
Ticketmaster is a horrible company - hjhart
https://hjhart.github.io/2017/01/03/ticketmaster-is-a-horrible-company.html
======
jason_slack
I used to do web contract work for a company that was eventually bought by
Ticketmaster. I left before the sale. I was actually "let go" because I didn't
comply with design goals.

One of the things that was encouraged in the design was to "hide away" things
that detracted the user from checking out quickly. This included:

* Smaller font for things that you would gloss over or not even read, when you really needed to read it.

* A "time ticker" when one really was not needed. Create the illusion that those seats would be gone if they didn't checkout as fast as possible. In reality users were seldom in any danger of losing the seats.

* Put in the users face the event they were checking out for. Keep them reminded that they want to go to this event. Show them stuff about it and then show the cost and fee's in smaller font and break it up into steps so they see a smaller total first, keeps them happy, then add fees on but keep that "time ticker" going so they don't look to much.

Working there, I felt almost like we were a sleazy porn site.

Edits: clarifications

Edit 2: added that I didn't work for Ticketmaster.

~~~
giarc
Re: the time ticker. Is that true, because if you let that timer expire, you
are indeed kicked back to the "Select Tickets" page and have to browse again.

~~~
jason_slack
back then, when a user selected seats, they were temporarily "locked" (at
least from our end). If other users were "browsing" seats, they would see
those seats as unavailable. Honestly, we did this because it was easier to
"lock" the seats as it made searching easier for other users on the systems.
It lessened the e-mails that said: "I thought I had these seats XYZ picked,
but I didn't get them...". We weren't really being nice, but it came off that
way.

If a user took longer than the 4 minutes or so there would have had to be more
users on the system wanting the same type of seats and none available. This
really didn't every happen except for insanely popular events, like NYE or
some very popular singer, etc. If after 4 minutes, your time was up. You were
taken back to search again, but we said "your last seats are still available.
Check out now?".

I cannot say now-a-days, if the timer has more importance and I cannot say
from a Ticketmaster standpoint technically. What I can say is how we used to
do it.

Edit: added the "Honestly" part, first paragraph.

~~~
ritchiea
The timer is/was the worst, I once decided not to buy tickets for an event
because the timer wasn't giving me enough time to fill out my CC info and I
didn't want to bother rushing or filling out some kind of user profile w/saved
card to fit their awful UX.

------
jandrese
That insurance scam is only reason #8382 not to use Ticketmaster.

Of course there is one reason to use Ticketmaster: you often don't get a
choice anymore. The Venue box office is a joke, and Ticketmaster has an
exclusive agreement for the rest so it's either them or pay even more to a
scalper.

This is why I go to barely any shows anymore. The ones I do go to are at the
one local venue that doesn't use Ticketmaster (Wolftrap).

It is a testament to our weak antitrust laws that Ticketmaster has been able
to gouge the public for decades with no repercussions whatsoever.

~~~
zdean
"It is a testament to our weak antitrust laws that Ticketmaster has been able
to gouge the public for decades with no repercussions whatsoever."

Genuinely interested to know what is keeping a nimble new startup from
stepping in and blowing this up.

~~~
ksenzee
No need for a new startup. Brown Paper Tickets is the obvious successor.

~~~
Gargoyle
We used them for a film festival I helped run almost 10 years ago now. We were
a pretty shoestring operation at the time and needed to get our cut of the
money from the first few days' sales to fund an event at the end of the
festival (whee!) and they were quite helpful in transferring it to us in an
expedited manner.

I don't know how they are now, but they were great to work with then.

------
teddyh
Ticketmaster recently lost a class action suit, but managed to be allowed to
pay the customers it unfairly charged not in money, but in _coupons for
Ticketmaster_.

[http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/7370600/ticketmas...](http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/7370600/ticketmaster-
class-action-settlement-approved-details)

~~~
creaghpatr
I was a recipient of those vouchers, they were only good for a certain subset
of shows and then they didn't work when I tried using them.

That said, I never felt baited and switched by TM, the fees are ridiculous but
they've always been right there in front of you when you buy the tickets. It
was a shock the first time but hundreds of shows later you just kind of accept
it. In any case the market drives the show prices for the most part.

~~~
ishields
> "In any case the market drives the show prices for the most part"

I completely disagree. Maybe for the ticket face value that may be true but
look at the provided example:

$18.50 face value for a ticket (driven by the market/demand)

\+ $1.50 "facility charge" \+ $4.50 "service fee" \+ $4.00 "order processing
fee" \+ $2.25 "shipping"

so no you're paying $18.50 for the ticket plus $12.25 in fees just in order to
get your ticket. That's 66% of the face value of the ticket in fees alone
(assuming you don't get tricked into the $8 "protection" which would bring the
fees to 109% of face value of the tickets)

Want to get 2 tickets? You'd think that you'd only have to pay the fees once
since it is all processed together but nope, now the fees all double.

