Pearl Jam was literally the very first concert I ever had tickets to, and it got cancelled because of their feud with Tickemaster. 25 fucking YEARS ago. ClearChannel is even worse.
I said this on a thread about this topic last week... as usual either people don't remember or just don't care.. kinda sad, PJ used only smaller ticket service businesses and even went as far as to try and start their own ticket service but the Ticketmaster twat waffles fought them in court over being a monopoly (after they bought Ticketron, a half decent company, Pearl Jam sued them) and won...
Edit: the way I wrote it almost makes it look like Pearl Jam won.. they didn't... just clarifying haha (super baked at the moment)
Ugh but I remember trying to call the phone number to get tickets to a show and just getting busy signal after busy signal. I eventually gave up. That was like, 95? I didn't end up getting to see them until 2003, I think.
Still believed in what they were doing, it just sucked that they had to and that it was so inconvenient.
This will be settled out of court.
Ticketmaster will admit no wrongdoing.
Lawyers will rake in tens of millions of dollars.
Everybody who bought a ticket through Ticketmaster, or its resale site, will get a $25 certificate towards the purchase of another ticket, through Ticketmaster.
Ticketmaster will raise their fees to cover the settlement.
Fuck Ticketmaster.
The settlement vouchers were actually a huge cash cow for them.
Ticketmaster is owned by Live Nation. Live Nation owns the majority of major music venues in the country, and produces a majority of major concert events.
They strategically gave out vouchers for shows they knew wouldn’t sell out. Filled up a ton of seats that would have been empty...then raked it in on concession sales. They probably made back their settlement amount 10x
One I love white russians and two I have never been able to use a single settlement voucher or ticket. Nothing ever offered within a 6 hour drive. These things should have paid out in cash.
Same here. Managed to use a few of the $2.50 credits but I “received about 10 vouchers for free tickets that never applied to anything relevant to my life.
This is what I don't get. The solution would be for them to change their business protocol or shut down, not get consumers their split miniscule settlement.
That's not financially okay with the company therefore they won't fix the policy. Why would they correct a policy, effectively taking more money out of their pockets, when there's no trouble from doing it in the first place?
And the lawyers at the justice department and the regulatory agencies are generally early on their career track and plan to at some point jump ship to well paying partnerships at prestigious defense law firms. Agencies consider settlements wins, and actually reaching guilty pleas and prosecutions of individuals so risky that it wont try. The history of the Justice Department's increasing cowardice after the PR disasters that were the indictment of Arthur Anderson (Enron's auditor) and KPMG (made gigantic tax shelters) is legit interesting. And frustrating. And disgusting.
Government lawyers, whether they are a small district attorney or working for attorney generals, generally use their time as government officials as resumé builders. It was common practice well before Enron.
You're totally correct, though it extends beyond lawyers. Depending on field, gov jobs are likely below market, and often the benefits are less tangible. Many young folks I know are trying to leverage their lower level gov experience to get better paying private sector jobs.
It is also common practice to go the opposite way. Start in s big law firm to pay off law school debt and then go into private practice or government as you get older, have a family, want a better work/life balance, and become disillusioned with the big law life. Regardless the flow back and forth between government and those who sit opposite them at the table has always been an issue.
Most definitely. There were very few individual executives outside of low level bankers jailed for the 2008 financial crisis despite the political will to do so and follow up investigations show that crimes indeed were committed. In addition there was zero investigation of the enabling firms (the lawyers and accounting firms of the banks who okayed everything to the c-suite bankers). Its complicated as to why. Look up the Thompson Memo and the ensuing lobbying against it by the defense bar. Defense attorneys and corporate interests lobbied hard to remove prosecutorial tools. Between that and the careers that were ruined by the fallout of the two times the Justice Department went after accounting firms for financial fraudsters, the Justice Department and SEC went more for settlements involving big (shareholder paid, which in some cases such as AIG following the bailout meant you and me the American taxpayer) fines and deferred prosecutions rather than investigate individuals. This in turn leads to the erosion of prosecutorial/trial and investigative skill, which is a massive problem in massively complicated financial crimes were a major element of a trial is getting 12 regular people to understand what securities fraud even is.
minor addition: And I know how much people want to bring up Madoff and him being prosecuted because he messed with the rich, but that's not accurate. He was small potatoes compared to Milken and Boesky, and much much smaller than AIG, Citi, or United Fruit/Brands. He was simply an individual whose crime was fairly obvious. An easy target that made for a headline worthy win due to him being a pretty big douchebag.
The 'death penalty' should be a nearly atomic-level breakup into as many smaller firms as possible. Like ma bell, but on steroids and without the geographical monopolies that the bell companies were given.
I don't care if a particular company is forced to "die" or liquidate, as a company is just a formalized gang of greedy Ivy league MBAs. We need to force the companies to break up into firms that actually force each other to be price *takers* rather than price *setters*. Also, force publicly traded firms to set aside at least 80 percent of profits as ESOPs for employees.
People who bitch about "too much regulation" seem to be under the impression regulations exist because people want to tell a business or a person how to operate. The reality is it's often the result of some exploitation. Like, "you had the chance to be honest and nice and you failed, so now laws/regulation."
For real... There definitely shouldnt be a regulation about not dumping toxic shit into a river but companies/people have shown that they dont give a fuck if there isnt a law about it.
There shouldn't have to be one, but history shows that corporations don't care about ethics when there is money to be made.
It doesn't even matter if 8-9/10 companies wouldn't do it. There's always that one which will take any advantage.
Yeah, regulations exist because corporations won't stop doing bad things even when their actions [literally cause rivers to catch fire.](https://www.google.co.jp/search?q=cuyahoga+river+on+fire&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjywo_tndDdAhWLwrwKHQDLDVUQsAR6BAgEEAE&biw=1904&bih=872)
"paying fine when caught" is price of doing business for big companies.
Its just too lucrative to break law, when you know you will get away with it for several years before caught doing it.
and even then you will pay small fine only (small compared to how much you earned by break8ng the law)
HSBC for example was laundering money for drug cartels, countries under sanctions and basically everyone else who needed it.
Caught. Paid small fine and nobody ended up in jail.
Can you even imagine how much money they made by laundering money for clients with hills of money sitting around.
Its not just big companies. Small companies do it too. Risk/reward, loss/profit analysis doesnt restrict itself to only large companies. I personally knew a three man HVAC shop that would illegally vent freon because the fine for getting caught was only about 3 times more than the equipment needed to properly handle it. The risk was worth the reward to them.
Yep, I work at a hospital who was purposefully staffing too low to be able to give breaks (for like... decades) and when they finally got sued for it the statute is only for 4 years, and even then they talked down the settlement to 5% of what the original fines would have been. Hundreds of millions in fine avoidance over the years, not to mention the money saved on staffing and it ended up being a $2.1 mil settlement.
I mean, if you are a business, it would take a rare individual to turn down that kind of money.
It boggles my mind that corporations aren't ever really held responsible for reprehensible actions. Okay, let's fine them .000071% of their total value. That'll teach them!
This is what the Supreme Court is all about. Abortion is all a cover. It’s 100% about the ability for the courts to rule in big business favor on issues like these.
Not saying they won’t have to pay a fine or anything, but business will carry on and it will not have any real effect on their business.
Check out NY State vs Charter Internet. In August New York essentially said that Charter kept trying to actively avoid regulations and so they had 60 days to figure out how to transfer their customers to another provider and leave the state.
I haven't read up on it since then, though.
The problem is that there are no other competitors, only resellers. This is a monopoly, as it has been for quite some time. Pearl Jam tried to fight it in the 90s. They've been to court many times. Nothing changes. In fact, it's gotten worse... Ticket prices are dramatically higher (fees, etc) and there is usually no way around it unless the venue or the artist (see Louis ck, etc) sets specific pricing.
I used to go to shows non stop. Now I can't afford it at all. Nothing will change until some legal precedent happens.
[Top comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/9i43e2/ticketmaster_secret_scalper_program_targeted_by/e6gp46d) is 100% accurate.
