Mugged By Ticketmaster - The Outrageous Tax On Culture
By Tom Foremski - October 2, 2009
My daughter Sarah asked me to buy a ticket for her for a music event at a San Francisco venue. The ticket was $13.50 but I ended up feeling I'd been mugged by Ticketmaster.
I'm used to the outrageous fees that Ticketmaster levies but they snuck one up on me that was hidden. In addition to a facility charge of $1.50 and the convenience charge of $5.90, there was a hidden order processing fee of $5.40! Total cost was $26.30!
And it could easily have been more, I could have chosen to print out the ticket for a fee of $2! instead of the will call option. I could also have chosen insurance for my ticket, and other options that would have taken the price closer to $30. That's for a $13.50 ticket! Outrageous!
What value has Ticketmaster provided?!
Did Ticketmaster rehearse in a garage for years so that they could play live at large San Francisco venue? Did Ticketmaster hire the venue staff and deal with the serious logisitcs of thousands of people and the safety requirements?
No, Ticketmaster's added value was to serve up a web page and process a payemnt. Visa and Mastercard do that for 4 percent cut and people complain. But Ticketmaster takes nearly 100 per cent of the ticket price!
This is an over-the-top tax on culture from a greedy corporation that has bought monopoly rights to tens of thousands of venues.
This is a tax on culture, it cuts down on live performances and on people getting together. My daughter is 15 and she can afford a $13.50 ticket but when it gets inflated to $26.30, she can't and that means the artists lose out too.
Ticketmaster imposes an unfair tax on our culture by making it more expensive to attend cultural events. This is not good for our society.
If I can help it I will never buy from Ticketmaster again and I urge the FTC to block any of its acquisitions such as with Live Nation. And I urge others not to invest in Ticketmaster or any of the funds that invest in Ticketmaster [TKTM].
UPDATE: There are more than 150 comments on this story on ZDNet: When web services go bad: Ticketmaster's outrageous tax on culture - it harms society | Tom Foremski: IMHO | ZDNet.com
And here are some emails I've received from readers:
For example:
A reader writes:
When I bought five tickets for my family to see Aerosmith and the show got cancelled, Ticketmaster only refunded the face value of the tickets - not any of the extra rip-off fees. That added up to a hefty hunk of change for a show we never saw.
...Collecting Ticketmaster horror stories
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Comments (5)
I totally agreee - it is a total rip off and they seemed to captured the market - why not use eventbright or eventelephant!
Posted: October 2, 2009 10:53 PM
I couldn't agree with you more-- but you don't even want to get me started on corporations.
On the other hand, maybe you should get me started. Perhaps we need to act on what is at the root of many of the issues in this country; corporate greed, and corporate takeover.
And what about Corporate Personhood? 'Persons' whose primary obligation is to make a profit, and who have hundreds of billions of dollars to protect their 'rights'. I think we are seeing what that does to our rights, and your example of a 'culture tax' shows how a corporation can impact our identity as a country. They control the content, they control the access. If we want to change it, we're all going to need to get started.
Posted: October 4, 2009 6:17 PM
Jennifer: Excellent points... How did we get into this position of having a company like Ticketmaster control access to live content? And with the acquisition of Live Nation they are seeking even more control.
Posted: October 5, 2009 10:36 AM
Wow - these issues have had ME frustrated for years now. I live in Canada and purchase tons of tickets. It really upsets me when I usually end up having to purchase event tickets from a US company for an event taking place in my own city in Canada - if I want decent seats that are not up in the nosebleed sections. To get decent Jay-Z tickets here for my daughter and her friend, I had to bid in a TM auction. It cost me over $500 for those seats.
Posted: October 5, 2009 9:08 PM
Tom-- It seems like every issue I run into these days has a tie back into corporate power, which is why I pointed out the concept of corporate personhood. I really think this is how we end up with a Ticketmaster monopoly that they can claim isn't one. I first heard the concept from a progressive news commentator and author, Thom Hartmann. It was one of those moments where you go "Oh!", and then smack yourself in the forehead. This is how they take our power in Congress, and it's how they dictate our choices in everything we do, everyday. I don't feel we are without power though, we can stay informed and vote with our dollars whenever possible. We can also get involved in calling our representatives and forcing their hand. Right now, lobbyists that represent the interest of corporations have the ear of our members of Congress, it's time we make them listen to our voices again.
When it comes to this issue with Ticketmaster though, what do you do? If your favorite artist is playing, you want to go see them. That's much harder to boycott. So could we influence the Artists? I know that some bands like Rush make a point of keeping the costs of their tickets in line. They can't control every aspect, but they do try. I have noticed in my own experience that you can't get on Ticketmaster fast enough to buy a premium seat directly, it makes you wonder about how they conspire with third party brokers who jack up the prices 3 and 4 times over. That should be illegal.
I'm off to read your update post on this issue. I love it when people use their platform to influence people to share information and take action. So, well done! I bet you're not alone on this one...
Posted: October 6, 2009 3:40 PM