There are no alternative ticketing options short of going to the venue and
getting tickets in person, so there is not really any competition, so I'm not
sure how you can say the market drives the prices when the prices are set by a
company that has no competition (and the lack of competition is due to
exclusive deals, not really anything else)

~~~
wickawic
The dirty secret is that those fees are really part of the ticket price. It is
still the market at work, albeit a dark and slimy kind of market that makes
you feel bad about the future of commerce. If in your example you truly
couldn't/wouldn't pay more than 18.50 once you saw the fees, someone else
would.

~~~
unclenoriega
Just to add on, here's a link if someone is interested:
[http://www.laweekly.com/music/ticketmaster-and-servants-
band...](http://www.laweekly.com/music/ticketmaster-and-servants-bands-get-
cut-of-service-fee-2158605)

------
SOLAR_FIELDS
Can anyone offer any evidence to confirm or dispute the rumor I frequently see
online in message boards that Ticketmaster is passing most of the profit from
these fees onto the venues and it's really the venues that are doing the price
gouging here?

The idea that is frequently floated is that Ticketmaster bears the brunt of
the hate from fans in exchange for letting the performers and venues collect
most of the extra fees and giving TM a relatively small piece of the pie.

~~~
jarjoura
Ticketmaster has exclusive contracts with venues and usually owns the venues
outright, so it doesn't matter where the money goes, it's all back into their
coffers.

[http://www.livenationentertainment.com](http://www.livenationentertainment.com)

~~~
chinathrow
Indeed, look at their filings:

[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1335258/000119312512...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1335258/000119312512075895/d277780d10k.htm)

LOL: "Competition in the live entertainment industry is intense. We believe
that we compete primarily on the basis of our ability to deliver quality music
products, sell tickets and provide enhanced fan and artist experiences. We
believe that our primary strengths include:

[...]

• ticketing software and services;

[...] "

~~~
treehau5
Wow what did they do in 2009 to 2010 to increase their customer database from
25 million to 96 million?

~~~
Bartweiss
Merged with Live Nation.

------
TallGuyShort
Yeah they've been disgraceful to deal with for me too. They once double-booked
seats I was in and I was given the option of being seated elsewhere or leaving
with a refund. I opted to be seated elsewhere, but the venue took so long to
do it I missed the first few songs and ended up seated where the show wasn't
even visible. I was then refused a refund because it was too late to choose
that option, and the venue insisted it was Ticketmasters fault, and
Ticketmaster I had missed my chance for any compensation by entering the
stadium to see my other seats.

I eventually only got an offer of credit for Ticketmaster, so I just informed
my credit card company that they had not delivered what I had paid for and did
a charge-back. Only remotely satisfactory outcome after spending hours on the
phone with them. Not even an apology - just constant passing the buck.

~~~
FireBeyond
Yeah, just like the tales from the NBA Playoffs, etc.

Got 200K Twitter followers? Ticket sites will "reach out to the team" to get
you seats when they mess up.

No? Well, you'll get a "so sad, too bad, credit toward future purchases from
us".

Also happened (one of the most egregious) - someone bought tickets to the
Lakers in what would become, months later, Kobe's last home game. -MONTHS-
after the purchase (and when ticket prices were now sky high for that game),
buyer got an email saying "Sorry, the original seller told us he sold you
those tickets by mistake. Here's a refund."

~~~
ascagnel_
> Also happened (one of the most egregious) - someone bought tickets to the
> Lakers in what would become, months later, Kobe's last home game. -MONTHS-
> after the purchase (and when ticket prices were now sky high for that game),
> buyer got an email saying "Sorry, the original seller told us he sold you
> those tickets by mistake. Here's a refund."

That was resold tickets via StubHub, not Ticketmaster.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10857478](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10857478)

~~~
FireBeyond
True, I knew it was a different site, though I was a little vague - "other
sites".

------
wnevets
Louis CK is really the only celebrity that I can think of that went out of
their way to cut out ticketmaster. We really need attempts like this to
succeed

[http://www.ticketnews.com/louis-c-k-sells-tickets-for-
tour-w...](http://www.ticketnews.com/louis-c-k-sells-tickets-for-tour-without-
ticketmaster/)

~~~
enobrev
I've been to his past two shows in Chicago, and absolutely appreciated this
both times. Two years ago it was $35, no matter where your seat was. No fees,
nothing. $70 for two tickets. Last year it was $100, total, for two tickets
and we were in the front row.