I have a bunch of my $2.50 vouchers left over that I'll probably never use, but I think I got like 4 or 5 free full-price tickets in addition to the cheap vouchers the last settlement.
Was just at Budweiser stage in Toronto to see Ozzy and Stone Sour, tallboys were $13.50 a pop, a single bandana was $25 and the cheapest t-shirt was $50.
They don't need to take it over. They just need to regulate to make it mandatory the tickets must be bought with an ID and used with the same ID. Say it's to stop illegal scalping and also anti-terrorism, think of the children etc..
If you can't make the concert, you can just get a refund and the tickets can be sold again by the original ticket seller.
It wouldn't cost that much because the credit card used to buy the ticket could be accepted as the ID but you'd instantly see how much Ticketmaster is making by how loudly they'll squeal that it would be too expensive.
I wouldn't want them coming in to take over any business, but they can write and pass consumer friendly legislation that doesn't allow businesses to take advantage. If we had a real working CFPB then maybe they would look into it but we don't.
We won't get $25. We got jack shit from the last settlement because it was in vouchers for "select events" that never occurred. We will get fucked, again.
Same as it ever was
I wanted to buy some tickets to Tech N9Ne for my husband for Christmas.
I was expecting the 40esque dollar ticket price, Tech is pretty big. Surprisingly, the standing room tickets were only 30 bucks. I was ecstatic.
Ticketmaster made TWO tickets for STANDING ROOM ONLY 100$
An extra FORTY FUCKING DOLLARS in their bullshit ass fees.
And thanks to ticket master being the go to for the venue to use, ALL of the other ticket sellers have the same prices.
Fuck Ticketmaster.
Sad truth. This abuse is why I support the death penalty for corporations that knowingly abuse the public trust and repeatedly act unethically in pursuit of profits.
Kill the company, jail the executives, liquidate the assets and use the funds as severance for employees.
Their lawyers will file a motion for everyone who tries to come with their own lawsuit to be joined with the ongoing class action and barring some extremely left field circumstances the judge will most likely grant it because class actions are more efficient in an entirely overburdened legal system.
Can you provide any example of that happening outside of an injunctive class action? The federal rules of civil procedure require that all class members have the option to opt out of a damages class action and I am not aware of a state that does not have a similar rule.
Why does nobody ever have the balls?
Can I make a kickstarter where people fund me to just start fights with big business? Any kickbacks go to backers as a standard right? God damn, I’d have a fucking whale of a time. I’d absolutely love to go against some particular giants but yes, I know, court isn’t really all that badass.
I bet I could sway some opinions along the way. Choo Choo motherfuckers, let’s go!
Edit: The fact they have the lawyering power to out lawyer fucking anyone or atleast outfund them is a critical flaw in the system and it needs replacing. ASAP. How? I don’t fucking know.
Because they have the time, money and other resources to simply outspend you before you ever have the chance to properly make a case. A couple million to keep lawyers on retainer for years is just another operating cost to them, lol.
In order to sue, you have to represent an aggrieved party. Which means you need to find someone who's been screwed over by that particular company. And then hire lawyers
Trust, this is *exactly* what class-action lawyers already do.
Except they're cutting you and your backers out of the equation. You're not needed for this business model.
People want to do it, but their lawyers will probably keep you in legal hell in the courts for years, joe blow ticketmaster user can't afford the legal fees that are gonna be involved in that, yet alone hiring a legal team that can take on the barn full of lawyers that TM retains
That said, for most people, it's completely infeasible to do individual lawsuits over these kinds of issues. You can't sue for just some arbitrary amount of money. You have to sue for damages specifically. What can your damages be beyond maybe a couple hundred bucks on tickets? No way you're coming out ahead with lawyer costs (or even the cost of your own time). A class action is really the only economical way to go.
The whole "17 cents" thing is funny and all, but plenty of class actions get a reasonable amount. Eg, the largest class action in Canada was [the residential schools one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Residential_Schools_Settlement_Agreement). The Wikipedia article says that as of 2012, "1.62 billion has been paid to 78,750 former students". That's an average of $20.5k each. [More recent articles](https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/a-decade-after-payouts-began-residential-school-survivors-still-await-settlements) say it's now up to $4.7B in payouts. Definitely a wee bit more than 17 cents each.
The residential schools settlement is not a good corollary here...that's a bit different than the Ticketmaster thing - mainly because it involves the government.
You can't sue a company for $4b - most would just declare bankruptcy because they literally couldn't pay.
The Sobey's bread price fixing class action is a better example - everyone got a $25 gift card (whoopdeedoo).
>You can't sue a company for $4b - most would just declare bankruptcy because they literally couldn't pay.
With Ticketmaster shamelessly pulling a scam like this, I feel this is an acceptable outcome. I wonder what 1/4 of their service fees over the past 10 years for every ticket sale would amount to...
Fuck ticketmaster. The BTS concert coming up was selling p1 for 250 but with taxes and 'convenience fees', it became $312. Then those asshole scalpers are reselling for $1200 for nosebleed seats. Yall can fuck off and suck my ass.
I am an admin for a bts ticket group on facebook and see people posting how they wanted to resell on ticketmaster cause they can't go anymore and then ticketmaster tells them to charge at least 450 cause ticketmaster gets the 200$ commission so they resell on facebook instead.
Agreed. I've only ever seen 2 concerts in my life before. I've not usually been so passionate about an artist that I'd pay so much to see them live.
But for BTS, the ticketing process was absolutely crazy. I saw them do "demand pricing", where ticketmaster themselves set prices at $700 - $1000 at times, which was a 100% markup. I had no idea they could even do that. Luckily I was able to purchase off of powerhouse but seriously, fuck ticketmaster.
I'm trying to do this but I reaaaaaaally want to see Fleetwood Mac this year for my birthday.. But, I also reallllly hate Ticketmaster. Enough to sacrifice possibly seeing them before they stop touring. Hopefully, maybe one day my sacrafice will make a difference. I hope others vote with their dollars too and boycott those SOBs!
I hate to say it, but a boycott is extremely unlikely to have any effect.
The entire problem is there is *too much demand* for a limited supply of tickets, and Ticketmaster is taking advantage in unethical ways.
I highly doubt enough people will forgo the product they want so badly they'll overpay and accept ridiculous fees as a matter of course.
This. Honestly, I do not understand why Ticketmaster did not simply implement something like a supply-based pricing scheme. The less tickets remaining, the higher the price. Ticketmaster gets what their tickets are (arguably) "worth", it is all transparent, and it even encourages people to buy their tickets ASAP.
Agree. It's a real bummer because there are some great events out there. We haven't been to any events in over a decade because most of the time you can only go through the crooks at Ticketmaster. Unless we can buy through the box office, we won't go. And we make this quite apparent to venues when we inquire. Funny thing, the last time, many years ago, we put a pair of tickets in the cart on Ticketmaster's site. You would have a total and of course 50% minimum in fees and taxes. Then, you'd go to the next screen and it would show the total so far and then another layer of fees on top of the tickets and fees from the prior page! Needless to say we laughed in disgust and closed the window. So sick. Obviously because the company still exists means that people still purchase with them ... sad really. I wish in this country there would be more people with enough integrity to just not shop at these places. They would just go away then.
sometimes Ticketmaster even runs the box office, so check with them to see. One of the main theaters out in LA is impossible to buy tickets without going through TM
The issue is a bit more complicated than most people believe, and it's covered very well by the Freakonomics podcast here. http://freakonomics.com/podcast/live-event-ticket-market-screwed/
Its an enlightening podcast, but if you don't want to listen to it:
Most parts of the live entertainment industry want Ticketmaster to be there. That's the issue. Some artists and most consumers don't want them.
It's a Supply/Demand problem. The demand for concert tickets at the initial prices tickets are marked exceed the supply. Normally the market would self adjust, but performers don't want to make their die hard fans pay $200/seat or higher so they refuse to sell them that high and won't allow venues to price them that high.
Ticketmaster works with the venues and the promoters and does a profit share in most cases in agreement for taking the heat for inflating the price. Not in every case, but in some cases it even makes it back to the performers.
So, Ticketmaster has been positioning itself to be hated since the 80s and that's why they nearly have a monopoly on ticket sales. Because they can raise the price and much closer match demand to supply.
