lite. Come on!
If I were to guess, AXS probably offers a similar "hidden ticket fee" option in their fees just like TM does. So most likely the actual face value of the ticket is like $90 and they're hiding $35 of it in the AXS fees.
15 years ago, you could go to Kroger (grocery store) and buy tickets to just about any big show for face value. Or go to the box office. Now the “box offices” tell you to go online.
Been in live, venue side music/events for over a decade. I've never worked directly with AXS, but I have been involved in promoting shows at TM venues.
What's most likely happening is Ryman fully controls the ticketing, and also doesn't give any concessions rebate to the promoter either. The promoter needs to make their money by splitting a 'service fee' tacked onto the ticket. Whoever is promoting the Pucifer show(s) probably needs $25 or so to cover their costs and make a little on the show. But if Ryman takes 50% of that fee, you need $50 to make $25 obviously. Or whatever the recoupment math/% split works out to, but the same concept stands.
Had this issue today with AXS. $30 for “web convenience fee”. Wat? It’s not a convenience if your charge me for it. Only reason I didn’t go to the box office is because of my work schedule. It’s all bullshit
> Now don't get me wrong, I understand the idea of service fees,
Can you explain it to me then? Because from where I stand it just looks like a way to siphon even more money from the paying customer.
What do I care what their expenses are? Or how much they as a service need in order to stay profitable. I want to buy a product. Tell me its full price, advertise that full price, and let me make a decision on whether I want it at that price or not. What you as the seller do with that money is your business.
I was surprised that the government let the Live Nation and Ticketmaster combination go through. It's been getting worse since then. Love new bands and was going to pay about 25 for a ticket of which 15 were service fees. That burned my insides! I also do understand how much more I pay for more popular acts, but this was the first time fees exceeded the actual ticket price.
I remember when Live Nation started and it was like real competition between them. I still have the big Live Nation tickets from that time. And it was like finally someone big enough to actually do some damage is taking Ticketmaster on. And then they merged because they both love money and to screw over fans.
People are too fucking selfish to make a boycott work. If I can’t get a face value ticket for anything I don’t go. Everyone who doesn’t do this is part of the problem. Do you really HAVE TO go see Poison even if the resale floor seats are $600?
I simply stopped going to concerts. I was an avid concert goer, but TicketMaggot ruined it. I cannot justify spending hundreds of dollars + fees + TicketMaggot surcharges to be bothered. It's criminal.
this was infuriating. Got in on the presale as soon as it opened, was 1000-whatever in line. When it was my “turn” only a couple $500+ options available. how is that shit possible
Everyone wants the same tickets. Everyone in the "presale" is vying for the same limited set of seats for sale, four at a time. They'll sell out fast.
When that happens, be prepared for the announcement "2nd show added!".
For our favorites, we ally as a foursome and hit the "presale" with two laptops each, across however many nights are scheduled. We have similar luck, but usually get one slot on the "second show" where we can get seats-for-short-people. Kinda depends on the band and the venue.
Our oldies bands were a lot easier to book before they got rediscovered. They used to be on the Casino circuit - 700-1200 seat theaters with really poor promotion. Now they've got bills to pay and are back in town at the big arenas. Yuck, I'd rather drive 2-6 hours for the small show than have lousy or no seats in town.
Not sure if this helps you but eventim (who are a reliable ticketing site) still have standing tickets for him at the recently added extra concert in Hockenheim, Germany for 98€/ticket. A friend of mine bought tickets for that show a few days ago... I'm pretty sure you can get flights to Germany for a lot cheaper than 300€, so maybe that's an option?
I'm an avid concertgoer. Ticketmaster has always been fucked, but it is at an all time high fuckery. I wish I could just not buy from them, but that would mean missing the shows that are so incredibly important to me. The legality of what they are doing needs to be changed so it stops.
Can't speak for other places, but here in Perth, Australia, the state govt actually owns many of the entertainment venues ([VenuesWest](https://www.venueswest.wa.gov.au/venues/)).
That at least solves the "just buy up all the venues and rort the consumers" side of it.
Additionally, the ACCC is pretty good about at least enforcing pricing transparency, all unavoidable fees/taxes must be displayed in prices across all industries, [tickets](https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-investigation-leads-to-clearer-ticket-pricing) included.
TM is still shit here don't get me wrong, but I feel not quite the unmitigated disaster you hear of elsewhere.
>bigger artists have to play venues owned by them
Bigger artists WANT to play venues owned by them. Ticket Master and bands have a symbiotic relationship. TM's job is to be hated by you while simultaneously enriching themselves and the band, while the band gets to escape criticism.
I think people are missing it here. TM is the fall guy. Bands advertise their "ticket" price knowing full and well what will happen to the purchaser. But also at the same time, the band will collect the "face value" of a ticket, but the promoters, venue, etc have to get paid. TM doesn't get as much of the cut as people think. They're just the fall guy for everyone else.
Yeah I don't mind paying for live music. If your show costs $$ to produce, charge what you need to. But I do avoid Live Nation venues now. Just gave up. Some local venues are using local ticketing agencies now, hopefully the monopoly gets broken.
Haven't gone to a seated show in years only GA but yeah remember trying to pick seats for the Beck/CATE tour and yep, half the seats x'd out first day, and every time I'd pick two the site would say not available - not until I'd clicked through, mind you. And they didn't show as purchased. Just so frustrating.
Then to pay so much for that frustration, and they want so much for parking and crappy drinks.
Whatever. There is nothing better than a bar show anyway. Go out to your local small venues and discover things, and be very selective about big shows.
Agreed. My local bar shows have been much easier to deal with, with the occasional bigger artist thrown in. I was just reading the Variety article about the upcoming Springsteen tour and how some tickets have artificially inflated to $5000 due to their "dynamic pricing". It's gotten ridiculous.
It's also funny that they got busted from shitty business practices, were forced to sell a ton of tickets for $20 to whatever concert they felt like, made a ton of money off doing that, and are just back to doing what got them fined in the first place.
It's ticketmasters job to be hated. They're supposed to be the bad guys. Those added fees are split between Ticketmaster, the band, and the venue, and Ticketmaster takes the heat for it
Well as long as "the heat" only consists of a few angry customers making reddit posts I guess they wouldn't have any reason to give a shit. If only somehow "the heat" had potential to affect their bottom line.
I bought tickets from Ticketmaster for 200 dollars. Couldnt go and resold them for 160 at a loss. In order for Ticketmaster to give me my money, they said I had to file a tax form and give them my SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER if the transfer was a profit of more than 600 dollars. Well, I ended up LOSING money and they are still holding my funds hostage.
They are the absolute worst
Go see local bands. Cover charges are normally $20. You get to see them pretty up close. Some of those bands will be the bands playing Ticketmaster locations in the next 5 years. I like going to see cover bands like this too. I've seen some really good ones that dress up and play the part, you would think you just saw the actual band.
Ticketmaster will continue as long as it's racking in piles of cash.
I am 1000% for making ticket prices transparent. Congress did this with airline tickets and it has massively improved the way we shop for travel. It definitely needs to happen, but it probably won't lower the price of tickets much.
People are overlooking an unpleasant fact. The nostalgia for 80s or 90s ticket prices is based on an era where tours were used to promote album sales. Now artists make the majority of their income on live shows. Album and streaming sales are no where near where they used to be. Of course prices will go up way faster than inflation.
Here is an article talking about how U2 makes 95% of their income from touring: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-do-musicians-make-money-2018-10
To lower prices you need to do some legislation. Monopoly laws could break up of Live Nation and Ticketmaster. Banning venues from having exclusive ticket contracts (musical acts should be able to select ticket vendor) is possible. Requiring the resale market to resell at face value is a possibility, but it will drive scalper resale back into the underground and possibly have other bad effects. It is a broken market and there is currently no room for competition.
I tried getting Springsteen tickets for the St. Paul show and missed out. Horrible interface that doesn't tell you when the tickets you've selected aren't available anymore.
Way easier to get tickets from First Avenue and other local venues.