Interestingly we bought them from Ticketmaster both times, but he had the deal
with TM to ensure no extra fees.

I plan to keep going every year - especially if he plans to keep up this
honest, up-front ticket-price deal.

------
kenbaylor
The Federal Trade Commission very actively prosecutes 'Deceptive Practices'
that affect consumers. Sounds like the author (or anyone else affected) should
file a complaint. A FTC 'consent decree' is effectively a $100m fine. Google,
Microsoft and others have had to comply with FTC consent decrees:
[https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/supmanual/cch/ftca....](https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/supmanual/cch/ftca.pdf)

~~~
cynoclast
What have they done to tm?

~~~
kenbaylor
Looks like their last interactions were in 2010. Time for a rematch :-)

[https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2010/02/ticke...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2010/02/ticketmaster-ticketsnow-settle-ftc-charges-deceptive-sales)

------
parthdesai
I wanted to buy tickets for MLS final in Toronto this year. General Sale was
at 1pm. I log on at 1pm, site doesn't load. Keep refreshing and all tickets
are sold by 1:01pm. And rows appear on stubhub at 1:20pm for ~$500 a ticket. I
can fucking watch Real Madrid vs Barcelona (arguably the biggest soccer game
in the world after CL final) for a ticket price cheaper than that.

Fuck Ticketmaster.

~~~
ams6110
What would be fair is an auction. Then the price would be more representative
of the market value.

The reason those tickets all sell out in 30 seconds is that they are too
cheap.

~~~
ishields
While this may be true in a pure capitalistic sense, many believe that
experiencing the arts isn't something that should be limited to the rich

~~~
olalonde
Being physically present in the stadium is not necessary to watch the game and
in a way, those tickets subsidize the game for the rest of us at home. This is
especially true for the arts since many artists make most of their money from
concert tours (a great example of price discrimination).

~~~
ishields
I'm generally speaking about concerts more than sporting events, and as
someone who frequently goes to concerts, I wouldn't consider live music to be
anywhere near the same thing as listening to recordings

------
jen729w
Australian here, so things are probably a little different, but I have direct
experience using Ticketmaster to put on a large show at the State Theatre here
in Melbourne.

Here's how the charges work here:

\- You decide how much your ticket should cost. Let's call it $100.

\- Ticketmaster takes an "inside charge" off that for the privilege of selling
your tickets. From memory, it's around $8. So you get $92.

\- Ticketmaster adds an "outside charge", which is the processing fee that the
punter sees. So your ticket actually costs $108, plus any additional credit
card, postage, etc. It's likely to end up costing ~$112.

So, that's a rort. What do they do for their $20/ticket? Very, very little.
The main thing is that they have access to enormous EDMs that, especially as a
small indie producer, you really want. They'll send a message or two out to
that list for you.

Otherwise, their actual database software is hideous. Putting on a stage show
involves complicated ticketing - what seats are reserved for the house, which
rows are A reserve, which are B reserve, all of which can be different for
each instance of your show, blah blah. I ended up writing my own database in
FileMaker Pro to interface with theirs; the other producers I saw literally
printed out the seat maps and highlighted them with marker pens before
manually entering all of the seat information in and sending back to TM.

A disgrace of a company.

------
nathancahill
That "Minutes left to complete the purchase" is one of the oldest tricks in
the sales book. I felt my blood pressure going up just looking at that gif,
and I wasn't even buying tickets!

Edit: I know why they do it, but it isn't necessary for most ticket sales.
Just turn it on when there's high demand.

~~~
firloop
Not a huge Ticketmaster fan, but I actually don't have much of a problem with
this as they have a complicated problem: allocate demand of a often scarce
good (event tickets) in a way that's fair to non automated buyers. By placing
a hold on the stock for a few minutes (rather than allocating at final
checkout), it gives humans a fair chance to check out as their ability to
secure the stock isn't based on how quickly they check out. Showing the time
left to purchase is transparent to the buyer and eliminates confusion.

~~~
Coincoin
I don't know if this is common elsewhere but to buy hockey tickets up here in
communist canuckland, the local broker uses a virtual queue system. You can
register up to 4 hours in advance and get placed in the pool.

When the countdown reaches zero, they randomly, yes randomly, place you in the
giant queue. When it's your turn, you just select what day and place you want
and confirm.