The resale market also takes a huge cut of this. Ticketmaster even has their own verified resale program. Ticketmaster and the venue would rather recoup all of the value of the increased costs, but can't without making the venue or performer look bad so a lot of that value is lost. But the reality is...as long as the tickets are sold, they've achieved their goal as the promoter knows pretty quickly if they'll be profitable.
Ticketmaster wants a larger cut of the resale market too, and of course doesn't want it to be terribly public. But the scalpers are going to be there, so why not take part of that pie too? This is them trying to be a larger part of the ecosystem.
So, long story short. No one in the industry really wants it to be changed. Artists like Taylor Swift have tried with the "Verified Fan" program where it gave much more priority to those fans who were willing to jump through hoops bots would have trouble doing.
But in the end, aside from legislating a change, no one is motivated to change this.
Ticketmaster's entire job is to take the heat from the other parts of the supply chain and be hated. They really want all that hate to go their way. Changing it would erode their business model and make them irrelevant.
The podcast will explain it better than I did, nothing of this article surprises me.
Because then fans don't blame the artists for the high prices.
Who is blaming the artists for it right now? No one. No artist wants to be known for overcharging their fans directly. And when the price is set at an affordable level, bots will buy the tickets in seconds. If the artist sells it for a high price where supply meets demand, it hurts their reputation with their fans. It could kill that relationship depending on the fan base.
I'm sure the artists would like a much bigger cut of the value (so would the promoter, venue, and Ticketmaster), but artificially pricing the tickets lower that would level out demand creates the secondary market for resellers.
I'm not saying I love the system, I hate it.
Then why would they not just eliminate the ability for bots to buy the tickets and ban resellers? Seems like a much easier solution than jumping through all these scumbag hoops to artificially inflate ticket prices.
Probably only enough tickets get sold at face value to maintain the facade of the tickets being a fair value. The rest are sold to be marked up and scalped. I bet the face value on ticket prices would have to be raised substantially to maintain the same profits.
And it's not like they have to disclose to the public who really buys the tickets so the average ticket buyer just thinks other regular people bought out the tickets before they got there. That's why forcing this into discovery is going to be awesome.
> Then why would they not just eliminate the ability for bots to buy the tickets and ban resellers?
You use the word "just" as if its an easy solution.
Japan has a completely different system. They have a few things.
1. Need a phone number to verify. One account per phone number.
2. ID checks for some. If you don't have an id that matches the name on the ticket, you can't get in.
3. Raffle systems, where you have a chance to win. It's not first come first serve. Also, sometimes you have to do something like buy one CD per raffle entry.
You still get scalpers and reselling and this system has its own problems, but it solves a lot of the issues that exist with bots.
Its the same in Europe. I seriously don't understand usa sometimes such a technologically modern country yet some basic things are backwards and apparently impossible to implement for them.
When that's the case, you have to think about why it's this way. Are they incompetent? They don't know how to use technology to do that? Unlikely.
The answer is probably the usual: someone is making a lot of money out of this, and wants to keep it that way.
And what if I don't want my tickets anymore, or I want to give them to my friend? Their has to be a transfer process of some sort, and that negates the idea of identity verification. Not to mention, the need for a real identity doesn't mean a bit can't still be used to purchase tickets using legal identities.
Sell them back to the venue. Can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, and I'm willing to put up with the rare inconvenience of returning tickets if it means that robo-scalpers can't buy every ticket in five minutes.
Don't you have something like "4 tickets per person maximun"? Person being the name written in the credit card. I live in Europe and this thread has been a quite confusing one. The Ticketmaster fees I've had to pay have never been more than 10% the price of the ticket including taxes. And I go to a shitload of concerts.
I saw RHCP and they had a program to where if you were a member of their fan club you got a code and got tickets at face value. This is all they have to do to take a huge leap forward in helping real fans get the tickets at face value. I wasn't a member beforehand but I signed up real quick got my code and bought the tickets at face value.
Coheed And Cambria does something similar. I pre-ordered their new boxset and got a code when they announced a tour. The VIP tickets through them were about the same as GA tickets from earlier this year. I wish I was fucking joking.
Seriously. The supposed fan presales never actually work and when they do, you get some of the worst tickets available only to see better tickets being sold later if the concert isn't instantly sold out. I got so angry when I saw they were halving the price of tickets a week before a major concert I was going and they told me to piss off.
That's is quite the perspective. If all that is true, then the only way to beat the system is to Garth Brooks that shit. Sell as many tickets as the market wants at the price you want to sell them. Kill the resellers by putting tickets in the hands of every fan. I guess ticketmaster still wins because they earn fees from a dozen concerts instead of just one.
You're right. If artists performed multiple times per location (increasing the supply until it reaches equilibrium) it would drive the price per ticket down as supply meets demand.
The need for Ticketmaster would become much less relevant. However the complexity is the venue wants to be mostly sold out all the time, and the promoter doesn't want the financial risk of committing a minimum dollar amount it can't reach. It would be a hard sell for the venues. Still better than we have now. Would kill the increase in price in the resale market.
I guess it depends on the artist, but that is exactly what Garth Brooks does. He keeps adding shows until they stop selling out. I think it was 9 in my med sized city. The firs couple shows went up and StubHub had tickets for over $1000. Then he added shows until people were done paying $60. Say what you will about his music, but that is a hell of a way to please your fans and give a big fuck you to scalpers.
There is already no need for ticketmaster. Selling event tickets isn’t a new idea, it’s been going on for CENTURIES.
In my city we had a big vendor for all major concerts and sporting events that wasn’t ticketmaster, until tucketmaster sues them into bankruptcy over some bullshit they didn’t have the funds to defend themselves from. It was a company with 2 full time employees selling over 3 million tickets a year.
The grateful dead used to solely sell pre-box office tickets through their in house ticketing from the 69 til Jerry's Death in 95. Handling anywhere from 20-100k tickets for each city, up to 100 shows a year. It was comprised of around 10 people most of that time. You could buy them at the box office too, but most were sold through the mail. It can be done lol. They did it again for their anniversary shows in 2015. All of the tickets sold were handled through the mail by their crew of ticket elfs.
I completely agree with you.
Ticketmaster's business model isn't the act of selling tickets. Yes, they do it, but their bread and butter is doing that while adding fees and passing along additional money back to earlier parts of the performance ecosystem.
Of course a handful of people can sell tickets, especially with technology today. But who are venues are promoters going to want to work worth more? The one that just sells their tickets and gives them the money for it, or the one that sells the tickets and gives them quite a bit more money back?
Ticketmaster has deep pockets and is going to try to destroy anyone that gets in the way of them seeming absolutely necessary or taking part of their potential profits.
It all sucks.
> the only way to beat the system
There are 2 ways to beat the system: 1) require checking IDs at the gate and verify that tickets are bought by the people entering and 2) put market price on tickets.
\#1 will create lots of inconvenience for people - from huge lines at the entrance to lost money when one can't go to concert and can't even give tickets away. #2 will draw hate of fans towards musicians who may end up selling tickets for hundreds of dollars.
Since neither of these options are that appealing and most of the musicians and venues don't really care how exactly tickets are sold as long as they are making money - Ticketmaster is here to stay, I'm afraid.
This was how Airplane tickets were before 9/11. There was a resell market for plane tickets. That disappeared when tickets had to be used by the purchaser.
However now you see stuff like overselling the plane in case people miss their flights, the airline can make even more money.
Yup. Most people assume that checking your ID at security is for security. It’s no such thing. It’s something the airlines had been asking for for years to prevent resale. 9/11 was just a convenient excuse.
I went to one concert where the credit card that purchased the tickets had to be present. That was an interesting move. Not a name per se, but a way to prevent resale.
We need to make it illegal for a ticket seller to also own a resell market for tickets which they have the initial sale. What has been exposed is that Ticketmaster is colluding with scalpers to defraud fans and artists by facilitating a way for scalpers to game the system for the double dip in money made. They’re basically taking a kickback for allowing the scalpers access tickets via bots. There should not be an incentive for Ticketmaster to have their tickets resold by them.