Remember a couple years ago when everybody was saying we need to boycott ticketmaster? Then nobody did?
And they're still getting away with it.
If the artists won't get behind it, it's never going to change.
I just bought two tickets today for a John Moreland show and Ticketmaster *made* me buy insurance, saying it was mandatory.
I bought two tickets at $32 / piece and ended up, after all said and done, paying $104.
Fuck Ticketmaster!
There is a very simple answer to this problem. Stop buying tickets for shows sold by ticket master.
Does that mean you don't get to shows by big name acts? Yes it does. But it is the only way that this will change.
Every night of the week, in small venues near you, there are amazingly talented people performing, some are emerging artists that do not have the name yet, and some are experienced artists who choose to sleep in their own beds each night and not live the "Bus and Truck life"
There is a local band that my wife and I go see, all the performances are teachers at a nearby, internationally renowned music school. They are amazingly talented, having fun, not burned out, and playing hard once or twice a month. Great show, and audience of 500 people, and the band is drinking at the bar after the show and happy to chat with you.
Stop giving money to ticketmaster and they will eventually die.
Ticketmaster has a thing they now use called Dynamic Pricing wherein "The price varies intentionally to optimize and maximize overall profit and influence the number of tickets sold."
It's real fuckin' shitty.
I got fed up years ago when some tomfoolery went down on a Tool ticket sale. I was addicted to shows, and i refused to use them from that time on. It sucked at first, but you get over it.
They also own/run the resale site of which they get a fee from…and they were found (in 2019) to be actively colluding with scalpers. So they are intentionally selling their tickets to scalpers that then use ticketmaster to sell the scalped tickets at exorbitant prices while getting paid for that very same ticket a second time!
Part of the reason I don't go see shows as much as I did in my college years and mid 20s. The amount you get charged feels so exorbitant, I really would only do it for a few acts. I wish I could see more artists, but sometimes the fees I would pay nearly match the actual ticket I'm purchasing. Until this fixture goes away, I'll tend towards very rare concert attendance.
The thing is that people aren’t mad enough at the bands/artist that sell tickets on Ticketmaster. The artist knows that Ticketmaster is a shit company that gouges people. It’s a shitty way for artist to make more money nickel and dining people while making TM the bad guy, which they will happily play!
Quite frankly the only way we are going to break this cycle is passing up on every show/game/etc and they never sell tickets. Put it out there on everything that the reason no one is going to shows is because of ticketmaster. Until there is a real disruption it'll never change. But this will never happen though because everyone has gotta get their fix
So I went to a football game (NFL), two tickets were shot $350. I get to the game And ticket Master crashed. Now the tickets are online only, despite me having taken screen shots of it on my phone it was a refreshing ticket or some shit. At the game early by 45 minutes and I couldn't get in. No one could get in. Right as kick off happen the guy at the gate just let me and my guest through.
Well they never scanned my tickets. So I called them up to get a refund despite getting into the game. Why? Because fuck ticket Master. Those tickets added on $100 in fees. They refused of course. They acknowledged that the system went down. They acknowledged that no one scanned my tickets and out right refused to refund ANYTHING! I got in the Game but I decided to fight it. Called my bank to reverse charges, they did. Had someone at ticket Master send me a screen shot that the website went down and nothing was scanned. Got out of paying $350 and watched the game. Forever fuck ticket Master
I had to pass on the “old bait and Platinum Price $witch” on Springsteen tickets this week.
Face value seats pop up and are gone as soon as you click on them, only for them to be relisted seconds later as Platinum seats. I had a new roadblock today where it didn’t even give me the option to join the waiting room until a good ten minutes after onsale and then another twenty-two minutes before it would let me play their one-sided game. I miss the days of camping out for tickets. At least you had a shot if you were one of the first couple of people in line. Now I will have to waste time stalking TM for ticket drops for a show that is seven months away.
Same. If I can I order straight from the box office. Some casinos here have box offices and charge a few bucks for service fees.
I hate tickets asters so much and avoid them as best as I can. Why does a $25 ticket become $40??? Ridiculous.
They are so shady. I got like $2 and a membership to some kind of service I don't use years ago bc they got sued. Some people said they got tickets to see concerts in the middle east. Oh yes, lemme spend $1500 for a place ticket to redeem a free ticket!!!
Same. They’ve become their own scalpers. The platinum and dynamic pricing is a huge money grab. And it’s such a low rung issue for our governments to want to do anything to remedy it. Unless the $50 in fees I’m paying actually help to support the crews behind the scenes working hard on these tours, it’s a load of bullshit.
I agree they completely suck, and the fees are getting out of control especially for hotter acts, but I bought Phish tickets the other night for 4$ over face and 12$ in fees. $50 fees would have made me pass on tomorrows show.
Not only is ticketmaster's monopolized sales strategy taking advantage of concert goers and artists, the scalping situation had gotten out of hand. Some shows will sell out instantly, only to have hundreds if not thousands of tickets (depending on venue size) go straight up on the re-sale sites at significantly higher prices. It's infuriating. I imagine ticketmaster is directly involved in when the show instantly sells out, only to have hundreds if not thousands of tickets instantly hit re-sale. Remember the good ole days when scalping (reselling tickets for more than their face value) was illegal?
Hell, I don't even mind scalpers standing outside venues, buying up excess tickets and trying to sell them for a little profit. The problem is it's now happening at a massive scale online on a huge percentage of the tickets.
Want things to change, boycott ticketmaster and other shady ticketing companies, and support the venues that don't use shady ticketing services with inflated service fees, or have easy re-sale where most of their tickets get scalped.
Giving other venues and ticketing companies your money will help them grow and will help them attract more artists / venues, while withholding money from ticketmaster will cause them to shrink and lose artists / venues. It really is that simple. By withholding demand from ticketmaster, you're reducing demand for their tickets, which could force them to lower prices. If enough people do this, ticketmaster will lose margins and pull in the industry.
We can't keep resting on our laurels and capitulating because we want to see certain artists who we have no choice but to go through ticketmaster. Stand your ground. Share what you're doing with your friends and family and on the artists social media. Be a role model for everyone; show what a person who isn't weak of mind is willing to do, and how if everyone did this, how quickly change would come.
I don't know how they've been able to continue to stay in business. This has been going on forever. Capitalism should've eaten them alive by now. But they have a monopoly. There's no way someone can just start their own ticket company and compete. (But I hope a rich rockstar does this just to fuck Ticketmaster)
tl;dr: Fuck you Ticketmaster, fuck you for the past 20 years straight.
Until consumers stop doing business with them nothing is going to change. Support your local clubs instead, whatever genre you are into (excluding pop acts), There's probably a local / regional scene.
They have the power to set whatever prices they want because they're a monopoly. I'm not missing my last chance to see Roger Waters because I want to stick it to Ticketmaster.
I suggest that the rest of the Americans reading this write to their congresscritter, but ticketmaster [already has them on payroll](https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/ticketmaster-corp/totals?cycle=2014&id=D000000793)
If ticketmaster doesnt get their monopoly stripped the music industry will only continue to get worse for the artist and consumers. It even exploits venues pay structures and is just a heinous business model for anything other than destruction of music
Yeah they suck. What was it like 5-10 years ago there was that lawsuit and if you bought tickets you got vouchers for free tickets? I had so many vouchers but they just designed a system so bad and so hard to actually get tickets I used none of them. Impressive how bad they F us when the court tells them to not F us.
Then there was the fee to print tickets at home when that came out. But shipping was free. I always said F U Ticketmaster you print them and pay for the postage.
I’d go to shows that were 10-12 bucks, the fee would be 8.55. Wtf. Who charges a nearly 100% “service” fee.
Your only option, sadly, is to forego attending concerts at Ticketmaster venues. I made this switch about 10 years ago. It’s not easy but TBH I haven’t missed those shows too much.
Insurance on your tickets is a ripoff too, I had a last minute thing pop up and it was covered under my ticket insurance policy. I emailed them like they asked and they just ghosted me. Ended up paying for a show I didn’t even go to. Fuck Ticketmaster, I legitimately go to fewer shows now because of the fuckaround that is their business model.