There is no slowdown unless you check in the pool at the last minute. If you
register after the countdown, you get placed at the end of the queue and your
chance of getting anything are basically zero.

------
rux
I dearly, dearly wish that the Resident Advisor system would be adopted for
more shows. RA only cater for a particular subset of music genres, but the way
the ticketing system works with regards to combating touts is awesome.

If you decide to not go to a show you bought tickets for, you can relinquish
them and they goes back into the stack to be re-sold. Once the standard stock
of tickets is exhausted, your tickets get put back into the pool of available
tickets. If someone buys them, you get your money back minus the service fee.
Whenever I've put tickets back in the pool this has happened, often within
minutes of them being re-listed.

Yes you can probably get more £ for your tickets by hawking them on gumtree or
craigslist, but thanks to countless horrible transactions with ticket touts
I'm always more than happy to use this system, as I know I'm getting a fair
amount of my money back, and I know that whoever buys my tickets is getting a
fair price too.

[https://www.residentadvisor.net/news.aspx?id=25747](https://www.residentadvisor.net/news.aspx?id=25747)

------
droithomme
> "If I can help it, I will never order another ticket from them again."

I find these to be weasel words.

I don't use Ticketmaster. Full stop.

If your concert uses Ticketmaster, I'm not going to that.

It's not a problem because all the cool acts don't use Ticketmaster. Only lame
old decrepit acts use Ticketmaster anyway. And if I wanted to see those, I'd
go to Vegas, and at least get a comped all you can eat buffet as well.

Brown Paper Tickets is an alternative that is fair and reasonable. Oddly, many
fantastic acts I've see such as The Orb use them for ticket sales instead of
the vile corrupt corparate boondoogle that is Ticketmaster.

[https://www.brownpapertickets.com/](https://www.brownpapertickets.com/)

Ticketmaster was corrupt and horrible 30 years ago. If you are still using
them or claiming to buy tickets from them for any reason then you're either a
corporate shill or terminally clueless.

~~~
anoonmoose
You're not serious, are you? As a person who goes to dozens of concerts a
year, not using Ticketmaster would be a huge hassle.

Let's take just one example: I'm going to see Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds in
NYC. I have three options to get tickets directly:

-Ticketmaster

-In person

-Over the phone

Since I don't live in NYC, I don't want to give my CC number to some random
theater employee over the phone, and I am not going to skip seeing my favorite
band in the world, what do you suggest I do?

~~~
dublinben
>I am not going to skip seeing my favorite band in the world, what do you
suggest I do?

See them somewhere else, in a venue that hasn't sold out to Ticketmaster.

~~~
Bahamut
Because people should spend potentially thousands of dollars just to avoid
seeing one artist at a venue using Ticketmaster - this is ludicrous.

There were a couple of times I had no choice this year but to go through
Ticketmaster because they were the only times when the day & location aligned.
I had little choice when booking an Iron Maiden ticket, or a ticket to two
Dream Theater shows. I generally avoid Ticketmaster when I can and when it is
convenient enough to do so, but I'm not going to idiotically avoid going to a
show I want to go to and sacrifice enormous time & money to not use
Ticketmaster.

The reality is that Ticketmaster is largely immune to a ticket purchase
boycott - their involvement in owning venues mitigates the effect of a boycott
because they're the only way to see a huge swath of entertainment.

~~~
dublinben
Ticketmaster is immune to a ticket purchase boycott because of people like you
who will go to great lengths to justify why they have no choice but to
continue purchasing their tickets.

~~~
vonklaus
I agree. Patronizing a company diametrically opposed to one's interests is
terrible. Disproportionately, music lovers seem to be the first to deride TM
but defend why they won't use anything else.

~~~
pimlottc
What choice do they have? Music is not fungible. You can't substitute Kanye
West for Michael Bublé, or Miley Cyrus for Bruce Springsteen.For most shows,
there is only one online option. An increasing number of venues don't even
sell advance tickets in person any more, and when it is an option, it has
additional costs in time and effort, as well as risk of missing out
completely.

~~~
ryandrake
The choice is to not participate. Boycotts are not supposed to be easy. This
discussion reminds me of the "It's impossible to not use Facebook" arguments.

~~~
jfnixon
Buy the music, not the live performance. A live performance is usually
suboptimal because the audience is noisy, the venue's acoustics aren't
wonderful, the performers have done the same sets for the last three weeks,
and you have to make a significant effort dealing with transportation and the
like.

Just buy the music. Cut ticketmaster out, cut live nation's venues out, and
listen to a great performance with good acoustics in the comfort of your own
home as often as you wish. For much less money.