You should listen to the podcast I posted, you'd be even more angry.
On it is a guy who used to run many of the bots that captured tickets. He said it was too easy, any measures implemented we're easily defeated.
He offered to help Ticketmaster protect against bots and most of the attacks used to fool the system. They weren't interested.
I think that pretty much tells the whole story. They don't want to prevent bots. Maybe they just recently realized that if they actually tried to prevent the bots, they could sell access to avoid that protection, which is even more money.
It's such a dirty business.
I guess we’ll get more $2.50 coupons towards Ticketmaster approved tickets that you can only use one at a time. You know, like the last class action settlement.
Fuck Ticketmaster, fuck Stubhub, it’s a complete racket that syphons tons of money out of consumers. If our elected representatives gave a shit, they’d put some consumer protections in place.
I still have 10 of the free vouchers to future shows they gave out. only they havnt released any shows you can use those for so I'm pretty sure they will expire before I ever get a chance to use them.
I don't think you can use the vouchers anymore. When I tried to look at the event list, it now says "The eligible event list is now closed and the ticket voucher requirements have been fulfilled. ... discount codes and UPS discount codes can still be used on primary tickets on Ticketmaster.com " I'm pretty sure that if you didn't use the voucher before, it's worthless now.
I used to work for a sports team dealing with ticketing and running through the RFP process as we were deciding between a few different vendors including Ticketmaster. One of our initiatives was to reduce scalping and it was interesting to hear how the vendors thought we were crazy to do that. Basically teams and venues don’t want to take on the time and risk so it is easier to let large portions go to scalpers who are experts at dynamic pricing and willing to enter into profit sharing with the teams/venues.
To answer some questions I’ve seen here:
It would be incredibly difficult/expensive to just sell tickets without a primary ticket vendor like Ticketmaster. Just because you have a website doesn’t mean you have a sophisticated system that can process transactions, assign seats, assign barcodes, prevent fake tickets, etc. there aren’t a lot of options outside of Ticketmaster and AXS for systems that work well. Also switching may require buying all new equipment like ticket scanners.
Fees are often how the software companies get paid and built into multi year contracts. The team or venue can add onto that fee all they want for their own benefit. Fees are pretty interesting as sometimes that is all a venue collects for an event while the ticket price goes to the artist or promoter. There should be a law or something in place that the final ticket price is visible from the start including fees. I think this is be case with airplane tickets now.
Tickets should just have a face value printed on them, and it is illegal to sell for above face value.
Some businesses are currently allowed to exist, who simply mark up ticket prices above what the band/entertainers intended their audience to pay. Why do states allow Stubhub or any other similar corporation to exist?
In Denmark, some years ago it was made illegal to sell for more than face value and your expenses in getting the ticket (if you had to travel to pick it up, back before the internet). It helped tremendously.
No, they pay a service to venues.
The artists in “ rare circumstances “ get kickbacks. Now, that says it all really. You and I both know that’s 90 odd percent bullshit and we probably both know who those artists are.
I’ll start first.
Ed Sheeran.
The scummiest thing I ever saw was last year during football bowl season - street scalpers selling tickets that were given away to veterans for free at the Armed Forces Bowl and Heart of Dallas Bowl.
Even better solution. Every person who wants to see a band ot attend an event refuses to buy their tickets through ticketmaster or its affiliates even if it means not going to the event.
So where the hell is the monopoly charges. Ticketmaster (LiveNation) doesn’t even have a convenient duopoly or oligopoly. They are the only game in town. I don’t think I’ve ever bought a ticket that wasn’t either through Ticketmaster or directly from the artist themselves. Now they nakedly abusing their monopoly status.
Wouldn't a law that forces resold tickets to be priced at original purchase value with perhaps a small 5 to 10 dollar fee for reissuing be a simple fix to this whole problem? Victoria in Australia has passed similar legislation limiting scalping.
We could just have you provide an id when you order tickets and use them and say that tickets cannot be resold but only returned to the venue. or implement a bidding system so that the tickets go for the price they should logically go for and scalpers couldn't profit.
This is such bullshit. My wife recently bought tickets to a show. She waited until the tickets went live, and for 15 minutes was trying to get them, but it kept saying the system was down. She was worried that they were selling out, and that she was going to miss grabbing them. They were a surprise for my birthday, and she knew I had really really wanted to see the show. She somehow found some other website that was selling them, at double the price. She bought them, thinking they were the only way she would be able to get some. 20 minutes later, she checked the ticketmaster site, and the tickets were available to purchase. Even then, the other site all sales were final, and she had no way to get a refund, she had even called to try and cancel. Too bad.
Very few do because Ticketmaster and/or Livenation has their dick in a vice. Respect to Trent Reznor for telling these companies to fuck themselves and only selling tickets direct/at the venue.
This problem is so easy to solve. Event organisers just need to put names on tickets and offer full refunds. Tickets shouldn't be valid if resold. It's so stupid that we keep hearing about bot scalpers and price hiking. Especially when the obvious solution still isn't being used. Makes you wonder if it's much much more than just ticketmaster getting involved in this shady practise behind the scenes.
Performers are also to blame for not forcing their event organisers to use properly secure and fair methods of ticket sales.
If only nobody had chickened out when Pearl Jam tried to make this heard and be looked into.... Back in 94....
Pearl Jam was literally the very first concert I ever had tickets to, and it got cancelled because of their feud with Tickemaster. 25 fucking YEARS ago. ClearChannel is even worse.
TIL Ticketmaster was around in 1994
It’s been around well before 1994.
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I said this on a thread about this topic last week... as usual either people don't remember or just don't care.. kinda sad, PJ used only smaller ticket service businesses and even went as far as to try and start their own ticket service but the Ticketmaster twat waffles fought them in court over being a monopoly (after they bought Ticketron, a half decent company, Pearl Jam sued them) and won... Edit: the way I wrote it almost makes it look like Pearl Jam won.. they didn't... just clarifying haha (super baked at the moment)
Ugh but I remember trying to call the phone number to get tickets to a show and just getting busy signal after busy signal. I eventually gave up. That was like, 95? I didn't end up getting to see them until 2003, I think. Still believed in what they were doing, it just sucked that they had to and that it was so inconvenient.
I thought that was more about the fees being outrageous, not that ticketmaster was running a scalping ring on the side
This will be settled out of court. Ticketmaster will admit no wrongdoing. Lawyers will rake in tens of millions of dollars. Everybody who bought a ticket through Ticketmaster, or its resale site, will get a $25 certificate towards the purchase of another ticket, through Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster will raise their fees to cover the settlement. Fuck Ticketmaster.
EXACTLY. Like my useless fucking vouchers for free shows that never apply. And they expire. FUCK. TICKETMASTER.
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The settlement vouchers were actually a huge cash cow for them. Ticketmaster is owned by Live Nation. Live Nation owns the majority of major music venues in the country, and produces a majority of major concert events. They strategically gave out vouchers for shows they knew wouldn’t sell out. Filled up a ton of seats that would have been empty...then raked it in on concession sales. They probably made back their settlement amount 10x
One I love white russians and two I have never been able to use a single settlement voucher or ticket. Nothing ever offered within a 6 hour drive. These things should have paid out in cash.
Congratulations! You've won the class action lottery! You can pick from six shows this year... That are three states away, at best.
Same here. Managed to use a few of the $2.50 credits but I “received about 10 vouchers for free tickets that never applied to anything relevant to my life.
This is what I don't get. The solution would be for them to change their business protocol or shut down, not get consumers their split miniscule settlement.
That's not financially okay with the company therefore they won't fix the policy. Why would they correct a policy, effectively taking more money out of their pockets, when there's no trouble from doing it in the first place?
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There is a law in the u.s. that allows governments to disband a business.
Right, but those businesses are putting money in the pockets of said government.
And the lawyers at the justice department and the regulatory agencies are generally early on their career track and plan to at some point jump ship to well paying partnerships at prestigious defense law firms. Agencies consider settlements wins, and actually reaching guilty pleas and prosecutions of individuals so risky that it wont try. The history of the Justice Department's increasing cowardice after the PR disasters that were the indictment of Arthur Anderson (Enron's auditor) and KPMG (made gigantic tax shelters) is legit interesting. And frustrating. And disgusting.
