Livenation...even worse than Ticketbastard

drummerboy_73

So I was looking at tickets to Airborne Toxic Event show in San Diego later this summer, and was blown away at the service fees attached. There's two ticket prices:

1.) $12.50 ticket with service fee of $9.65, Total cost - $22.15. That's a 78% service charge!
2.) $22.50 ticket with service fee of $11.55, Total cost - $34.05. That's a 51% service charge!

Where do they come up with this crap?! Why is the service charge 27% higher for a ticket that's half the price? I don't understand why the cost of processing and producing a ticket for the same show on a given night would vary based on the face value of the ticket.

I guess the one good thing about Vegas is that there's not many medium-sized venues. If you're going to see a band that's not an arena sized act, you can still see some pretty cool bands at smaller bars for some pretty cheap covers. I mean, I saw Wellwater Conspiracy here back in 2001 in a strip mall bar for FREE! Inthe case of Livenation, it looks like even when an act is trying to keep prices reasonable, they're going to find a way to squeeze more out of you on the back end...F*CKERS.

magicredbengal

I tend to use Livenation as a guide. Most acts that I watch that they carry tickets for are playing within an hour of my home. I use them to find who's coming where and then I drive to the closest record store that has tickets for the show. On rare occasion gas would cost more than just purchasing online, but not often...

appie

In my country the tax for concerts was risen up by the goverment from 6% up to 20% and thats without the fee for the bookingagents :? so going here will cost a lot of money to....happy that we have a lot of festivals in the summer here and were close to Germany( lots of great festivals to ) so we see more bands in a row

No domestic festivals for me this year...going for THE foreign one this year

nuffingman

They're all as bad as each other. I just bought 2 tickets at £55, the tickets arrived with £50 printed on them. Plus of course there was the admin charge. Seetickets are just as bad.

zarocat

I just bought two tickets to go see WARPAINT in Toronto for March 26th off ticketweb.ca
The two tickets were 30 bucks plus 9.50 for service charges. Who gets the extra 9.50 ? Not the band, I know that.

Kel Varnsen

zarocat wrote:

I just bought two tickets to go see WARPAINT in Toronto for March 26th off ticketweb.ca
The two tickets were 30 bucks plus 9.50 for service charges. Who gets the extra 9.50 ? Not the band, I know that.

I imagine the company the sells the tickets and maintains that website. I mean those companies aren't putting up websites, sometimes with massive servers, just out of the goodness of their hearts. They need to make money on it some how. Or would you rather go back to the days where the only place you could buy tickets for an event was at the venue, and you had to line up to get them?

zarocat

Kel Varnsen wrote:

Or would you rather go back to the days where the only place you could buy tickets for an event was at the venue, and you had to line up to get them?

True about profit, I understand that.
Profit aside (well, maybe not), the ticketmaster by my place doesn't allow you to line up & buy tickets on the release day for those tickets for a concert. You have to wait until the second day. What do you think the philosophy is on that one?
I think going to a venue and buying tickets is something that should be looked at again. I do know that it will never happen again though. I think lining up for tickets can be a positive part of the experience & brighten one's day in a way were becoming more & more unfamiliar with, with each day that goes by.
Going forward of backwards, evolution works in mysterious ways ...

Kel Varnsen

zarocat wrote:

Kel Varnsen wrote:

Or would you rather go back to the days where the only place you could buy tickets for an event was at the venue, and you had to line up to get them?

True about profit, I understand that.
Profit aside (well, maybe not), the ticketmaster by my place doesn't allow you to line up & buy tickets on the release day for those tickets for a concert. You have to wait until the second day. What do you think the philosophy is on that one?
I think going to a venue and buying tickets is something that should be looked at again. I do know that it will never happen again though. I think lining up for tickets can be a positive part of the experience & brighten one's day in a way were becoming more & more unfamiliar with, with each day that goes by.
Going forward of backwards, evolution works in mysterious ways ...

But lining up for tickets means that tickets are only available to the people who live in the city of the venue and have the free time to line up. Seems like a system that would be made for scalpers to take advantage of.

JOEJOEJOE

Live Nation ticketing and TM make most of the money, but they give "rebates" to promoters and venues.

Promoters make a fortune from rebates, which they receive from most of their vendors.