------
tomcam
I try to be reasonable and to see the other side of things. I try not to
whinge. Even if it's a business I don't like, I recognize they may have issues
I don't understand well. But I run my own business, I'm a programmer, and I
know what kind of fee discount Ticketmaster can get with credit card
companies. I hate them. I buy tickets through them when I have to, but every
time I do they are building up whatever the opposite of loyalty is. I wish
that company only the worst. Did I mention I hate them?

------
bjcubsfan
They also store passwords in plain text. They emailed me my password for a
reminder on a season ticket account. My account is a few thousand dollars,
others would be 10s of thousands.

------
dreamcompiler
Ticketmaster has been horrible since forever. Having no real competition,
Ticketmaster has zero motivation to treat customers decently. They're kind of
like taxis before Uber.

~~~
evv
And once Uber squashes Lyft, there will be no competition again, and they can
start treating customers as badly as Ticketmaster does!

~~~
vinceguidry
The barriers in this case are legal, not market-based. Presumably someone
could start up Lyft-2 and compete with Uber.

Uber would have to literally become what they replaced to avoid this.

------
tptacek
I understand the psychology here, but it seems pretty irrational. Even after
every modifier Ticketmaster applies, tickets to major events are _underpriced_
, as evidenced by the fact that things like the Japandroids show this person
bought tickets for almost certainly sold out, and by the fact that the
secondary market for tickets clears.

I too would rather get one simple straightforward price, rather than the
pointlessly itemized breakdown Ticketmaster provides. But that's just because
I want to read and click less to make my purchase.

~~~
x0x0
The difference is if you paid more to the band, I'd be ok with that. My
suspicion is this mostly involves paying more to ticketmaster.

~~~
tptacek
Bands are in a fluid negotiation with both Ticketmaster and the venue for how
much of the proceeds of their shows they get. It's different for different
bands; you can't look at any breakdown of Ticketmaster's fees or the ticket
price and know what it is. Moreover, to whatever extent the bands themselves
aren't getting fee income, the venue sure does; the venues might have more
market power than Ticketmaster does. The split between the venue and the
artist is one of the oldest business negotiations in entertainment. Why are we
alarmed about it now?

------
mixmastamyk
A favorite quote of mine:

"If Hitler owned Halliburton, it would not be as evil of a company as
Ticketmaster."

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/c4704/fuck_you_ticket...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/c4704/fuck_you_ticketmaster_that_is_all/c0q0rnu/)

------
geephroh
The hidden service fee may not be legal under WA state's fairly strong
consumer protections. You can and should report this to the AG's office at:
[http://atg.wa.gov/FileAComplaint.aspx](http://atg.wa.gov/FileAComplaint.aspx)

If there are enough complaints, things can actually happen.

~~~
hjhart
Thanks. I filed a complaint through that website.

------
buildbuildbuild
The unfortunate truth is that it is impossible for a live music fan to
completely avoid Ticketmaster in 2017 without missing many of the best shows.

They strongarm venues into exclusivity agreements: all phone and online
tickets at those venue must be sold through Ticketmaster.

Even walking up to buy a ticket at some box offices results in a venue using
Ticketmaster as point of sale.

Their parent company Live Nation also outright owns many venues, a true
monopoly in my opinion.

~~~
squozzer
Then the path to disruption is clear -- bypass the venues.

Hmmm, maybe this Internet thing might be useful after all, assuming you can
set up a decent streaming service and avoid the pitfalls.

~~~
elastic_church
Sounds like someone that hasn't seen music live, physically, for a long time.

Computer speakers are incapable of replicating the sounds and air distortions
that your body can actually feel. Computer screens are incapable of emulating
the pyrotechnics that your body can actually feel even from way back of the
venue.

There are plenty other nuances that limit the utility of a streaming service.

~~~
vonklaus
What about buying rights to the liveatream and setting up a huge movie screen
and sound system. Sell tickets to the live rebroadcasting venue.

------
MicroBerto
Many bands, startups, and other well-intentioned people have taken on
TicketMaster in an effort to shake up the industry.