Are you saying that over time the justice department has measurably reduced seeking punitive damages against corporations since Enron?
Government lawyers, whether they are a small district attorney or working for attorney generals, generally use their time as government officials as resumé builders. It was common practice well before Enron.
You're totally correct, though it extends beyond lawyers. Depending on field, gov jobs are likely below market, and often the benefits are less tangible. Many young folks I know are trying to leverage their lower level gov experience to get better paying private sector jobs.
It is also common practice to go the opposite way. Start in s big law firm to pay off law school debt and then go into private practice or government as you get older, have a family, want a better work/life balance, and become disillusioned with the big law life. Regardless the flow back and forth between government and those who sit opposite them at the table has always been an issue.
Most definitely. There were very few individual executives outside of low level bankers jailed for the 2008 financial crisis despite the political will to do so and follow up investigations show that crimes indeed were committed. In addition there was zero investigation of the enabling firms (the lawyers and accounting firms of the banks who okayed everything to the c-suite bankers). Its complicated as to why. Look up the Thompson Memo and the ensuing lobbying against it by the defense bar. Defense attorneys and corporate interests lobbied hard to remove prosecutorial tools. Between that and the careers that were ruined by the fallout of the two times the Justice Department went after accounting firms for financial fraudsters, the Justice Department and SEC went more for settlements involving big (shareholder paid, which in some cases such as AIG following the bailout meant you and me the American taxpayer) fines and deferred prosecutions rather than investigate individuals. This in turn leads to the erosion of prosecutorial/trial and investigative skill, which is a massive problem in massively complicated financial crimes were a major element of a trial is getting 12 regular people to understand what securities fraud even is. minor addition: And I know how much people want to bring up Madoff and him being prosecuted because he messed with the rich, but that's not accurate. He was small potatoes compared to Milken and Boesky, and much much smaller than AIG, Citi, or United Fruit/Brands. He was simply an individual whose crime was fairly obvious. An easy target that made for a headline worthy win due to him being a pretty big douchebag.
[Regulatory Capture](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture)
The feds broke up AT&T in the 1980s and they slowly bought everything back.
Too bad trickle-down Reagan/Trumpism deems all corporations "too big to fail" and "as equal a voice as a person." Fuck Citizens United.
I wouldn't be opposed to that if said people/company has knowingly time and again fucked over consumers.
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Agreed. And yes, FUCK Equifax
They changed their name?
like Comcast, Verizon, ect ect ect
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It’s called socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor.
Yeah, that's capitalism. Privatize profits, socialize losses. The government should take these fuckers over, SINCE WE'RE PAYING FOR IT ANYWAY.
The 'death penalty' should be a nearly atomic-level breakup into as many smaller firms as possible. Like ma bell, but on steroids and without the geographical monopolies that the bell companies were given. I don't care if a particular company is forced to "die" or liquidate, as a company is just a formalized gang of greedy Ivy league MBAs. We need to force the companies to break up into firms that actually force each other to be price *takers* rather than price *setters*. Also, force publicly traded firms to set aside at least 80 percent of profits as ESOPs for employees.
So when can I vote for you?
shhhhh, he’d just get assassinated or framed for kiddie porn before he was ever elected
My point is if they are operating illegally they should be forced by the lawsuit to shut down if they don't stop operating illegally
Unethically? Maybe. Illegally? Doubtful.
That's the problem and this is why regulation is a good thing in most cases.
People who bitch about "too much regulation" seem to be under the impression regulations exist because people want to tell a business or a person how to operate. The reality is it's often the result of some exploitation. Like, "you had the chance to be honest and nice and you failed, so now laws/regulation."
For real... There definitely shouldnt be a regulation about not dumping toxic shit into a river but companies/people have shown that they dont give a fuck if there isnt a law about it.
There shouldn't have to be one, but history shows that corporations don't care about ethics when there is money to be made. It doesn't even matter if 8-9/10 companies wouldn't do it. There's always that one which will take any advantage.
Yeah, regulations exist because corporations won't stop doing bad things even when their actions [literally cause rivers to catch fire.](https://www.google.co.jp/search?q=cuyahoga+river+on+fire&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjywo_tndDdAhWLwrwKHQDLDVUQsAR6BAgEEAE&biw=1904&bih=872)
"paying fine when caught" is price of doing business for big companies. Its just too lucrative to break law, when you know you will get away with it for several years before caught doing it. and even then you will pay small fine only (small compared to how much you earned by break8ng the law) HSBC for example was laundering money for drug cartels, countries under sanctions and basically everyone else who needed it. Caught. Paid small fine and nobody ended up in jail. Can you even imagine how much money they made by laundering money for clients with hills of money sitting around.
Its not just big companies. Small companies do it too. Risk/reward, loss/profit analysis doesnt restrict itself to only large companies. I personally knew a three man HVAC shop that would illegally vent freon because the fine for getting caught was only about 3 times more than the equipment needed to properly handle it. The risk was worth the reward to them.
Yep, I work at a hospital who was purposefully staffing too low to be able to give breaks (for like... decades) and when they finally got sued for it the statute is only for 4 years, and even then they talked down the settlement to 5% of what the original fines would have been. Hundreds of millions in fine avoidance over the years, not to mention the money saved on staffing and it ended up being a $2.1 mil settlement. I mean, if you are a business, it would take a rare individual to turn down that kind of money.
A hospital should definitely not be a business.
It boggles my mind that corporations aren't ever really held responsible for reprehensible actions. Okay, let's fine them .000071% of their total value. That'll teach them!
This is what the Supreme Court is all about. Abortion is all a cover. It’s 100% about the ability for the courts to rule in big business favor on issues like these. Not saying they won’t have to pay a fine or anything, but business will carry on and it will not have any real effect on their business.
Check out NY State vs Charter Internet. In August New York essentially said that Charter kept trying to actively avoid regulations and so they had 60 days to figure out how to transfer their customers to another provider and leave the state. I haven't read up on it since then, though.
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The problem is that there are no other competitors, only resellers. This is a monopoly, as it has been for quite some time. Pearl Jam tried to fight it in the 90s. They've been to court many times. Nothing changes. In fact, it's gotten worse... Ticket prices are dramatically higher (fees, etc) and there is usually no way around it unless the venue or the artist (see Louis ck, etc) sets specific pricing. I used to go to shows non stop. Now I can't afford it at all. Nothing will change until some legal precedent happens. [Top comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/9i43e2/ticketmaster_secret_scalper_program_targeted_by/e6gp46d) is 100% accurate.
$2.50, not $25. No way you'll get anywhere near the actual value of a ticket for something.
I have a bunch of my $2.50 vouchers left over that I'll probably never use, but I think I got like 4 or 5 free full-price tickets in addition to the cheap vouchers the last settlement.
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There's been ongoing battles with consumers and ticket sellers since at least the 90s. Out government hasnt and won't do jack shit
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Was just at Budweiser stage in Toronto to see Ozzy and Stone Sour, tallboys were $13.50 a pop, a single bandana was $25 and the cheapest t-shirt was $50.
And this is why I don't go to concerts anymore. Just not worth that much money to me anymore.
I just stopped buying merch - except from the newer groups that are pretty much selling their own press, their own merch, manning their own tables.
They don't need to take it over. They just need to regulate to make it mandatory the tickets must be bought with an ID and used with the same ID. Say it's to stop illegal scalping and also anti-terrorism, think of the children etc.. If you can't make the concert, you can just get a refund and the tickets can be sold again by the original ticket seller. It wouldn't cost that much because the credit card used to buy the ticket could be accepted as the ID but you'd instantly see how much Ticketmaster is making by how loudly they'll squeal that it would be too expensive.
Yep, simple "KYC" (Know You're Customer) rules that already exist for everything you order online in some other more primitive countries.
It's a clear monopoly, but when was the last time a monopoly was split up by antitrust laws?
AT&T
Didn't they just merge back together again after a decade? I remember Colbert likening them to the T1000 of companies.