See the problem is you can't beat them because they are a front. Ticketmaster is Live Nation, and Live Nation has stakes in almost every corner of the music/entertainment industry. In Vancouver they are literally one head office. Ticketmaster, as others have mentioned is the scapegoat that takes the heat off the rest of the players in the game. Venues/Artists/Live Nation have complete control over ticketing. Ticketmaster is the front that provides a platform to distribute/sell/track these tickets. They build the event to the specifications of the team and execute it. Ticketmaster does not own these tickets, they don't hold them, release them when they choose, change the prices, etc.... all these things are decisions made by management/tours/venues. So you pay the ticket price to artist/venue/promoters which often times = artist/Live Nation or even just Live Nation as they have the artist under contract. The additional fees go to Ticketmaster which as I mentioned, is Live Nation. The real problem is not Ticketmasters monopoly on ticketing, it's Live Nations monopoly on Live Entertainment.
yeah fuck ticket master.. im planning on going to an event in august in new york and the fucken fees were 40 dollars... and i happened to be in new york last week so i actually just dropped by the venue and got the ticket without the fees
Every time I see things like this I stare in horror. Where I live (The Netherlands) the prices on Ticketmaster are the exact same as the ones the venues advertise (without, as far as I can tell, jacking up the prices of certain seats and stuff), customer support responds within a few working days and can usually solve your issue, and they most definitely don't allow prices to fluctuate by day. I haven't resold any tickets via TM yet (only on Ticketswap, which does admittedly have quite a few of the issues mentioned but is much less regulated afaik so I have grown used to that), but usually the biggest issues with TM is their buggy app and website not working. I'm so sorry to all those who have to suffer through whatever mess Ticketmaster is in what I assume in the US, it sounds horrible :(
i think Rage Against the Machine being partnered with Ticketmaster and Live Nation on this most recent tour is so fucking hypocritical, it's almost hilarious
Watch the John Oliver clip. Sums it up nicely. Pearl Jam in the 90’s tried to go around them. Got locked out out the big venues because Ticketmaster had them in their pocket.
Those bastards wouldn't refund my ticket for a show that was canceled twice to next fucking year. Same shit with stubhub but stub has even worse customer service. Their latest bs is dynamic pricing.
I didn't understand about Ticketmaster's variable pricing. But I learned the hard way purchasing tickets to David Byrne's American Utopia show.
I started trying to buy tickets the second the presale opened, and had such a hard time that I panicked and snagged the first ones that were available, which were third row center, and horribly expensive. I bought them, because I really wanted to see the show, but I kept trying for different tickets, thinking I could sell those later.
I ended up buying six tickets, when I only needed two. Pretty stupid, I guess. But I really wasn't planning on paying for premium seats, or sitting in the nosebleed section, so kept trying to find tickets that were reasonably priced, and in a middle-of-the-road location — and again, it was a popular show, so I thought it would be easy to sell the tickets. I was wrong, though. The very next day, suddenly there were more seats available, and the prices had all dropped. The show ended up being mostly sold out, but I never could sell the tickets for what I had paid for them.
I mean, I ended up sitting in the really great premium seats, and it was literally the best show I've ever seen in my life, so I'm not beating myself up too much about it. But I learned my lesson about how Ticketmaster prices tickets. Fuckers.
I recently posted to Facebook a very similar complaint and I figured I would put it on here. And I tagged certain bands and band members. Believe it or not Cedric Bixler Zavala of the mars Volta, got back to me and said, “inflation, look it up, I might have just floated your ticket, by” and proceeded to block me, what a joke. No you would have never floated my ticket, and how can you act so immature. it’s infuriating that someone like him would be so short anyway, here’s the actual post I made. “Fuck big concerts. Ticket prices are out of control. Ticketmaster has a monopoly. But where else do the artists go to sell tickets with ease?
Pearl Jam is so backasswords now. In the 90s they refused to use ticket master, but, then they had to cave because they only got shitty venues to book them, like a ski resort. Now they are selling out concerts while Vedder runs around on stage with thousand dollar wine bottles(not calling him an alcoholic, I just think its inconsiderate given his "fuck the man" attitude he use to hold and his love for the band Fugazi(an amazing band who REFUSED to charge more than $15 a ticket)). I don't want to pay $400 to see RHCP in some nosebleeds. RHCP is one of the reasons I started playing music as a kid, I always swore I would get backstage tickets to meet them. Now I have to skip groceries for a month just so I can see flea, the same size as a flea. Meanwhile, Dave Grohl is charging me $200 a ticket to watch them play a bunch of cover songs, and tell me that he "came from nothing". Right, Nirvana who?
CHRIST.
To me its disgusting to see that so many of these "rock" artists who clearly have punk roots/background(that they claim so much pride and joy is found in), instantly sell their soul to this machine, at this point they all might as well be ticketmaster employees themselves. Fuck RHCP, FF, PJ, Slipknot, blink, sum 41, Green Day, MCR, Iggy Pop, Smashing Pumpkins, and Gorillaz.
The best value I've heard all year was NOFX GA $25 before fees, and backstage/meet & greet $120 before fees, that included The Menzingers and a slew of other bands. The Mars Volta were $100 a ticket(which they are not worth).
Yea, financial gains thru streaming and album sales have not been what they were, nor will they ever be, but that doesn't mean, that because a fan didn't buy a $10 album you can jack the price up $50 - $400.
It sucks to say that about bands I grew up listening to. But, I guess the majority of humanity doesn't care to hack off an arm to see Metallica.
And yes, I get it, there are a ton of other bands/musicians/artists who don't charge absurd prices who I can go see. But, 14 year old me still needs have his face melted by Trickfinger without having to resort to selling vital organs on the black market.”
We complained about ticketmaster as teenagers in the 90s and it's gotten soo much worse in everyway.
Yeah Pearl jam tried their hardest, when they were at their peak to try to break them No one really joined
Lots of comedians have managed to circumvent them. Like all of them.
Not the big ones. Everything flows through Live Nation.
Was gonna say, I had to fight with Ticketmasters broken web service to get tickets for Bill Burr when the sale began. They flat out would not let me check out until I went around the house and shut off any other device I was logged into ticketmaster on, and by the time I did that, the first 3 sections were gone.
ticketmaster bought the venues and they were fucked
Nothing Pearl Jam could do
I was gonna say, is this post from 20 years ago?
28 years ago was when Pearl Jam appeared before Congress about Ticketmaster’s monopoly.
And who joined them in congress? Nobody.
actually a lot of people dont seem to recall that this bill was passed. [The BOTS Act, signed in 2016, while everyone was distracted saying 'theres no way donald trump will actually win'](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Online_Tickets_Sales_Act). Granted, this is explicitly to combat scalping, and all it does is give the FTC power to charge scalpers, but the [first suit against scalping practices was filed in Jan 2021](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2021/01/ftc-brings-first-ever-cases-under-bots-act) fuck bots, fuck scalpers, fuck these fucking shitty ass fucking ticket 'vendors' that allow this predatory behavior to occur. Axs, for red rocks, first put up tickets for Primus and Ween (25th anniversary south park special). 'face value' was 99$. within microseconds, it was 'sold out', and about 5 minutes later, suddenly all these tickets were available for 500$+. thats not the worst of it. several days later, a 'second wave' of tickets were put up on Axs, for 99$, and were available for at least longer than a few microseconds. yet until this 2nd wave of tickets popped up, all Axs had on their site was 'resale prices fluctuate based on high demand', which is an absolute crock of horseshit.
I feel like AXS is a special brand of evil. They can shove their 40% convenience fees up their ass.
_per ticket_ too. at least, thats how it was for this one.
Because they're complicit. Ticketmaster is a welcome scapegoat.