All have lost. Nothing has changed.

~~~
blang
Yup the first one I remember was Pearl Jam
[http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/pearl-jam-taking-
on-t...](http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/pearl-jam-taking-on-
ticketmaster-19951228)

------
mbloom1915
Hoping more people use seatgeek & gametime as alternatives - even stubhub is
getting monopolistic as the single 'exchange' platform

------
tonylemesmer
As somewhat of an antidote to the tale here, but probably worse than useless
to a chap from Seattle, when I discovered this website[0] it restored my faith
in humanity. I only discovered it after a similar experience on Ticketmaster
and reached out to try and get some gig tickets a few years back. Scarlet Mist
saved the day, even if it is a truly abysmal example of a website.

edit: oh yeah, and news is[1] that Ticketmaster / Livenation supplies tickets
directly to touts/scalpers whatever they call them in your locality, so yes
they truly are a horrible company.

[0] [http://www.scarletmist.com/](http://www.scarletmist.com/)

[1] [http://www.musicweek.com/live/read/reports-suggest-
italian-g...](http://www.musicweek.com/live/read/reports-suggest-italian-
government-could-be-moving-to-ban-secondary-ticketing/066543)

------
vldr
At [https://gutstickets.com](https://gutstickets.com) we're currently trying
to somewhat disrupt the ticketing market where, of course, ticket master is
the big evil giant.

Our primary focus is to make disgraceful secondary ticket pricing impossible,
something from which TM profits directly through subsidiaries such as
seatwave.

But we also just want to have a fair price for fans. No hidden fees or absurd
prices for minimal features. No dark patterns.

The fact that our tickets can't be copied, faked or printed makes this a lot
easier - we couldn't charge for an fraud insurance or printed tickets even if
we wanted to :)

And even though a lot of the market is locked-in there's still a huge long-
tail of events and organizers that are free to chose their ticketing company.
Hopefully the rest will follow :)

------
pedalpete
With all the comments here regarding "why doesn't another start-up come in and
disrupt this market", I'm surprised nobody has mentioned SongKick which had an
exclusive to sell Adele tickets in Europe in 2015. They're making inroads, but
it is a long and challenging market.

------
amelius
Perhaps time to start a facebook awareness campaign, and have TM boycotted by
artists and fans (?)

~~~
Bartweiss
TM uses venue lock-in to prevent this. Multiple artists have tried, but they
quickly have to choose between dealing with TM and abandoning fans in smaller
cities that only have a few venues available, all of which are TM-contracted.

~~~
amelius
Perhaps the campaign should include a petition then, to address this through
politics.

------
ameesdotme
Well said. It's a shame TM has a monopoly when it comes to the larger events
in my country.

------
brogrammernot
They're also the worst company I've ever had a phone screen with.

I remember being told it was with a member of the technical team, and it was a
technical recruiter who asked me questions straight off of a paper that made
no sense

I hate having to use their service but they seem to be the best worst to use
when it comes to selection.

They screwed me a bit too when I bought a pair of pricey US Open tickets
($800+ total) and wanted to sell them through their site. Apparently the combo
I had purchased was not "resellable" but no where was that found on their site
or terms.

I really hope a company "disruptes" them, as much as I hate that word, because
as far as their service goes it's absolutely horrid.

~~~
jandrese
Being an effective monopoly means you don't need to care about customer
service.

------
dfar1
I've stopped using them for similar reasons. I don't mind them adding all the
fees as much. But it's wrong for the original price listed by them to be so
far off from what you will actually pay. You see something listed for $15, and
end up paying $30.

That's misleading and should be prohibited. Unfortunately this seems to be
common practice in most marketing now ... smartphone plans come to mind...

------
hussfelt
Their giftcard system does not even work mostly, completely broken (by code,
bugs). Tried purchasing a e-giftcard with a custom photo for weeks. Contacted
support and no response for over 3 weeks.

Finally made a purchase of a normal giftcard in Safari. Think it was just pure
luck, had to go back and forth the contact details page several times to be
able to check out.

Seems like Ticketmaster simply does not want our stash? :)

------
fallingfrog
Pearl Jam tried to boycott and sue Ticketmaster over these same practices in
the 90's, and they lost. Good luck beating them now..

------
yalogin
Ticketmaster has single handedly stopped a lot of impulse buys for me. So I at
least saved some money because they are shitty.

------
yardie
> I’m going to go hop on my scooter and drive 15 minutes out of my way to the
> theatre’s box office to go pick up a single ticket. Out of spite!

I have some really bad news for you. The venue is probably also using
Ticketmaster as their POS and some of those fees will be the same.

Other than that completely agree, Ticketmaster is a racket.

------
throwaway999234
If anyone's looking for alternatives, check out
[https://dice.fm/](https://dice.fm/)

No booking fees, timers, insurance, etc. Browse gigs and in 2 presses on the
screen you could have a ticket.

I don't work for em, just a satisfied customer.

------
peteforde
Hey, first off: chillllll out. Choose your battles carefully. Ticketmaster is
not a great company, but it's become a lot better than it used to be. Truth!