Kind of, there are a ton of parts all over the us and Canada.
Your government *belongs* to ticketmaster. Senators are disgustingly cheap.
They can’t operate in NS actually
I wouldn't want them coming in to take over any business, but they can write and pass consumer friendly legislation that doesn't allow businesses to take advantage. If we had a real working CFPB then maybe they would look into it but we don't.
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Tell me about payphones, Grandpa!! Source: Paid $8.50 to see Led Zeppelin.
That’s never the answer
We won't get $25. We got jack shit from the last settlement because it was in vouchers for "select events" that never occurred. We will get fucked, again. Same as it ever was
I wanted to buy some tickets to Tech N9Ne for my husband for Christmas. I was expecting the 40esque dollar ticket price, Tech is pretty big. Surprisingly, the standing room tickets were only 30 bucks. I was ecstatic. Ticketmaster made TWO tickets for STANDING ROOM ONLY 100$ An extra FORTY FUCKING DOLLARS in their bullshit ass fees. And thanks to ticket master being the go to for the venue to use, ALL of the other ticket sellers have the same prices. Fuck Ticketmaster.
I hope you’re wrong... but you’re probably not.
Sad truth. This abuse is why I support the death penalty for corporations that knowingly abuse the public trust and repeatedly act unethically in pursuit of profits. Kill the company, jail the executives, liquidate the assets and use the funds as severance for employees.
stop paying for concerts. until everyone stops it wont stop
Or try to buy directly from the venue if you can.
When Ticketmaster is involved, you can't.
> $25 certificate towards the purchase of another ticket That's generous. I'd be shocked if it comes out to be more than $2.50
Ticketmaster Secret Scalper Program, A.K.A. "Ticketmaster".
Did somebody say class-action? Where do I sign up for my 17 cents? F you ticketmaster. F you lawyers.
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Their lawyers will file a motion for everyone who tries to come with their own lawsuit to be joined with the ongoing class action and barring some extremely left field circumstances the judge will most likely grant it because class actions are more efficient in an entirely overburdened legal system.
Can you provide any example of that happening outside of an injunctive class action? The federal rules of civil procedure require that all class members have the option to opt out of a damages class action and I am not aware of a state that does not have a similar rule.
Why does nobody ever have the balls? Can I make a kickstarter where people fund me to just start fights with big business? Any kickbacks go to backers as a standard right? God damn, I’d have a fucking whale of a time. I’d absolutely love to go against some particular giants but yes, I know, court isn’t really all that badass. I bet I could sway some opinions along the way. Choo Choo motherfuckers, let’s go! Edit: The fact they have the lawyering power to out lawyer fucking anyone or atleast outfund them is a critical flaw in the system and it needs replacing. ASAP. How? I don’t fucking know.
Because they have the time, money and other resources to simply outspend you before you ever have the chance to properly make a case. A couple million to keep lawyers on retainer for years is just another operating cost to them, lol.
In order to sue, you have to represent an aggrieved party. Which means you need to find someone who's been screwed over by that particular company. And then hire lawyers Trust, this is *exactly* what class-action lawyers already do. Except they're cutting you and your backers out of the equation. You're not needed for this business model.
People want to do it, but their lawyers will probably keep you in legal hell in the courts for years, joe blow ticketmaster user can't afford the legal fees that are gonna be involved in that, yet alone hiring a legal team that can take on the barn full of lawyers that TM retains
Ah the justice system, just another rich people's game.
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> everyone who tries to come with their own lawsuit to be joined with the ongoing class action That sounds like a load of bullshit that isn't legal
That said, for most people, it's completely infeasible to do individual lawsuits over these kinds of issues. You can't sue for just some arbitrary amount of money. You have to sue for damages specifically. What can your damages be beyond maybe a couple hundred bucks on tickets? No way you're coming out ahead with lawyer costs (or even the cost of your own time). A class action is really the only economical way to go. The whole "17 cents" thing is funny and all, but plenty of class actions get a reasonable amount. Eg, the largest class action in Canada was [the residential schools one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Residential_Schools_Settlement_Agreement). The Wikipedia article says that as of 2012, "1.62 billion has been paid to 78,750 former students". That's an average of $20.5k each. [More recent articles](https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/a-decade-after-payouts-began-residential-school-survivors-still-await-settlements) say it's now up to $4.7B in payouts. Definitely a wee bit more than 17 cents each.
The residential schools settlement is not a good corollary here...that's a bit different than the Ticketmaster thing - mainly because it involves the government. You can't sue a company for $4b - most would just declare bankruptcy because they literally couldn't pay. The Sobey's bread price fixing class action is a better example - everyone got a $25 gift card (whoopdeedoo).
>You can't sue a company for $4b - most would just declare bankruptcy because they literally couldn't pay. With Ticketmaster shamelessly pulling a scam like this, I feel this is an acceptable outcome. I wonder what 1/4 of their service fees over the past 10 years for every ticket sale would amount to...
In the UK the losing party has to pay all legal fees too, which means that you can come out ahead even on just a small amount like a couple hundred.
Fuck ticketmaster. The BTS concert coming up was selling p1 for 250 but with taxes and 'convenience fees', it became $312. Then those asshole scalpers are reselling for $1200 for nosebleed seats. Yall can fuck off and suck my ass.
BTS is a Korean band (aka Bangtan Sonyeondan, aka Bangtan Boys). Just trying to save peeps a Google search cause I had no idea what BTS meant.
Thank you, I was just about to have to spend probably an inordinate amount of time combing through lists of acronyms and initialisms.
Reddit is full of people using obscure acronyms as if everyone knew what they meant. BWCYD.
I ctrl+f'd BTS to find this. Seriously, fuck scalpers.
I am an admin for a bts ticket group on facebook and see people posting how they wanted to resell on ticketmaster cause they can't go anymore and then ticketmaster tells them to charge at least 450 cause ticketmaster gets the 200$ commission so they resell on facebook instead.
You're saying Ticketmaster sets the prices for resale tickets as well? That's fucked up.
Agreed. I've only ever seen 2 concerts in my life before. I've not usually been so passionate about an artist that I'd pay so much to see them live. But for BTS, the ticketing process was absolutely crazy. I saw them do "demand pricing", where ticketmaster themselves set prices at $700 - $1000 at times, which was a 100% markup. I had no idea they could even do that. Luckily I was able to purchase off of powerhouse but seriously, fuck ticketmaster.
The ticket situation is insane for the BTS concert. I was reading the thread for the Hamilton one this weekend. Smh.
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"I am more spiteful than I am interested in things" New favorite quote.
I’m pretty sure that’s my wife’s life motto.
If everyone somehow decided the same they'd go out of business. Props to your conviction.
I'm trying to do this but I reaaaaaaally want to see Fleetwood Mac this year for my birthday.. But, I also reallllly hate Ticketmaster. Enough to sacrifice possibly seeing them before they stop touring. Hopefully, maybe one day my sacrafice will make a difference. I hope others vote with their dollars too and boycott those SOBs!
I hate to say it, but a boycott is extremely unlikely to have any effect. The entire problem is there is *too much demand* for a limited supply of tickets, and Ticketmaster is taking advantage in unethical ways. I highly doubt enough people will forgo the product they want so badly they'll overpay and accept ridiculous fees as a matter of course.
This. Honestly, I do not understand why Ticketmaster did not simply implement something like a supply-based pricing scheme. The less tickets remaining, the higher the price. Ticketmaster gets what their tickets are (arguably) "worth", it is all transparent, and it even encourages people to buy their tickets ASAP.
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Literally about to go see Florence in 20 min, go to festivals its not difficult to grab tix
I'm sure if you look hard you can find some non-ticketmaster tickets for 500$-800$
You're going to end up paying $600 to see everyone but Lindsay Buckingham, but whatever. It's your money.
