Ticketmaster’s deceptive practices - legal?

JH6056

Habit4me said:

The fact that you can't sell YOUR tickets for BELOW face value is criminal

Completely and totally agree

Get_Right

dmbolp said:

Get_Right said:

jnine said:

"How do you think TM feels about Stub Hub and the other sites making millions off their tickets?"  Ticketmaster, Live Nation and Stubhub are all owned by the same entity, so they probably fell pretty good about it.

Incorrect. Live nation and Ticketmaster are related entities, while Stubhub is owned by Viagogo, an entity that is unrelated to TM or LN. And they have faced the same scrutiny and lawsuits as TM for the same nonsense. 

Yet TM/LN and Stubhub are obviously business partners.  Major League Baseball, and other sport bodies, use Stubhub as their official reseller of tickets originally purchased on TM.  You key a TM ticket barcode into Stubhub and Stubhub knows the event/section/row/seat #s, so they are working together and sharing info.  I sold a TM ticket on Stubhub recently without using this barcode method, I keyed in the section/row/seat # into Stubhub, yet when the ticket sold on Stubhub I received an e-mail from Ticketmaster that it had sold, and in the TM app it showed as sold.

It would not surprise me if they have an agreement for the tickets that SH is able to acquire and sell so TM can grab a piece of those sales as well.

Make no mistake, all of this TM dynamic pricing is designed to limit the amount of sales in the secondary market. TM holds tickets preventing resale through other sites, sells them for as much as they can at different prices leading up to the event, and then dumps any last minute inventory. 

Get_Right

OceansJenny said:

Get_Right said:

pjhawks said:

let it go back to Stub Hub and let consumer choose price for resale tickets. That is better for consumer but I understand the bands point of view.

It is more TM than the band, although they are complicit.  How do you think TM feels about Stub Hub and the other sites making millions off their tickets? This TM dynamic pricing is a strategy to capture the higher prices on the secondary market.  Quite simply, if the market price for a ticket is $500, then why cant TM sell them at that price? It sucks, but that is what is happening.  They squeeze all the revenue they can out of the tickets and then undersell the market when it is saturated or there is low demand. Id guess there is a huge net gain there, even when they take losses on a show or even a tour.

While I agree I don’t think we can talk market forces when TM artificially restricts supply. Squeezing a few $2,000 tickets out of folks by making it look look those are the last tickets is incredibly deceiving. 

Correct!  They manipulate the supply to create greater demand while putting a stronghold on those trying to sell at lower prices.  Evil.

RK50065

Habit4me said:

The fact that you can't sell YOUR tickets for BELOW face value is criminal

but you bought them knowing you couldn't do this...

SHZA

RK50065 said:

Habit4me said:

The fact that you can't sell YOUR tickets for BELOW face value is criminal

but you bought them knowing you couldn't do this...

Also thinking it wouldn't be necessary based on the 2020 demand, when any resale listing would sell instantly even in the last row of the nosebleeds. He didn't actually say he bought any. I've been able to sell all of my extras, but I still think it's "criminal" that other people aren't allowed to reduce the price to recoup some of their money. The fact that they disclose an illegal practice doesn't make it legal or justify it. If there was another way to purchase tickets that didn't have this rule and the person buys from Ticketmaster anyway, it would be a different story. But since TM is the exclusive option they can dictate rules that consumers have no choice but to agree to if they want the product, which would not be the case in a competitive market. 

JimmyV

There is also a letter of the law/spirit of the law difference between telling someone they can only sell for face but not letting them sell for less than face. 

mpedone

JimmyV said:

There is also a letter of the law/spirit of the law difference between telling someone they can only sell for face but not letting them sell for less than face. 

Yup. It made no sense in 2020, when all the tickets cost the same. Makes even less sense with "Premium" in the mix. This is, of course, viewing from the standpoint of the consumer, or of someone who cares that consumers are being treated well/fairly, and we all know that TM couldn't give two shits about consumers.

Lerxst1992

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mpedone said:

JimmyV said:

There is also a letter of the law/spirit of the law difference between telling someone they can only sell for face but not letting them sell for less than face. 

Yup. It made no sense in 2020, when all the tickets cost the same. Makes even less sense with "Premium" in the mix. This is, of course, viewing from the standpoint of the consumer, or of someone who cares that consumers are being treated well/fairly, and we all know that TM couldn't give two shits about consumers.