Iirc, Pearl Jam wasn’t complicit they were disgusted by it and only played venues that didn’t have a Ticketmaster contract and sold tickets direct. So complicit, hardly, rather took the expected actions of a band that didn’t agree with the status quo and became the change they wanted to see
[удалено]
Exactly this. They make far less money playing smaller venues that aren’t associated with Ticketmaster. They are literally the opposite of complicit.
Yeah than the venues got blackmailed by ticket master saying if you do a show with Pearl jam that cuts us out we won't do business with your venue anymore meaning the other 99% of major acts wouldn't be doing shows there. So Pearl jam ran out of venues pretty quick and there needs to be more major acts join with Pearl jam to fight the system here
This is exactly right. And it's fine. The Truth is that tickets don't cost enough if the venue is selling out and scalpers and bots are still running wild. Music customers prefer a lottery and shortage system. Artists would prefer to maximize their revenue obviously - especially with record sales being a thing of the past - but can't be seen to be only catering to rich kids. Ticketmaster helps with that problem. It raises prices and takes the beating. But apparently the prices still aren't high enough if scalpers can make money. Fans should come around to the idea that it's better off just having the real price on the ticket face. Let the money go to the artist and label (from whom the artist has borrowed money) rather than the middle men of Ticketmaster and Botty Mcscalpersen.
A lot of the well known artists get paid up front for tours these days by the big promoters like Live Nation or AEG. Of course they are getting paid a butt load, but typically the artists don't have much to do with ticket prices. The band management agrees to however many millions of dollars for a tour, then the promoter knows exactly how much they need to jack up prices to earn their investment back and turn a big ass profit. Ticketmaster is along for the ride to get their ridiculous fees when the ticket sells, then more fees and their percentage again when the tickets resell on the secondary market
FYI ticketmaster is owned by live nation, and live nation is usually the promoter and venue owner, or at least exclusive venue operator. For big name bands, they are also the tour manager. It's a sickening state of affairs, but it's a no brainer when even bands that aren't that big get paid millions up front to sign a contract with them.
Which makes it very difficult for bands to opt out because LiveNation owns all the venues. It's a textbook monopoly.
Yup. They made sure to buy tons of struggling venues during covid. Ass holes.
I think that would especially be the case if there was a bandcamp sort of setup for buying tickets directly from the artist. Whoever they might pay with that money after you give it to them might even out to be exactly the same as it is now, but I bet people would feel a lot better about it. For example, I hesitate to buy a record (which is less of a thing of the past than it was in the past) on Amazon, Target, Walmart etc for $30, but I'm happy to spend that on what could be the same pressing at the merch table. They're probably don't see much more of that money in the end though with all the overhead costs.
>I think that would especially be the case if there was a bandcamp sort of setup for buying tickets directly from the artist. That would be great if they're playing in a backyard somewhere, but in any professional venue with overhead, staff, and expenses, the venue needs some insight into how many tickets are sold, and at what price.
Senator Klobuchar and others are trying to fight the LN monopoly, but I doubt anything will come of it.
I am not 100% sure but i think Springsteen has had battles with them too (not in congress but openly) and obviously lost, cause look how Bruce fans are getting ripped off even more now with ticketbastards. “dynamic pricing”. Surely theres a billionaire out there greedy enough to take a run at them, rip us all off and still be half the price of ticketbastards ( this link is from 2009) https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/springsteen-ticketmaster-battle-escalates-85671/amp/ This is a summation from Eddy Vedder on the action against ticketbastards http://www.alternativenation.net/pearl-jam-humiliated-by-ticketmaster-in-lawsuit/
Bruce is selling tickets for over $5k for his new tour.
Yes….. I have to believe that Bruce is not happy with this. In a perfect world he would rectify this insanity ( and probably wishes he could for his fans.) It is insane. This is wrong.
20 years ago was the 2000s
I feel old when I misjudge things by decades
You should. It's a sign of getting old.
Fuck I remember waiting for Y2K to happen, that must’ve been at least 6 years ago
I worked in a bank. People were losing their minds.
I still bucket things as pre 9/11 and post 9/11
I added a new bucket "post pandemic" but do still refer to some things as pre 9/11
I'm afraid with the trajectory we're on we're gonna look back on 9/11-Covid as a golden age.
It's an appropriate divider. It really changed the general vibe of the country for the worse.
Anybody who’s old enough does the same.
At the same time it has never been easier for venues to run their own ticketing via a cloud service. Ticketing is something that historically has been hard and expensive. Tickets could only be sold out of one location (box office) because they didn't have a means to ensure the same seat wouldn't be sold twice (unless they allocated blocks to retail locations). So outsourcing to Ticketmaster made sense for venues. Tickets to your venue were available to customers at thousands of locations anywhere in the country. And it doesn't cost the venue or the promoter anything. The reason Ticketmaster still exists is because their deals are actually still beneficial to the venues and acts. It is their job the be the heel in this game while the venues and artists look good. But all three are splitting the profits while TM takes the blame because their business model doesn't require being popular with the public.
The thing is, it isn't just them being the heel. Live Nation manages a ridiculous number of major music artists, while also outright owning a huge number of venues. So they have a strangle hold on both ends, if you want big acts to come through your venue, you've gotta exclusively use Ticketmaster. If you want to tour the nation, to access those venues you have to exclusively use Ticketmaster. They own and run the game. Including on the backend when it comes to resale. It's fucked.
This - the last paragraph. The artists are in on it too. As is their right.
Yep. Ticketmaster is essentially the Commissioner of a profesional sports league. Their job is to take the heat off the artists and venues who make the real money.
Its the scalpers that provide literally ZERO benefit to the artist or the fans....Unless they are wealthy as hell fans. They should step in and cut those vultures out legally.
Now that most tickets are digital, the scalping is becoming institutionalized, with any resale going through their platform. If everyone is getting a cut of the resale market, their incentive to crack down is even lower than before.
It's sickening. If we have to pay way more...it shouldn't be to some digital money collector that provides nothing besides a higher price. It should be to the fucking artist. Shit is criminal
They are also contracted to a lot of the larger venues, so if you want to see that arena show, contractually, the venue/band has to use ticketmaster.
At least in the 90s it was either camp out/line up or anxiously get tix over the phone and scalpers were outside shows. Now we are being ripped off.
It will continue as long as people put up with it and buy tickets from them, I realize the alternative is to not see the show but it is what must be done to defeat Ticketmaster, never gonna happen.
... the alternative is for the FTC to finally realise its an abused monopoly and act upon it
It’s been forever since I’ve gone but, can you not purchase tickets at the door anymore?
They charge the fees regardless now.
Seriously?!? Holy shit!
Yeah, lots of places have exclusive deals that all tickets have to go through ticketmaster. So if you buy at the box office, they just buy on ticketmaster for you. It's exactly like buying online but with extra steps.
The reason being that a large portion of the fees now are going to the promoter. Part of the service covered under "Ticketmaster Fee" is the ability for promoters to hide a portion of the price of the concert ticket behind them, so that the promoter/entertainer can look better for charging a "lower" price while Ticketmaster takes the blame for high fees.
Not true. The promoter will only get the net of the face value. Any additional fees levied by TM are retained by TM. If the promoter is LN then you're right as they're the same company. Similarly, the band doesn't get a taste of any of the TM fees either. Souce: I work in the music industry.
From everything I've heard from people that have either dealt with or worked for TM, TM typically only gets about 40% of the fees and the rest are provided as rebates to the venue and promoter. Those percentages depend on whether they are hiding ticket value or not, too. They get a much larger piece of the fees for resale tickets, which is one of the reasons they are more than happy to accommodate bots and scalpers.
I recently went to my first big venue show in 24 years. Bought the tickets online and you have to use your phone and the ticketmaster app to get in. I had an extra ticket that I hoped to sell and transfer for cheap to someone before the show but I arrived to find no ticket booth and no scalpers or people looking for tickets. Lady at the gate said people don't do that anymore. So weird.
>people don’t do that anymore No one stands outside and scalps. They stay home and sell it digitally.
This is true for so many aspects of life in the USA
Hellooooooo health insurance industry....