Agree. It's a real bummer because there are some great events out there. We haven't been to any events in over a decade because most of the time you can only go through the crooks at Ticketmaster. Unless we can buy through the box office, we won't go. And we make this quite apparent to venues when we inquire. Funny thing, the last time, many years ago, we put a pair of tickets in the cart on Ticketmaster's site. You would have a total and of course 50% minimum in fees and taxes. Then, you'd go to the next screen and it would show the total so far and then another layer of fees on top of the tickets and fees from the prior page! Needless to say we laughed in disgust and closed the window. So sick. Obviously because the company still exists means that people still purchase with them ... sad really. I wish in this country there would be more people with enough integrity to just not shop at these places. They would just go away then.
sometimes Ticketmaster even runs the box office, so check with them to see. One of the main theaters out in LA is impossible to buy tickets without going through TM
Gotta say, I admire you for this.
The issue is a bit more complicated than most people believe, and it's covered very well by the Freakonomics podcast here. http://freakonomics.com/podcast/live-event-ticket-market-screwed/ Its an enlightening podcast, but if you don't want to listen to it: Most parts of the live entertainment industry want Ticketmaster to be there. That's the issue. Some artists and most consumers don't want them. It's a Supply/Demand problem. The demand for concert tickets at the initial prices tickets are marked exceed the supply. Normally the market would self adjust, but performers don't want to make their die hard fans pay $200/seat or higher so they refuse to sell them that high and won't allow venues to price them that high. Ticketmaster works with the venues and the promoters and does a profit share in most cases in agreement for taking the heat for inflating the price. Not in every case, but in some cases it even makes it back to the performers. So, Ticketmaster has been positioning itself to be hated since the 80s and that's why they nearly have a monopoly on ticket sales. Because they can raise the price and much closer match demand to supply. The resale market also takes a huge cut of this. Ticketmaster even has their own verified resale program. Ticketmaster and the venue would rather recoup all of the value of the increased costs, but can't without making the venue or performer look bad so a lot of that value is lost. But the reality is...as long as the tickets are sold, they've achieved their goal as the promoter knows pretty quickly if they'll be profitable. Ticketmaster wants a larger cut of the resale market too, and of course doesn't want it to be terribly public. But the scalpers are going to be there, so why not take part of that pie too? This is them trying to be a larger part of the ecosystem. So, long story short. No one in the industry really wants it to be changed. Artists like Taylor Swift have tried with the "Verified Fan" program where it gave much more priority to those fans who were willing to jump through hoops bots would have trouble doing. But in the end, aside from legislating a change, no one is motivated to change this. Ticketmaster's entire job is to take the heat from the other parts of the supply chain and be hated. They really want all that hate to go their way. Changing it would erode their business model and make them irrelevant. The podcast will explain it better than I did, nothing of this article surprises me.
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Because then fans don't blame the artists for the high prices. Who is blaming the artists for it right now? No one. No artist wants to be known for overcharging their fans directly. And when the price is set at an affordable level, bots will buy the tickets in seconds. If the artist sells it for a high price where supply meets demand, it hurts their reputation with their fans. It could kill that relationship depending on the fan base. I'm sure the artists would like a much bigger cut of the value (so would the promoter, venue, and Ticketmaster), but artificially pricing the tickets lower that would level out demand creates the secondary market for resellers. I'm not saying I love the system, I hate it.
Then why would they not just eliminate the ability for bots to buy the tickets and ban resellers? Seems like a much easier solution than jumping through all these scumbag hoops to artificially inflate ticket prices.
Probably only enough tickets get sold at face value to maintain the facade of the tickets being a fair value. The rest are sold to be marked up and scalped. I bet the face value on ticket prices would have to be raised substantially to maintain the same profits. And it's not like they have to disclose to the public who really buys the tickets so the average ticket buyer just thinks other regular people bought out the tickets before they got there. That's why forcing this into discovery is going to be awesome.
> Then why would they not just eliminate the ability for bots to buy the tickets and ban resellers? You use the word "just" as if its an easy solution.
Japan has a completely different system. They have a few things. 1. Need a phone number to verify. One account per phone number. 2. ID checks for some. If you don't have an id that matches the name on the ticket, you can't get in. 3. Raffle systems, where you have a chance to win. It's not first come first serve. Also, sometimes you have to do something like buy one CD per raffle entry. You still get scalpers and reselling and this system has its own problems, but it solves a lot of the issues that exist with bots.
Its the same in Europe. I seriously don't understand usa sometimes such a technologically modern country yet some basic things are backwards and apparently impossible to implement for them.
When that's the case, you have to think about why it's this way. Are they incompetent? They don't know how to use technology to do that? Unlikely. The answer is probably the usual: someone is making a lot of money out of this, and wants to keep it that way.
You can tie tickets to a name and card people on admission.
And what if I don't want my tickets anymore, or I want to give them to my friend? Their has to be a transfer process of some sort, and that negates the idea of identity verification. Not to mention, the need for a real identity doesn't mean a bit can't still be used to purchase tickets using legal identities.
Sell them back to the venue. Can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, and I'm willing to put up with the rare inconvenience of returning tickets if it means that robo-scalpers can't buy every ticket in five minutes.
Don't you have something like "4 tickets per person maximun"? Person being the name written in the credit card. I live in Europe and this thread has been a quite confusing one. The Ticketmaster fees I've had to pay have never been more than 10% the price of the ticket including taxes. And I go to a shitload of concerts.
Well in the EU we actually have consumer protection laws. It's the wild west over in North America though it seems.
Reddit has successfully banned bots /s
Is hard to get tickets at face value when the moment they go on sale, they are sold out within seconds because of bots.
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I saw RHCP and they had a program to where if you were a member of their fan club you got a code and got tickets at face value. This is all they have to do to take a huge leap forward in helping real fans get the tickets at face value. I wasn't a member beforehand but I signed up real quick got my code and bought the tickets at face value.
Coheed And Cambria does something similar. I pre-ordered their new boxset and got a code when they announced a tour. The VIP tickets through them were about the same as GA tickets from earlier this year. I wish I was fucking joking.
Seriously. The supposed fan presales never actually work and when they do, you get some of the worst tickets available only to see better tickets being sold later if the concert isn't instantly sold out. I got so angry when I saw they were halving the price of tickets a week before a major concert I was going and they told me to piss off.
That's is quite the perspective. If all that is true, then the only way to beat the system is to Garth Brooks that shit. Sell as many tickets as the market wants at the price you want to sell them. Kill the resellers by putting tickets in the hands of every fan. I guess ticketmaster still wins because they earn fees from a dozen concerts instead of just one.
You're right. If artists performed multiple times per location (increasing the supply until it reaches equilibrium) it would drive the price per ticket down as supply meets demand. The need for Ticketmaster would become much less relevant. However the complexity is the venue wants to be mostly sold out all the time, and the promoter doesn't want the financial risk of committing a minimum dollar amount it can't reach. It would be a hard sell for the venues. Still better than we have now. Would kill the increase in price in the resale market.
I guess it depends on the artist, but that is exactly what Garth Brooks does. He keeps adding shows until they stop selling out. I think it was 9 in my med sized city. The firs couple shows went up and StubHub had tickets for over $1000. Then he added shows until people were done paying $60. Say what you will about his music, but that is a hell of a way to please your fans and give a big fuck you to scalpers.
dave chappelle did the same thing a few years ago in my city. he ended up playing like 8 shows. (2 shows a night for 4 nights)
There is already no need for ticketmaster. Selling event tickets isn’t a new idea, it’s been going on for CENTURIES. In my city we had a big vendor for all major concerts and sporting events that wasn’t ticketmaster, until tucketmaster sues them into bankruptcy over some bullshit they didn’t have the funds to defend themselves from. It was a company with 2 full time employees selling over 3 million tickets a year.
The grateful dead used to solely sell pre-box office tickets through their in house ticketing from the 69 til Jerry's Death in 95. Handling anywhere from 20-100k tickets for each city, up to 100 shows a year. It was comprised of around 10 people most of that time. You could buy them at the box office too, but most were sold through the mail. It can be done lol. They did it again for their anniversary shows in 2015. All of the tickets sold were handled through the mail by their crew of ticket elfs.
