Rage Against the Machine

Or, why I’ve come to hate online ticketing services


By Jake Corbin

When it comes to the weekend, I don’t get out of bed until I’m good and ready. Alarm clocks do not exist on Saturday and Sunday in my world.

After five days of pushing papers at work, expanding my brain at school and burning the midnight oil doing homework, my batteries need to recharge.

All that changes, however, when concert tickets are on the line.

I woke up at exactly 10 a.m. today to purchase two tickets to see NOFX (one of my all-time favorite punk bands!) at the Fillmore in San Francisco.

Since I don’t live in the Bay area, the only way to buy them was through the venue’s website. Using my stellar Internet skills, it took only a few clicks before I was ready to secure my tickets.

Two general admission tickets (yeah! I don’t have to worry about getting a bad seat) for NOFX at the Fillmore, Friday, February 13, 2009. So far, so good.

Price: $22.50 per ticket. Not bad, especially considering this band has been rocking for 25 years now!

Convenience fee: $8.50 per ticket. Wait! Huh? Hold on a minute.

Order fee: $5. Seriously? What the hell is going on here?!

When it was all said and done, I paid nearly $70 for tickets that, at face value, are worth only $45. That’s like buying three tickets and only receiving two.



Concert promoters Ticketmaster and Live Nation have made it virtually impossible to buy tickets online or via phone for events without incurring added fees on top of ticket prices.

With a stranglehold over most major venues throughout the country, the ticketing business giants have forced consumers into a corner: Either you pay the additional fees or don’t see the show.

But what are these so-called “convenience” fees even for?

A search of Live Nation’s eight pages of frequently asked questions turned up nothing about the mystery fees—how convenient.

Ticketmaster, however, offered this:

“This fee [convenience charge] covers costs that allow Ticketmaster to provide the widest range of available tickets while giving you multiple ways to purchase… the convenience charge varies by event and is determined by negotiations with arena operators, promoters and others, based on costs for each event.”

Question: What is Ticketmaster (and Live Nation for that matter) doing that other websites are not? There aren’t convenience fees, for example, when you buy a book from Amazon.com. Isn’t this the same thing? You log on, click “buy”, put your credit card information in and wait for a confirmation. What makes these concert promoters so special?

As for the additional processing fee, Ticketmaster says:

“The order processing fee covers the cost to fulfill your ticket request when you purchase the tickets online or by phone. This charge includes services, such as taking and maintaining your order on our ticketing systems, arranging for shipping and/or coordinating with the box office will call.”

Once again, what extra service are they providing? Processing fees don’t apply when ordering DVDs from BestBuy.com. Why is the piece of paper the ticket is printed on any different?

Something just doesn’t seem to add up.

Steve Butcher, CEO of Brown Paper Tickets, a Seattle-based ticketing service, says his competitor’s reasoning for extra service fees—technology costs being a prime example—simply doesn’t make sense.

“With technology, the cost of delivering the same services over the years has gone way down but the fees have gone up,” Butcher told Marketplace radio.

Butcher said his company uses similar anti-fraud technology as Ticketmaster, but on a $10 ticket, Brown Paper charges a significantly smaller service fee: only $1.24.

Butcher has managed to keep costs down by avoiding long-term contracts with venues and never negotiating service fees.

“One of the first things [venues would] ask before they signed up was ‘how much of the service fee can we get back?’” Butcher said. “We said, ‘Well, actually, no, you just increase your price [of the ticket] to get what you need and we keep our service fee.’”

IS THERE A SOLUTION?

Face it, until big promoters like Ticketmaster and Live Nation switch their business model to Brown Paper Tickets’ approach, additional fees are something consumers will have to continue to combat.

There is, however, one solution for cash-strapped concert-goers: Attend local shows only.

By going to shows in your town, you can buy tickets directly from the venue box office and avoid the costly convenience of the Internet.

Now if only NOFX would add a Sacramento date.

[Crowd photo courtesy of spinal_faun on Flickr]
["Rip Off" photo courtesy of outerworldarcade.com]