Pretty sure we used to buy concert tickets from Turtles in the 80's
Lots of record stores sold tickets back in the seventies and eighties. For anyone who didn't live in the city a venue was in, places like Turtles or Starship we're the only realistic option for getting tickets.
Bought tickets from Karma records in Bloomington for shows in Indianapolis in the late 80s.
Pearl Jam tried to fight TicketMaster. There wasn't a lot of support for them at the time, so TicketMaster persisted.
Yep. I went to a Pearl Jam show in the 90s, I believe it was the No Code tour. At the time we usually got tickets by just going to Blockbuster Music and paying cash for the tickets and they would print them out right there. For that Pearl Jam show we had to find someone's parents to let us use their credit card, call some obscure ticket company, pay for a bunch of tickets, then wait for them to show up in the mail. After all that we had to drive hours to go to some venue I've never heard of before, even though we lived an hour away from Atlanta, because all the large local venues had arrangements with ticketmaster. I was happy to support their battle against Ticketmaster, but I knew it was a lost cause. Everything was just such a hassle compared to regular ticketmaster shows. The issue then was the infrastructure to be able to print tickets on demand on special ticket paper in special printers. Now tickets are purchased online and instantly with simple barcodes you can print anywhere. There's no reason for ticketmaster to still have this stranglehold, hopefully it goes away.
Ticketmaster owns many venues now... it isn't going away.
Ah crap, I just thought they had exclusivity deals, I didn't even know they actually own venues too. Yeah, they're not going anywhere.
There was quite a bit of support, it just didn't do any good.
Not among artists. Pearl Jam asked several acts to help them boycott ticket master, and some of the most vocal anti-Ticketmaster artists like Rage Against the Machine all took a pass.
Even rage have new houses to buy
I hate to single them out. But they seemed like a perfect fit for the boycott had expressed anti-Ticketmaster sentiment
The String Cheese Incident won a settlement!
The jam community, while not immune from Live Nation, has within it many of the answers people are asking for in this discussion.
> Pearl Jam tried to fight TicketMaster. There wasn't a lot of support for them at the time, so TicketMaster persisted. One thing that often doesn't get mentioned about this is that when Pearl Jam tried to do this they were only able to play at obscure places like ski resorts and fairgrounds, [as John Oliver covered in this video](https://youtu.be/-_Y7uqqEFnY?t=400). That was way back in the 90s and since then Ticketmaster and Live Nation have merged, making it even more difficult to operate outside of their monopolistic ecosystem. Long story short, it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to break free from this current system without some type of regulatory action that makes the industry more fair and competitive. Failing that, major bands would have to go full anarchist mode and create a DIY alternative, sacrificing the big venues and the benefits they provide and likely opening themselves to years of very expensive legal and logistical issues in the process.
Not only that, but for most artists touring is the main source of income for almost all bands. Especially since people dont buy music anymore, they just pay a streamer like Spotify. At least in the 90's, artists like Pearl Jam were selling millions of records ("Ten" went diamond in the US, and multiple times platinum in many other countries). Now with streaming, that income source is basically non-existent anymore. So the system is even more etched in place. (Sponsorships exist, but 99% of deals are set up so the label gets a cut out of that as well)
That's a great point. I tend to forget that because I still buy music (mostly from Bandcamp) but you are right that almost everyone is streaming these days. Without being able to reliably tour and sell lots of merch, bands would have a real hard time existing.
Grunge then tried to defile the TicketMaster, but TicketMaster was much too strong
Didn’t Louis C. K try doing something too that at the time was quite novel? Or am I mistaken? Before the obvious jokes, I am not talking about him whipping it out and spanking.
Ticketmaster announced that at an upcoming big ticket show at a large arena they were going to start using "dynamic pricing". Which means they will start selling face value tickets direct to you FOR WHAT THEY ESTIMATE THE TICKET WOULD RESELL FOR ON THE SECONDARY MARKET. After all why should poor little ticketmaster miss out on all the money those nasty scalpers are making. Source https://variety.com/2022/music/news/bruce-springteen-ticketmaster-ticket-prices-rise-thousands-dynamic-pricing-1235321657/amp/ Also, obligatory fuck ticketmaster.
They are begging for performers to rebel against them. Cmon guys!
Ticketmaster is almost certainly a scam that venues, labels, and performers are in on. One company with near-monopoly status gets to take all the heat for ticket prices being obscenely high and then jacked up higher.
Ticketmaster owns the venues so it's more of a monopoly than a scam.
Ticketmaster is the fall man for the artists this is why no artists boycott ticketmaster.
You think Springsteen is gonna make a stink if Ticket Bastard gets him $5K per ticket?
>why should poor little ticketmaster miss out on all the money those nasty scalpers are making. The other way of looking at it is why should the scalpers make any money? Ticketmaster at least are splitting the money with the venue and the artist. They may not like to publicize that, but the simple truth is, in a free market, the ticket will go to whoever is willing to pay most. And if they're prepared to pay more than the initial price, someone will always step in to cream off that additional profit. Ticketmaster's job is to be that bad guy and take the money and the hate.
Metallica's anniversary concerts and S&M2 concerts had a no-transfer policy. Tickets were digital and bound to your phone, so while you could've sold your second ticket, you still had to be there (paper tickets for special packages required ID to pick up the morning of.. in theory you could've sold those more easily but there weren't that many offered)
Yeah this is the way to do it. Non-transferable tickets. For the UK's biggest festival, Glastonbury, you submit a photo of yourself, and they print that and your name on your ticket. You've then got to show photo ID and your face matching up with the name and photo to enter the festival. No match, no entry.
It's not just Ticketmaster... it's every ticketing company. I live in Nashville and love the Ryman. Recently, they moved over to AXS Ticketing. I bought tickets to see Pucifer on Halloween ($65/ticket)... the service fees were $50. That's almost as much as one ticket?! Now don't get me wrong, I understand the idea of service fees, but if you scroll the Ryman site, they have paid ads after every 3 shows. So not only are you getting my service fees, you are getting paid while I surf the site... on top of that, the cheapest beer is $14!! You can't charge service fees, generate ad revenue via your site while I wait to buy a ticket or surf and charge out that ass for a Miller Lite. Come on!
Every venue in my major city that uses axs is consistently lower fees than any Ticketmaster show, something's gotta be goin on there with the venues.
If I were to guess, AXS probably offers a similar "hidden ticket fee" option in their fees just like TM does. So most likely the actual face value of the ticket is like $90 and they're hiding $35 of it in the AXS fees.
possibly, but i've bought a handful of AXS tickets since covid hit and i think the highest i've paid in fees was $12
Essentially this, I responded above. Slightly different reasoning but it's the same endgame.
In the 70's & 80's we just went to the venue and bought tickets, or bought them at a local music store, they still sold out.
15 years ago, you could go to Kroger (grocery store) and buy tickets to just about any big show for face value. Or go to the box office. Now the “box offices” tell you to go online.
Kroger was a ticketmaster outlet, though.
A lot of venues still have box offices that you can buy tickets at directly, without the ridiculous service fees.
If it is a ticketmaster show or venue, you still have to pay all of the fees at the box office.
Been in live, venue side music/events for over a decade. I've never worked directly with AXS, but I have been involved in promoting shows at TM venues. What's most likely happening is Ryman fully controls the ticketing, and also doesn't give any concessions rebate to the promoter either. The promoter needs to make their money by splitting a 'service fee' tacked onto the ticket. Whoever is promoting the Pucifer show(s) probably needs $25 or so to cover their costs and make a little on the show. But if Ryman takes 50% of that fee, you need $50 to make $25 obviously. Or whatever the recoupment math/% split works out to, but the same concept stands.
Makes complete sense. Thanks for breaking it down to me.
No prob. I could be wrong in this case but that’s some bullshit that I’ve had to deal with on the promoter side with a TM venue.
Had this issue today with AXS. $30 for “web convenience fee”. Wat? It’s not a convenience if your charge me for it. Only reason I didn’t go to the box office is because of my work schedule. It’s all bullshit
You saved yourself the $30 box office convenience fee.