Anyhow, you need to be aware that venues absolutely will charge a venue fee.
Even purchasing tickets at my local club in Toronto from the front bar there
is a 10% markup or $1 minimum, whatever is greater.

You don't have to get tickets printed and mailed to you for $2.25. It's 2017
and virtual tickets work very well. In fact, they have advantages like being
able to electronically transfer them to your friends in a way they can verify.
That is better in every way except that you don't get a stub for your
collection.

Anyhow, your post is a sign that their business model is working: you think
that TM exists to sell you tickets, but their actual and entire business model
is to provide a layer of abstraction over the venues+radio+promoters so that
they absorb all of your bad vibes. It's literally the only thing that they
add, and they do it really well.

~~~
Bartweiss
I'm not sure _any_ of this is accurate.

First: how has TM gotten better? Their fees have gotten higher, they merged
with Live Nation to gain market control and raised prices, and they lost a
class action suit but are still doing exactly what they were sued for the
first time.

Not all venues charge a venue fee - some of my local theaters are fee-free at
the box office, some aren't. (They all take a cut _somewhere_ obviously, but
some build it into ticket prices and some even extract all their profit by
selling merch and food at the show. $10 beer is damn profitable.)
TicketMaster's website explains that they're merely collecting these fees on
behalf of venues, but after their merger with Live Nation they _own_ many of
those venues, so this is pretty misleading.

Virtual tickets work great, yes. Except that TM charges an "E-ticket
convenience fee". And a "will call fee" if you try that. So if 100% of
ticketing methods have a fee, it's just an extra cost dressed up as a choice.

And no, they aren't just absorbing hate: when they do promotion as Live
Nation, own the venue as Live Nation, and sell me the tickets as TicketMaster,
they making every choice not given to the band.

~~~
peteforde
> I'm not sure any of this is accurate.

"We don't know that he's lying, but do we know that he isn't lying?"

I have a long memory. You used to have to go to a physical location and wait
in line while a student worker called up tickets on a green screen terminal.
And TM's web checkout experience through the late 90s and last decade was
AWFUL; none of the mapping, seat selection was there. You'd just sit there and
refresh. You could also accidentally purchase two tickets by hitting Back. It
was Not Good.

First, a venue that isn't charging a fee is a rare exception and I have two
shoeboxes full of paper tickets that prove this. I'm going to draw a line and
say that Real Venues charge fees. The fact that there are >0 outliers is still
an outlier.

TicketMaster was acquired by LiveNation but functions as a separate business
unit in all of the ways that serve their interests. So, of course they are
collecting fees on behalf of venues. Just because they are all owned by the
same corporate interests doesn't make this less true. Do you know that there
are IT depts in major banks that charge other depts for installing network
jacks?

Different venues and different countries have different fees attached to
pickup methods. Here in Canada, I can get a ticket by email/SMS that shows up
as a QR code that I don't have to pay extra for. The order processing fee
(total bullshit) is in a separate category from ticket retrieval fees.

Anyhow, you're welcome to your opinion about whether TicketMaster exists to
absorb hate or not. It doesn't make you any more correct, but if it makes you
happier then I absolutely agree to whatever it is that you said next.
Ticketmaster is awful, but not for the motivations that the OP suggested.

------
v89
"Surely I wouldn’t be charged this facility charge if I went directly to
Neptune Theatre and purchased tickets"

Yes you would, because the venue pays Ticketmaster a small slice of every
ticket sold to use their system.

They just don't explicitly tell you as part of the transaction.

------
kzisme
I've mistakenly clicked the "insure my tickets!" which is done by a third
party anyways...

I ended up calling after reviewing my email I received afterwards and saw the
added fee. They promptly removed it, but it seemed like that happens all too
often...

------
nfriedly
Yep, welcome to the club. I always buy directly from the venue whenever
possible.

------
israrkhan
Unfortunately these sort of practices are getting very common. This should be
submitted to [http://darkpatterns.org/](http://darkpatterns.org/)

------
evv
This is why you want to be a winner in a market with network effects. You can
treat customers however you'd like once you've won.

Ticketmaster has 'earned' this spot in the ecosystem, and the benefits that
comes with. To challenge that would be to challenge the nature of capitalism
itself.

As a consumer I'm infuriated but as an entrepreneur, I can relate- why would I
stick my neck out there if the potential benefits don't outweigh the costs?
Every entrepreneur in the valley wants to be the "Tickermaster of X" or "Uber
for X". Everybody wants the luxury of answering to nobody, including
customers.

