AntiMusic: Ticketmaster Taxes Reach Absurd High: 75%

[hot_turkey_ed]

Source: Keavin Wiggins @ AntiMusic

Keavins Wiggins, an/the editor at AntiMusic justs lays out regarding Ticketmaster. A lot of us who were involved in this particular concert sale heard the same tune played too.

My backside is stinging a bit having just been raped by the Ticketmaster monopoly. The problem with their monopoly is glaringly apparent when you are charged 75% over the face the value of tickets after Ticketmaster gets done adding all of their various fees.
I logged on to their site at 10:00 am hoping to score orchestra seats to Iron Maiden's upcoming concert in Irvine. Of course by 10:00:25, after filling out all the fields on the form, all of the orchestra seats were gone. (Check scalper sites later today for those) Since the orchestra seats were the same price as the lodge and lower terrace, I opted to get two $20 lawn seats since you can still see pretty well on the lawn at Irvine Meadows (I refuse to call it by it's corporate sellout name).

So I submit my order and the screen with all the various Ticketmaster monopoly taxes comes up and low and behold my $40 worth of tickets had suddenly become $70.45. If you failed math that's 75% in additional charges (I opted for the free mailing). To add insult to injury they tried to sell me insurance on top of what they already bilked me for.

This has just gotten ridiculous. I went to see Heaven and Hell this past summer at the same venue and was going to buy tickets at the window since a few were left (It was the band's second swing through the area). Walking up we were approached by a ticket scalper who had decent seats and offered them up for $5.00 over the face value. So we ended up buying from a scalper at a huge savings over what we would have paid buying them through the legal scalper (Ticketmaster).

Give AntiMusic some love and click on the full story.

[Fe Maiden]

Don't you just love the "convenience charges?" WTF? Convenient for who? I hate that shit!!!

[powerslave_85]

"And they called me crazy when I bought Ticketmaster! 'No one will pay a 100% service charge,' you said!"
"It's a policy that ensures a healthy mix of the rich and the ignorant, sir."

The Simpsons can be downright prophetic sometimes.

[mankvill]

Ticketmaster sucks.

$19 for Napalm Death tickets, total came to about $27.

Local venues around here switched to a different ticket provider, only about $1 service charges and stuff.

[Firewind]

San Antonio has Detour Tickets. Only something like 2-3 bucks extra for the ticket.

[ravenheart]

Not sure why Ticketmaster US rapes you guys so hard. Ticketmaster UK is usually more expensive than the alternatives, but on occasion they've actually been cheaper. The worst case I've ever encountered was actually with someone else. 2005, Black Crowes shows at Shepherd's Bush Empire in London where See Tickets, who are normally reasonable, were charging an extra £10 on a £30 ticket ($20 on a $60 ticket).

That was very out of the ordinary here.

The only comparison I personally have outside of England is Billetlugen in Denmark, who charged me 50 DEK on a 530 DEK ticket for KISS at the Copenhagen Forum this coming June. In approximate terms that's $10 on a $108 ticket.

What irritates me most is when fees vary with the same company. Booking that ticket for The Black Crowes (which I refused to book in the end) is NO DIFFERENT to booking a ticket for Witchcraft, for which they charged me £2 on two tickets at a total of £18.50. The same £2 was charged for one Cult ticket at £32.10 and on two Alter Bridge tickets at £21 total.

[rjturtle9]

i know man fuck ticketbastards!!!!!

my maiden tickets were supposed to be $210.00 (i bought 3), and it eneded up being $270.00

[ChildrenofSodom]

I havent bought a ticket through them for a long while.....this sucks.

[Blitzkrieg Witchcraft]

I buy from scalpers when I can. I only buy from ticketbastard when I absolutely have to.

it's good to see some other ticket outlets popping up. some of the smaller venues around here use front gate tickets. they are pretty reasonable when it comes to surcharges.

[TonyD]

I go to the ticketmaster outlet, which has no service charge or convinience fee if you pay with cash. But they still charge about an extra 25% if you pay with credit, and an additional 5 bucks per internet order.