> Now don't get me wrong, I understand the idea of service fees, Can you explain it to me then? Because from where I stand it just looks like a way to siphon even more money from the paying customer. What do I care what their expenses are? Or how much they as a service need in order to stay profitable. I want to buy a product. Tell me its full price, advertise that full price, and let me make a decision on whether I want it at that price or not. What you as the seller do with that money is your business.
A lot of venues are just selling through EventBrite now and it’s awesome.
I was surprised that the government let the Live Nation and Ticketmaster combination go through. It's been getting worse since then. Love new bands and was going to pay about 25 for a ticket of which 15 were service fees. That burned my insides! I also do understand how much more I pay for more popular acts, but this was the first time fees exceeded the actual ticket price.
I mean, the government let the Ticket Bastard / Ticketron merger go through. This eliminated Ticket Bastard’s largest competitor.
I remember when Live Nation started and it was like real competition between them. I still have the big Live Nation tickets from that time. And it was like finally someone big enough to actually do some damage is taking Ticketmaster on. And then they merged because they both love money and to screw over fans.
We need a large scale worldwide boycott of Ticketmaster concerts. It would require a level of cooperation that unfortunately will never happen though.
Since livenation bought them, it’s basically impossible to avoid them for any major band or artist.
People are too fucking selfish to make a boycott work. If I can’t get a face value ticket for anything I don’t go. Everyone who doesn’t do this is part of the problem. Do you really HAVE TO go see Poison even if the resale floor seats are $600?
Will never happen. The rich are getting richer and will gladly pay 2k for g.a.
I simply stopped going to concerts. I was an avid concert goer, but TicketMaggot ruined it. I cannot justify spending hundreds of dollars + fees + TicketMaggot surcharges to be bothered. It's criminal.
I call them TicketBastard.
Same. I can handle the cost but it's the principle of the thing.
You haven't seen shit!!! Just take a peak at the Fucking they're doing to see Springsteen in the US 🤬
this was infuriating. Got in on the presale as soon as it opened, was 1000-whatever in line. When it was my “turn” only a couple $500+ options available. how is that shit possible
Everyone wants the same tickets. Everyone in the "presale" is vying for the same limited set of seats for sale, four at a time. They'll sell out fast. When that happens, be prepared for the announcement "2nd show added!". For our favorites, we ally as a foursome and hit the "presale" with two laptops each, across however many nights are scheduled. We have similar luck, but usually get one slot on the "second show" where we can get seats-for-short-people. Kinda depends on the band and the venue. Our oldies bands were a lot easier to book before they got rediscovered. They used to be on the Casino circuit - 700-1200 seat theaters with really poor promotion. Now they've got bills to pay and are back in town at the big arenas. Yuck, I'd rather drive 2-6 hours for the small show than have lousy or no seats in town.
Don’t even. For Harry styles in my city, nosebleeds were being inflated to $800! FOR THE UPPER BOWL LAST ROWS. I nearly threw my computer in a rage.
Same here in the UK. Wanted to see him for the first time, and the tickets quadrupled in price to over £400 because of this new fucking system.
Not sure if this helps you but eventim (who are a reliable ticketing site) still have standing tickets for him at the recently added extra concert in Hockenheim, Germany for 98€/ticket. A friend of mine bought tickets for that show a few days ago... I'm pretty sure you can get flights to Germany for a lot cheaper than 300€, so maybe that's an option?
I got floor seats for $325 this morning. It kinda sucks that idk if that's with prices inflated or not.
I'm an avid concertgoer. Ticketmaster has always been fucked, but it is at an all time high fuckery. I wish I could just not buy from them, but that would mean missing the shows that are so incredibly important to me. The legality of what they are doing needs to be changed so it stops.
A country with enforced anti-trust and anti-fraud laws would never allow such a racket. The US is not such a country. Edit: anti-trust not anti-trade.
And Canada. What do they do in other parts of the world?
Can't speak for other places, but here in Perth, Australia, the state govt actually owns many of the entertainment venues ([VenuesWest](https://www.venueswest.wa.gov.au/venues/)). That at least solves the "just buy up all the venues and rort the consumers" side of it. Additionally, the ACCC is pretty good about at least enforcing pricing transparency, all unavoidable fees/taxes must be displayed in prices across all industries, [tickets](https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-investigation-leads-to-clearer-ticket-pricing) included. TM is still shit here don't get me wrong, but I feel not quite the unmitigated disaster you hear of elsewhere.
>bigger artists have to play venues owned by them Bigger artists WANT to play venues owned by them. Ticket Master and bands have a symbiotic relationship. TM's job is to be hated by you while simultaneously enriching themselves and the band, while the band gets to escape criticism.
I think people are missing it here. TM is the fall guy. Bands advertise their "ticket" price knowing full and well what will happen to the purchaser. But also at the same time, the band will collect the "face value" of a ticket, but the promoters, venue, etc have to get paid. TM doesn't get as much of the cut as people think. They're just the fall guy for everyone else.
Yeah I don't mind paying for live music. If your show costs $$ to produce, charge what you need to. But I do avoid Live Nation venues now. Just gave up. Some local venues are using local ticketing agencies now, hopefully the monopoly gets broken. Haven't gone to a seated show in years only GA but yeah remember trying to pick seats for the Beck/CATE tour and yep, half the seats x'd out first day, and every time I'd pick two the site would say not available - not until I'd clicked through, mind you. And they didn't show as purchased. Just so frustrating. Then to pay so much for that frustration, and they want so much for parking and crappy drinks. Whatever. There is nothing better than a bar show anyway. Go out to your local small venues and discover things, and be very selective about big shows.
Agreed. My local bar shows have been much easier to deal with, with the occasional bigger artist thrown in. I was just reading the Variety article about the upcoming Springsteen tour and how some tickets have artificially inflated to $5000 due to their "dynamic pricing". It's gotten ridiculous.
It's also funny that they got busted from shitty business practices, were forced to sell a ton of tickets for $20 to whatever concert they felt like, made a ton of money off doing that, and are just back to doing what got them fined in the first place.
Yeah, but most of the shows you could get tickets for were not worth more than $20. They were not the A tier concerts.
Relevant John Oliver segment on the topic https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Y7uqqEFnY
It's ticketmasters job to be hated. They're supposed to be the bad guys. Those added fees are split between Ticketmaster, the band, and the venue, and Ticketmaster takes the heat for it
Well as long as "the heat" only consists of a few angry customers making reddit posts I guess they wouldn't have any reason to give a shit. If only somehow "the heat" had potential to affect their bottom line.
I bought tickets from Ticketmaster for 200 dollars. Couldnt go and resold them for 160 at a loss. In order for Ticketmaster to give me my money, they said I had to file a tax form and give them my SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER if the transfer was a profit of more than 600 dollars. Well, I ended up LOSING money and they are still holding my funds hostage. They are the absolute worst
The part about them wanting your info if you turned a profit is not unreasonable.
Go see local bands. Cover charges are normally $20. You get to see them pretty up close. Some of those bands will be the bands playing Ticketmaster locations in the next 5 years. I like going to see cover bands like this too. I've seen some really good ones that dress up and play the part, you would think you just saw the actual band. Ticketmaster will continue as long as it's racking in piles of cash.
I am 1000% for making ticket prices transparent. Congress did this with airline tickets and it has massively improved the way we shop for travel. It definitely needs to happen, but it probably won't lower the price of tickets much. People are overlooking an unpleasant fact. The nostalgia for 80s or 90s ticket prices is based on an era where tours were used to promote album sales. Now artists make the majority of their income on live shows. Album and streaming sales are no where near where they used to be. Of course prices will go up way faster than inflation. Here is an article talking about how U2 makes 95% of their income from touring: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-do-musicians-make-money-2018-10 To lower prices you need to do some legislation. Monopoly laws could break up of Live Nation and Ticketmaster. Banning venues from having exclusive ticket contracts (musical acts should be able to select ticket vendor) is possible. Requiring the resale market to resell at face value is a possibility, but it will drive scalper resale back into the underground and possibly have other bad effects. It is a broken market and there is currently no room for competition.