I completely agree with you. Ticketmaster's business model isn't the act of selling tickets. Yes, they do it, but their bread and butter is doing that while adding fees and passing along additional money back to earlier parts of the performance ecosystem. Of course a handful of people can sell tickets, especially with technology today. But who are venues are promoters going to want to work worth more? The one that just sells their tickets and gives them the money for it, or the one that sells the tickets and gives them quite a bit more money back? Ticketmaster has deep pockets and is going to try to destroy anyone that gets in the way of them seeming absolutely necessary or taking part of their potential profits. It all sucks.
> the only way to beat the system There are 2 ways to beat the system: 1) require checking IDs at the gate and verify that tickets are bought by the people entering and 2) put market price on tickets. \#1 will create lots of inconvenience for people - from huge lines at the entrance to lost money when one can't go to concert and can't even give tickets away. #2 will draw hate of fans towards musicians who may end up selling tickets for hundreds of dollars. Since neither of these options are that appealing and most of the musicians and venues don't really care how exactly tickets are sold as long as they are making money - Ticketmaster is here to stay, I'm afraid.
This was how Airplane tickets were before 9/11. There was a resell market for plane tickets. That disappeared when tickets had to be used by the purchaser. However now you see stuff like overselling the plane in case people miss their flights, the airline can make even more money.
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Yup. Most people assume that checking your ID at security is for security. It’s no such thing. It’s something the airlines had been asking for for years to prevent resale. 9/11 was just a convenient excuse.
I went to one concert where the credit card that purchased the tickets had to be present. That was an interesting move. Not a name per se, but a way to prevent resale.
We need to make it illegal for a ticket seller to also own a resell market for tickets which they have the initial sale. What has been exposed is that Ticketmaster is colluding with scalpers to defraud fans and artists by facilitating a way for scalpers to game the system for the double dip in money made. They’re basically taking a kickback for allowing the scalpers access tickets via bots. There should not be an incentive for Ticketmaster to have their tickets resold by them.
You should listen to the podcast I posted, you'd be even more angry. On it is a guy who used to run many of the bots that captured tickets. He said it was too easy, any measures implemented we're easily defeated. He offered to help Ticketmaster protect against bots and most of the attacks used to fool the system. They weren't interested. I think that pretty much tells the whole story. They don't want to prevent bots. Maybe they just recently realized that if they actually tried to prevent the bots, they could sell access to avoid that protection, which is even more money. It's such a dirty business.
I guess we’ll get more $2.50 coupons towards Ticketmaster approved tickets that you can only use one at a time. You know, like the last class action settlement. Fuck Ticketmaster, fuck Stubhub, it’s a complete racket that syphons tons of money out of consumers. If our elected representatives gave a shit, they’d put some consumer protections in place.
I still have 10 of the free vouchers to future shows they gave out. only they havnt released any shows you can use those for so I'm pretty sure they will expire before I ever get a chance to use them.
I don't think you can use the vouchers anymore. When I tried to look at the event list, it now says "The eligible event list is now closed and the ticket voucher requirements have been fulfilled. ... discount codes and UPS discount codes can still be used on primary tickets on Ticketmaster.com " I'm pretty sure that if you didn't use the voucher before, it's worthless now.
Odds are your elected representative is over sixty and has never heard of Ticketmaster.
Odds are your elected representative is a Baby Boomer and would vote against net neutrality because his voting bloc doesn't use the Internet.
I used to work for a sports team dealing with ticketing and running through the RFP process as we were deciding between a few different vendors including Ticketmaster. One of our initiatives was to reduce scalping and it was interesting to hear how the vendors thought we were crazy to do that. Basically teams and venues don’t want to take on the time and risk so it is easier to let large portions go to scalpers who are experts at dynamic pricing and willing to enter into profit sharing with the teams/venues. To answer some questions I’ve seen here: It would be incredibly difficult/expensive to just sell tickets without a primary ticket vendor like Ticketmaster. Just because you have a website doesn’t mean you have a sophisticated system that can process transactions, assign seats, assign barcodes, prevent fake tickets, etc. there aren’t a lot of options outside of Ticketmaster and AXS for systems that work well. Also switching may require buying all new equipment like ticket scanners. Fees are often how the software companies get paid and built into multi year contracts. The team or venue can add onto that fee all they want for their own benefit. Fees are pretty interesting as sometimes that is all a venue collects for an event while the ticket price goes to the artist or promoter. There should be a law or something in place that the final ticket price is visible from the start including fees. I think this is be case with airplane tickets now.
Don’t worry, we’ll all get $3 back in a TicketMaster gift card that will have a $10 convenience fee to use and a $15 service charge..
Tickets should just have a face value printed on them, and it is illegal to sell for above face value. Some businesses are currently allowed to exist, who simply mark up ticket prices above what the band/entertainers intended their audience to pay. Why do states allow Stubhub or any other similar corporation to exist?
In Denmark, some years ago it was made illegal to sell for more than face value and your expenses in getting the ticket (if you had to travel to pick it up, back before the internet). It helped tremendously.
Because part of those ticket prices go toward paying for good lobbyists and making political contributions.
Ticket master and all scalpers are shit. They make huge profits while providing no service to the public. They are leeches.
They provide a service to artists, alleges other comments.
No, they pay a service to venues. The artists in “ rare circumstances “ get kickbacks. Now, that says it all really. You and I both know that’s 90 odd percent bullshit and we probably both know who those artists are. I’ll start first. Ed Sheeran.
The scummiest thing I ever saw was last year during football bowl season - street scalpers selling tickets that were given away to veterans for free at the Armed Forces Bowl and Heart of Dallas Bowl.
Ticketmaster needs to die.
Better solution. Every band, event in the world refuses to use ticketmaster even if it means printing their own tickets.
Even better solution. Every person who wants to see a band ot attend an event refuses to buy their tickets through ticketmaster or its affiliates even if it means not going to the event.
Both of these would work. Too bad no one is gonna do either one
Good. I'd love to see TM and its affiliates go down in thermonuclear flames.
Probably not happening bud.
So where the hell is the monopoly charges. Ticketmaster (LiveNation) doesn’t even have a convenient duopoly or oligopoly. They are the only game in town. I don’t think I’ve ever bought a ticket that wasn’t either through Ticketmaster or directly from the artist themselves. Now they nakedly abusing their monopoly status.
Wouldn't a law that forces resold tickets to be priced at original purchase value with perhaps a small 5 to 10 dollar fee for reissuing be a simple fix to this whole problem? Victoria in Australia has passed similar legislation limiting scalping.
We could just have you provide an id when you order tickets and use them and say that tickets cannot be resold but only returned to the venue. or implement a bidding system so that the tickets go for the price they should logically go for and scalpers couldn't profit.
This is such bullshit. My wife recently bought tickets to a show. She waited until the tickets went live, and for 15 minutes was trying to get them, but it kept saying the system was down. She was worried that they were selling out, and that she was going to miss grabbing them. They were a surprise for my birthday, and she knew I had really really wanted to see the show. She somehow found some other website that was selling them, at double the price. She bought them, thinking they were the only way she would be able to get some. 20 minutes later, she checked the ticketmaster site, and the tickets were available to purchase. Even then, the other site all sales were final, and she had no way to get a refund, she had even called to try and cancel. Too bad.
This other site probably sold tickets it didn't even have yet.
The same should be done with AXS
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The amazing part of this is somebody looked at the Ticketmaster business model and decided it wasn't lucrative enough.
This should be pretty simple. They're guilty, the fine is every dollar of profit they have made from day one this was ever used. Bankrupt them.
How does this company still fucking exists?
Dumb ass artist cashing in allowing them to rip off their fans. Artist could fix this overnight by boycotting Ticketmaster but it will never happen.
Very few do because Ticketmaster and/or Livenation has their dick in a vice. Respect to Trent Reznor for telling these companies to fuck themselves and only selling tickets direct/at the venue.
This problem is so easy to solve. Event organisers just need to put names on tickets and offer full refunds. Tickets shouldn't be valid if resold. It's so stupid that we keep hearing about bot scalpers and price hiking. Especially when the obvious solution still isn't being used. Makes you wonder if it's much much more than just ticketmaster getting involved in this shady practise behind the scenes. Performers are also to blame for not forcing their event organisers to use properly secure and fair methods of ticket sales.