Ticketmaster system rips off average Joe

On Monday, I went to the Radiohead concert at Hifi Buys Amphitheatre. The concert was amazing because, as usual, Thom Yorke and the rest of the band rocked. The only part of the concert that wasn’t great was the Ticketmaster surcharge I had to pay.

The right to purchase a ticket through them is $6.90. Next, you have to pay so-called “facility fees” which vary anywhere from nothing to upwards of $10. Then comes the delivery fees, which are free if you want to have your tickets sent in standard mail, $2.50 to print them out on your computer or $19.50 for two-day delivery through UPS.

That’s right, you can pay $2.50 to use your own printer, paper and ink to get tickets into which you just sunk a lot of money. But people do, according to a New York Times article published last month; over 30 percent of tickets sold are now printed at home. Ticketmaster sells a half-million home-printed tickets for sporting and entertainment events each month in North America.

Granted, printing out the tickets is convenient if you decide to go to the event the night before. Plus, Ticketmaster had to spend $15 million to $20 million to equip almost 700 venues in the U.S. and Canada with bar-code scanners that read and authenticate the tickets and computers to capture information such as what seats are filled.

However, since getting your tickets fast is so popular, the fee should go down once the equipment is paid for, especially if the system receives $1.25 million in business each month.

My concert ticket came to around $50 for a lawn seat after surcharges. The face value of the ticket was only $36.50. Another recent concert ticket I purchased was $20 and then I was assessed $9.50 in surcharges. The surcharges were almost a 50 percent markup from the ticket’s actual face value.

But it’s not like I have much choice-nor do most consumers. Ticketmaster has a virtual monopoly on all ticketing in North America.

Last year the company sold over 95 million tickets. Most venues nowadays won’t even sell tickets directly, they’ll simply refer you to Ticketmaster. The outlet sells tickets for all sporting and entertainment events in the nation, online and in stores. The company sells 51 percent of its tickets through its website, and the other 49 percent comes from phone sales or walk-up locations.

And guess what? They’re furthering their quest for world domination by aiming to take over the scalping business as well. Last month Ticketmaster announced that it would begin auctioning the best seats to concerts last this year through its website. The company will begin competing with brokers and scalpers for the highest price the market will allow.

“The tickets are worth what they’re worth,'’ John Pleasants,Ticketmaster’s president and chief executive, said in the New York Times. “If somebody wants to charge $50 for a ticket, but it’s actually worth $1,000 on eBay, the ticket’s worth $1,000. I think more and more, our clients-the promoters, the clients in the buildings and the bands themselves-are saying to themselves, ‘Maybe that money should be coming to me instead of Bob the Broker.'”

Who can afford a $1000 ticket? Certainly not most loyal, long-time fans or teenagers looking to get as close as possible to their favorite pop idol. So instead of people who enjoy and respect the particular band or team getting a once in a lifetime opportunity to see their favorite act up close, it’ll be the highest bidder. Or fans will go to the poor house just to get a glimpse of their favorite artist.

It’ll be just like Tech football games where most of the prime chairback seats are empty because those seats belong to the biggest contributors and not fans. The “true” fans will be stuck in nosebleed seats, itching for a closer look the whole time.

Granted, eBay has had a thriving marketplace for tickets for many years, but it’s not as though eBay is in the unique position of being the sole source for ticket sales. People usually turn to ticketmaster.com first, before they’ll buy from a scalper or through an online auction.

According to Pleasants, venue operators, promoters and performers will have a choice about deciding to participate in the Ticketmaster auctions. But who’s going to say no? As long as the promoters and venue operators want to maximize profits, the artists will have to go along with it or lose tons of money if they want to take a stand.

Thus far only Pearl Jam and the String Cheese Incident have made high profile protests against Ticketmaster. Pearl Jam stopped touring for years because of them. The String Cheese Incident filed a lawsuit in August, alleging that Ticketmaster is a monopoly because the company is trying to prevent the band from selling its tickets directly to fans without the surcharges.

When the auctioning system goes into effect, Ticketmaster will receive flat fees or a percentage of the winning bids, depending on what the company decides with the operators of each event.

The auctions will cause all tickets to go up in price. The auctions will be giving Ticketmaster, promoters, artists and venues a clearer picture of what an event’s market value is. If prime seats start selling for hundreds of dollars more, then it will cause the ticket prices of all seats to go up. If the monopoly isn’t broken up soon or if more artists choose not to speak up, then my advice to you is to start saving your pennies now if you plan on heading to that next show or game.