------
Fiahil
Well, you should move out of the country. Here, in France, we have
Ticketmaster, but also Fnac Spectacles, Digitick and many others. It's less
awful.

------
owly
I would gladly fund a startup dedicated to overthrowing their empire. I guess
it would need to start in NYC?

------
ThomPete
So how would one compete with them since they seem to have exclusive deals
with the venues.

------
caf
This is called "drip pricing", and it's illegal in many countries.

------
nix0n
Some venues will sell you tickets directly if you are able to go there in
person.

------
justinholmes
Trying help disrupt TM by building a Stripe version of ticketing to provide
nice APIs/grpc etc. [https://ticketscale.io/](https://ticketscale.io/) (still
very much alpha)

~~~
shaklee3
I think the main issue is not having a different way to buy tickets, but
actually signing deals with bands/venues to sell them. There have been many
companies that have tried to compete against them, and typically they only get
bands that want to move away from TM (Pearl Jam).

~~~
justinholmes
It's focused on providing the platform for developers to build a better
ticketing experience thus enabling bands/venues to jump ship.

~~~
dbbk
A better ticketing experience is not what bands/venues are looking for. Sorry,
but it doesn't sound like you understand this market (and why Ticketmaster has
a stranglehold on it).

------
marclave
Sidenote: I love Japandroids! Saw them in vancouver!

------
btnewton
Those are some dark design patterns

------
jbverschoor
Yup. They're horrible.

------
rasz_pl
>Interesting, actually, that if you add up all the extra Ticketmaster charges
that they are actually making $22.74 - which is more than Japandroids are
making and they're doing the actual work.

and this is why Louis CK decided to ignore ticketscam and sell his own tickets
directly for 2012 tour. Interestingly I just looked up and current events are
all handled by Ticketmaster, guess they offered him something he couldnt
refuse, or he was simply unable to find venues willing to work around the scam
(tickermaster has exclusive deals prohibiting competing inline sales).

------
sean_patel
I take issue with the title itself.

> Ticketmaster is a horrible company, and I won't give them my business
> anymore

Ok, but what choice do you have, if Foo Fighters are playing in your City and
you want to go? Or Manny Pacquiao is fighting Floyd Mayweather and you want to
go?

It's not like there's a choice. There is, and that is to not go to the event.
Because the core premise of TicketMaster's scam is the exclusive contracts
they have with Venues and Artists.

~~~
mi100hael
Usually they have an exclusive contract for _online_ sales. You can still go
line up outside your local arena and buy tickets from the box office just like
your parents used to do.

~~~
pimlottc
Provided you have the luxury of being able to take the extra time and effort
to do so. And by the time you do so (unless you lined up early), you will
probably end up with worse tickets than you could have gotten online.

~~~
mi100hael
Isn't that still how it worked before TicketMaster existed, though?

------
sean_patel
Seriously though, what are the alternatives? Until then we all all 'stuck'
with this Sh*t company. The only alternative is to 'not go' to watch your
favorite performer / artist / fighter / singer.

Why hasn't this space been disrupted like how Uber disrupted the Cab Mob
(oops, I mean the Taxi Medallions)

~~~
giarc
It's a hard space to disrupt because Ticketmaster has exclusive rights on
venues. So the only disruption is scalpers really.

Uber disrupted the cab business because the cabs don't have exclusive rights
on the road (although regulatory issues have perhaps indicated they do have
exclusive rights on certain transportation verticals).

~~~
sean_patel
Wow. Very smart reasoning. Thank you! I never thought of it this way. You are
right about Uber vs Ticketmaster.

------
johansch
Another A/B test casualty.

------
erikj
Am I the only person who first heard about Ticketmaster on the website of
Terry Davis? He wrote an operating system for them.

------
codazoda
Listen, I'm no fan of Ticketmaster but you should be very careful in your
wording of a piece like this.

Although clearly opinion, it contains real slander and you should tread
lightly. For example, "Which means that ticketmaster is purposefully delaying
their efficiency in order to get people to purchase more expensive shipping
times". This is the conclusion you came to but the company may be able to
prove it has the delays for various other reasons. Because it's not a "fact",
it's likely slander or defamation. The title is also problematic,
"Ticketmaster is a horrible company". You might or might not be able to prove
that as fact.

~~~
rewrew
You need to look up libel law (this would be libel, because it is written, not
slander). This is all opinion, there is nothing legally actionable in this
piece. I don't think you have a background in this kind of law to be giving
this kind of advice (at least not in the U.S.). The article is definitely
protected speech here.