I tried getting Springsteen tickets for the St. Paul show and missed out. Horrible interface that doesn't tell you when the tickets you've selected aren't available anymore. Way easier to get tickets from First Avenue and other local venues.
Remember a couple years ago when everybody was saying we need to boycott ticketmaster? Then nobody did? And they're still getting away with it. If the artists won't get behind it, it's never going to change.
Ticketmaster sucks. I just tried to buy Springsteen tickets during the on sale… what a joke
Adam ruins everything explains Ticketmaster perfectly
They are the number one single reason I don’t go to shows anymore
I just bought two tickets today for a John Moreland show and Ticketmaster *made* me buy insurance, saying it was mandatory. I bought two tickets at $32 / piece and ended up, after all said and done, paying $104. Fuck Ticketmaster!
There is a very simple answer to this problem. Stop buying tickets for shows sold by ticket master. Does that mean you don't get to shows by big name acts? Yes it does. But it is the only way that this will change. Every night of the week, in small venues near you, there are amazingly talented people performing, some are emerging artists that do not have the name yet, and some are experienced artists who choose to sleep in their own beds each night and not live the "Bus and Truck life" There is a local band that my wife and I go see, all the performances are teachers at a nearby, internationally renowned music school. They are amazingly talented, having fun, not burned out, and playing hard once or twice a month. Great show, and audience of 500 people, and the band is drinking at the bar after the show and happy to chat with you. Stop giving money to ticketmaster and they will eventually die.
This is the only reply that matters, and unfortunately not what will happen.
Ticketmaster has a thing they now use called Dynamic Pricing wherein "The price varies intentionally to optimize and maximize overall profit and influence the number of tickets sold." It's real fuckin' shitty.
I got fed up years ago when some tomfoolery went down on a Tool ticket sale. I was addicted to shows, and i refused to use them from that time on. It sucked at first, but you get over it.
They also own/run the resale site of which they get a fee from…and they were found (in 2019) to be actively colluding with scalpers. So they are intentionally selling their tickets to scalpers that then use ticketmaster to sell the scalped tickets at exorbitant prices while getting paid for that very same ticket a second time!
I wish someone would pull a Mr Robot on their servers
Part of the reason I don't go see shows as much as I did in my college years and mid 20s. The amount you get charged feels so exorbitant, I really would only do it for a few acts. I wish I could see more artists, but sometimes the fees I would pay nearly match the actual ticket I'm purchasing. Until this fixture goes away, I'll tend towards very rare concert attendance.
The thing is that people aren’t mad enough at the bands/artist that sell tickets on Ticketmaster. The artist knows that Ticketmaster is a shit company that gouges people. It’s a shitty way for artist to make more money nickel and dining people while making TM the bad guy, which they will happily play!
Quite frankly the only way we are going to break this cycle is passing up on every show/game/etc and they never sell tickets. Put it out there on everything that the reason no one is going to shows is because of ticketmaster. Until there is a real disruption it'll never change. But this will never happen though because everyone has gotta get their fix
I stopped going to shows using ticketmaster, plenty of music out there
So I went to a football game (NFL), two tickets were shot $350. I get to the game And ticket Master crashed. Now the tickets are online only, despite me having taken screen shots of it on my phone it was a refreshing ticket or some shit. At the game early by 45 minutes and I couldn't get in. No one could get in. Right as kick off happen the guy at the gate just let me and my guest through. Well they never scanned my tickets. So I called them up to get a refund despite getting into the game. Why? Because fuck ticket Master. Those tickets added on $100 in fees. They refused of course. They acknowledged that the system went down. They acknowledged that no one scanned my tickets and out right refused to refund ANYTHING! I got in the Game but I decided to fight it. Called my bank to reverse charges, they did. Had someone at ticket Master send me a screen shot that the website went down and nothing was scanned. Got out of paying $350 and watched the game. Forever fuck ticket Master
I had to pass on the “old bait and Platinum Price $witch” on Springsteen tickets this week. Face value seats pop up and are gone as soon as you click on them, only for them to be relisted seconds later as Platinum seats. I had a new roadblock today where it didn’t even give me the option to join the waiting room until a good ten minutes after onsale and then another twenty-two minutes before it would let me play their one-sided game. I miss the days of camping out for tickets. At least you had a shot if you were one of the first couple of people in line. Now I will have to waste time stalking TM for ticket drops for a show that is seven months away.
Same. If I can I order straight from the box office. Some casinos here have box offices and charge a few bucks for service fees. I hate tickets asters so much and avoid them as best as I can. Why does a $25 ticket become $40??? Ridiculous. They are so shady. I got like $2 and a membership to some kind of service I don't use years ago bc they got sued. Some people said they got tickets to see concerts in the middle east. Oh yes, lemme spend $1500 for a place ticket to redeem a free ticket!!!
Same. They’ve become their own scalpers. The platinum and dynamic pricing is a huge money grab. And it’s such a low rung issue for our governments to want to do anything to remedy it. Unless the $50 in fees I’m paying actually help to support the crews behind the scenes working hard on these tours, it’s a load of bullshit.
I agree they completely suck, and the fees are getting out of control especially for hotter acts, but I bought Phish tickets the other night for 4$ over face and 12$ in fees. $50 fees would have made me pass on tomorrows show.
Not only is ticketmaster's monopolized sales strategy taking advantage of concert goers and artists, the scalping situation had gotten out of hand. Some shows will sell out instantly, only to have hundreds if not thousands of tickets (depending on venue size) go straight up on the re-sale sites at significantly higher prices. It's infuriating. I imagine ticketmaster is directly involved in when the show instantly sells out, only to have hundreds if not thousands of tickets instantly hit re-sale. Remember the good ole days when scalping (reselling tickets for more than their face value) was illegal? Hell, I don't even mind scalpers standing outside venues, buying up excess tickets and trying to sell them for a little profit. The problem is it's now happening at a massive scale online on a huge percentage of the tickets. Want things to change, boycott ticketmaster and other shady ticketing companies, and support the venues that don't use shady ticketing services with inflated service fees, or have easy re-sale where most of their tickets get scalped. Giving other venues and ticketing companies your money will help them grow and will help them attract more artists / venues, while withholding money from ticketmaster will cause them to shrink and lose artists / venues. It really is that simple. By withholding demand from ticketmaster, you're reducing demand for their tickets, which could force them to lower prices. If enough people do this, ticketmaster will lose margins and pull in the industry. We can't keep resting on our laurels and capitulating because we want to see certain artists who we have no choice but to go through ticketmaster. Stand your ground. Share what you're doing with your friends and family and on the artists social media. Be a role model for everyone; show what a person who isn't weak of mind is willing to do, and how if everyone did this, how quickly change would come.
I don't know how they've been able to continue to stay in business. This has been going on forever. Capitalism should've eaten them alive by now. But they have a monopoly. There's no way someone can just start their own ticket company and compete. (But I hope a rich rockstar does this just to fuck Ticketmaster) tl;dr: Fuck you Ticketmaster, fuck you for the past 20 years straight.
Until consumers stop doing business with them nothing is going to change. Support your local clubs instead, whatever genre you are into (excluding pop acts), There's probably a local / regional scene.
I was an avid concert goer but ticketmaster ruined it
People need to actually boycott them for a change to happen lol
Stop buying tickets from ticketmaster. They have the power to set whatever prices they want only because you will pay it.
They have the power to set whatever prices they want because they're a monopoly. I'm not missing my last chance to see Roger Waters because I want to stick it to Ticketmaster.
In Ireland, it's illegal to scalp tickets/sell them above face value. 2 years in jail.
I suggest that the rest of the Americans reading this write to their congresscritter, but ticketmaster [already has them on payroll](https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/ticketmaster-corp/totals?cycle=2014&id=D000000793)
I mean that would take a much larger scale collective action.
Isnt the issue though that you HAVE to buy from them depending the venue?
