If you are a reader here, you know my vehemence towards ticketbastard. It’s nothing newsworthy, everyone hates them. The good news is that Ticketbastard hasn’t just been screwing you and your hot wife… I mean.. they have. Who hasn’t? They have been also angering the vendors as well. Last year, universities starting turning away from Ticketmaster because of the exorbitant fees. Ticketmaster didn’t care, because they had the grand enchilada of monopolies… the concert industry.
See, Ticketbastard had an exlcusive contract with ‘Live Nation’. What is Live Nation? They are Clear Channel. Yeah, they are the ones who own all the venues and the radio stations. With the two teamed together against consumers, ‘convenience charges’ were hitting up to 40% of face value. Apparently, I am not the only one who stopped leaving the house because it was too expensive. Live Nation announced yesterday that they are dropping Ticketbastard.
This is HUGE and good and joyful news. Does it mean savings to the consumer, probably not. Still, I want Ticketmaster to suffer deeply. For too long they took advantage of consumers, bullied artists, and tore apart fan clubs. How so? In the old days, a band could sell their own concert tickets to their fans. Crazy, huh? The Grateful Dead pioneered mail order business. Ticketmaster changed that, and wanted a cut.
Seriously, you could not make up how evil they were. For example, Ticketbastard now lets you print your own tickets right at home. It saves them shipping, toner, and ticketstock paper. So, do you get a discount for using all of your own supplies? NOPE. They actually charge you $2.50 for the priveledge. I can’t wait to watch them go under and die a horrible and painful and long death. I won’t be satisfied until they come out and say “It’s true, we took advantage of consumers and we are sorry. We paid the price, and accept the consequence of our actions”.
I know, I’ll hear that about as soon as I hear this administration apologize. Since Live Nation will now monopolize every aspect of the business, one can only hope they will pass on a modicum of the savings to us.
Let’s have some fun and assess Ticketbastard’s level of evil. Billy Joel is playing Denver next month. I would totally go if tickets were $50. Well, they started that way. A ticket that is face value at $29 becomes $46 after fees. That is more than 50% service charge. See for yourself, cut and pasted right from their site:
Type2 Full price ticketsTicket PriceUS $29.50 x 2Convenience ChargeUS $11.05 x 2Building Facility ChargeUS $4.00 x 2
That $29.50 ticket is now $44.55 before tax. Man, that sure is super convenient. So, Ticketmaster will eat their just rewards soon enough.
One thing in closing, to our new masters at Live Nation… please stagger ticket onsales! We had a Saturday morning in Denver in the fall when almost a million tickets went on sale simultaneously (Broncos game, Rockies game, Rapids game, and several concerts). As always, the geniuses at Ticketbastard put everything onsale at 10 am. Assholes!
I am Correct 
Actually, Live Nation is not a part of Clear Channel (changed over a year ago). It’s now a totally separate company focusing on the concert promotion and production 🙂
While your article amused me to no end, it is based on assumptions and not written with any working knowledge of the ticketing industry. It doesn’t take into account the service Ticketmaster provides, including the cost of maintaining and advancing technology, staffing costs and other overheads. Also, in most instances the promoter will set on sale dates – Ticketmaster merely provides the distribution channel.
But while TM bashing has become a favourite American pasttime, it should be noted that they are the face of the Ticketing industry, much, much more goes on behind the scenes that you and I will never know.
Beth,
Respectfully, and completely, I disagree. I have been going to rock concerts for 25 years, and EVERY SINGLE SHOW was on sale on Saturday’s at 10 am.
As for what goes on behind the scenes, there is truth to that. However, at every turn, we find out what goes on behind the scenes further screws the customers.
Take for instance the lawsuit from In Sync who found out that NONE of the floor seats on their tour back when they were huge ever went on sale to the public. They were all ‘holdbacks’ for tm employees.
also, why does a $200 ticket get a $60 fee and a $20 ticket has a $7 fee. Is not the exact same technology and software for each ticket. until Ticketmaster does the following:
a fixed price per ticket
stagger ticket onsales
they are suspect in my book.
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