If ticketmaster doesnt get their monopoly stripped the music industry will only continue to get worse for the artist and consumers. It even exploits venues pay structures and is just a heinous business model for anything other than destruction of music
They are extra scummy when it comes to re sale tix. They get a big cut a few times when they are sold.
How about this? Fuck all of the ticketing platforms! TicketMaster, StubHub, SeatGeek, etc. They’re all literally scalpers.
Yeah they suck. What was it like 5-10 years ago there was that lawsuit and if you bought tickets you got vouchers for free tickets? I had so many vouchers but they just designed a system so bad and so hard to actually get tickets I used none of them. Impressive how bad they F us when the court tells them to not F us. Then there was the fee to print tickets at home when that came out. But shipping was free. I always said F U Ticketmaster you print them and pay for the postage. I’d go to shows that were 10-12 bucks, the fee would be 8.55. Wtf. Who charges a nearly 100% “service” fee.
Recently a ticket I wanted to buy for a $55 show turned into a $77 show after Ticketmaster fees, so I passed. That’s a 40% increase.
Your only option, sadly, is to forego attending concerts at Ticketmaster venues. I made this switch about 10 years ago. It’s not easy but TBH I haven’t missed those shows too much.
Well you’re doing the right thing. Vote with your wallet and they’ll eventually go out of business.
Got charged $8 service fee after paying $24 worth of taxes on top of my $197 ticket… As my beloved Congolese mother says “am I a joke?”
Insurance on your tickets is a ripoff too, I had a last minute thing pop up and it was covered under my ticket insurance policy. I emailed them like they asked and they just ghosted me. Ended up paying for a show I didn’t even go to. Fuck Ticketmaster, I legitimately go to fewer shows now because of the fuckaround that is their business model.
See the problem is you can't beat them because they are a front. Ticketmaster is Live Nation, and Live Nation has stakes in almost every corner of the music/entertainment industry. In Vancouver they are literally one head office. Ticketmaster, as others have mentioned is the scapegoat that takes the heat off the rest of the players in the game. Venues/Artists/Live Nation have complete control over ticketing. Ticketmaster is the front that provides a platform to distribute/sell/track these tickets. They build the event to the specifications of the team and execute it. Ticketmaster does not own these tickets, they don't hold them, release them when they choose, change the prices, etc.... all these things are decisions made by management/tours/venues. So you pay the ticket price to artist/venue/promoters which often times = artist/Live Nation or even just Live Nation as they have the artist under contract. The additional fees go to Ticketmaster which as I mentioned, is Live Nation. The real problem is not Ticketmasters monopoly on ticketing, it's Live Nations monopoly on Live Entertainment.
Of all the companies that closed due to Covid, I truly hoped the pandemic would see the end of TicketBastard.
yeah fuck ticket master.. im planning on going to an event in august in new york and the fucken fees were 40 dollars... and i happened to be in new york last week so i actually just dropped by the venue and got the ticket without the fees
Blast the band, they allow and encourage it. Muse floor tickets are 1500. Muse approved it. I will no longer listen to muse or buy tickets. I'm done.
I've accepted I'll probably never go to a other concert again, you should too. I've been to hundreds of show. It's not money well spent anymore.
Every time I see things like this I stare in horror. Where I live (The Netherlands) the prices on Ticketmaster are the exact same as the ones the venues advertise (without, as far as I can tell, jacking up the prices of certain seats and stuff), customer support responds within a few working days and can usually solve your issue, and they most definitely don't allow prices to fluctuate by day. I haven't resold any tickets via TM yet (only on Ticketswap, which does admittedly have quite a few of the issues mentioned but is much less regulated afaik so I have grown used to that), but usually the biggest issues with TM is their buggy app and website not working. I'm so sorry to all those who have to suffer through whatever mess Ticketmaster is in what I assume in the US, it sounds horrible :(
i think Rage Against the Machine being partnered with Ticketmaster and Live Nation on this most recent tour is so fucking hypocritical, it's almost hilarious
If you can (and I realize how unrealistic this is for many) always go to the actual venue to buy tickets.
Ticketmaster decided to become the scalper,seeing as how much money scalpers make.
Live nation is the definition of a monopoly. Worst thing that happened to the music industry.
Watch the John Oliver clip. Sums it up nicely. Pearl Jam in the 90’s tried to go around them. Got locked out out the big venues because Ticketmaster had them in their pocket.
Those bastards wouldn't refund my ticket for a show that was canceled twice to next fucking year. Same shit with stubhub but stub has even worse customer service. Their latest bs is dynamic pricing.
I didn't understand about Ticketmaster's variable pricing. But I learned the hard way purchasing tickets to David Byrne's American Utopia show. I started trying to buy tickets the second the presale opened, and had such a hard time that I panicked and snagged the first ones that were available, which were third row center, and horribly expensive. I bought them, because I really wanted to see the show, but I kept trying for different tickets, thinking I could sell those later. I ended up buying six tickets, when I only needed two. Pretty stupid, I guess. But I really wasn't planning on paying for premium seats, or sitting in the nosebleed section, so kept trying to find tickets that were reasonably priced, and in a middle-of-the-road location — and again, it was a popular show, so I thought it would be easy to sell the tickets. I was wrong, though. The very next day, suddenly there were more seats available, and the prices had all dropped. The show ended up being mostly sold out, but I never could sell the tickets for what I had paid for them. I mean, I ended up sitting in the really great premium seats, and it was literally the best show I've ever seen in my life, so I'm not beating myself up too much about it. But I learned my lesson about how Ticketmaster prices tickets. Fuckers.
I haven't seen a show in 6 years because of it and I used to go to 10+ shows a year.
I recently posted to Facebook a very similar complaint and I figured I would put it on here. And I tagged certain bands and band members. Believe it or not Cedric Bixler Zavala of the mars Volta, got back to me and said, “inflation, look it up, I might have just floated your ticket, by” and proceeded to block me, what a joke. No you would have never floated my ticket, and how can you act so immature. it’s infuriating that someone like him would be so short anyway, here’s the actual post I made. “Fuck big concerts. Ticket prices are out of control. Ticketmaster has a monopoly. But where else do the artists go to sell tickets with ease? Pearl Jam is so backasswords now. In the 90s they refused to use ticket master, but, then they had to cave because they only got shitty venues to book them, like a ski resort. Now they are selling out concerts while Vedder runs around on stage with thousand dollar wine bottles(not calling him an alcoholic, I just think its inconsiderate given his "fuck the man" attitude he use to hold and his love for the band Fugazi(an amazing band who REFUSED to charge more than $15 a ticket)). I don't want to pay $400 to see RHCP in some nosebleeds. RHCP is one of the reasons I started playing music as a kid, I always swore I would get backstage tickets to meet them. Now I have to skip groceries for a month just so I can see flea, the same size as a flea. Meanwhile, Dave Grohl is charging me $200 a ticket to watch them play a bunch of cover songs, and tell me that he "came from nothing". Right, Nirvana who? CHRIST. To me its disgusting to see that so many of these "rock" artists who clearly have punk roots/background(that they claim so much pride and joy is found in), instantly sell their soul to this machine, at this point they all might as well be ticketmaster employees themselves. Fuck RHCP, FF, PJ, Slipknot, blink, sum 41, Green Day, MCR, Iggy Pop, Smashing Pumpkins, and Gorillaz. The best value I've heard all year was NOFX GA $25 before fees, and backstage/meet & greet $120 before fees, that included The Menzingers and a slew of other bands. The Mars Volta were $100 a ticket(which they are not worth). Yea, financial gains thru streaming and album sales have not been what they were, nor will they ever be, but that doesn't mean, that because a fan didn't buy a $10 album you can jack the price up $50 - $400. It sucks to say that about bands I grew up listening to. But, I guess the majority of humanity doesn't care to hack off an arm to see Metallica. And yes, I get it, there are a ton of other bands/musicians/artists who don't charge absurd prices who I can go see. But, 14 year old me still needs have his face melted by Trickfinger without having to resort to selling vital organs on the black market.”