Someone had to allow the promoter LN to raise or cut prices in any amount they see fit but 100% restrict fans from doing so. 

JZ280705

May I suggest those upset about this send a message to Ten Club.  

JZ280705

PB11041 said:

Logically speaking, the bigger problem seems to be that people want to be able to hedge their bets on concert tickets and take on zero risk with that hedge.

The learning curve on this and a couple of other tours I have bought tickets for recently.  Do not buy tickets you do not intend to use. tickets will almost assuredly become availale at face of below leading up to the event.

Some risk is expected.  Being locked in so you can’t lower your price was not.  TM won’t let you resell for less than standard ticket price but these are Premium tickets which they deliberately mis priced.

Poncier

Lerxst1992 said:

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mpedone said:

JimmyV said:

There is also a letter of the law/spirit of the law difference between telling someone they can only sell for face but not letting them sell for less than face. 

Yup. It made no sense in 2020, when all the tickets cost the same. Makes even less sense with "Premium" in the mix. This is, of course, viewing from the standpoint of the consumer, or of someone who cares that consumers are being treated well/fairly, and we all know that TM couldn't give two shits about consumers.

Someone had to allow the promoter LN to raise or cut prices in any amount they see fit but 100% restrict fans from doing so. 

JimmyV

Poncier said:

Lerxst1992 said:

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mpedone said:

JimmyV said:

There is also a letter of the law/spirit of the law difference between telling someone they can only sell for face but not letting them sell for less than face. 

Yup. It made no sense in 2020, when all the tickets cost the same. Makes even less sense with "Premium" in the mix. This is, of course, viewing from the standpoint of the consumer, or of someone who cares that consumers are being treated well/fairly, and we all know that TM couldn't give two shits about consumers.

Someone had to allow the promoter LN to raise or cut prices in any amount they see fit but 100% restrict fans from doing so. 

And allow it to be branded "PJ Premium"

Get_Right

JZ280705 said:

PB11041 said:

Logically speaking, the bigger problem seems to be that people want to be able to hedge their bets on concert tickets and take on zero risk with that hedge.

The learning curve on this and a couple of other tours I have bought tickets for recently.  Do not buy tickets you do not intend to use. tickets will almost assuredly become availale at face of below leading up to the event.

Some risk is expected.  Being locked in so you can’t lower your price was not.  TM won’t let you resell for less than standard ticket price but these are Premium tickets which they deliberately mis priced.

Actually it was expected, just not included in any announcement. Same thing happened with the Earthling tickets.

mpedone

Lerxst1992 said:

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mpedone said:

JimmyV said:

There is also a letter of the law/spirit of the law difference between telling someone they can only sell for face but not letting them sell for less than face. 

Yup. It made no sense in 2020, when all the tickets cost the same. Makes even less sense with "Premium" in the mix. This is, of course, viewing from the standpoint of the consumer, or of someone who cares that consumers are being treated well/fairly, and we all know that TM couldn't give two shits about consumers.

Someone had to allow the promoter LN to raise or cut prices in any amount they see fit but 100% restrict fans from doing so. 

Okay.

JZ280705 said:

PB11041 said:

Logically speaking, the bigger problem seems to be that people want to be able to hedge their bets on concert tickets and take on zero risk with that hedge.

The learning curve on this and a couple of other tours I have bought tickets for recently.  Do not buy tickets you do not intend to use. tickets will almost assuredly become availale at face of below leading up to the event.

Some risk is expected.  Being locked in so you can’t lower your price was not.  TM won’t let you resell for less than standard ticket price but these are Premium tickets which they deliberately mis priced.

Given that F2F was locked in at Face Value in 2020, I don't know how anyone thought the "Premium" tickets would be any different,

Falling Down

Legal or not, it sure ends up being good for the environment as there’s likely way less cross country traveling being done. I would have planned a trip to LA for sure if I could have secured any of the tickets that were available the few days prior to the shows. But there’s so much you can plan and announce to the household when the tickets become available at the right price so late. Good for the folks that live nearby I guess! 

JZ280705

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senators-urge-probe-live-nations-exorbitant-fees-tickets-2022-03-15/

JZ280705

Some risk is expected.  Being locked in so you can’t lower your price was not.  TM won’t let you resell for less than standard ticket price but these are Premium tickets which they deliberately mis priced.

Given that F2F was locked in at Face Value in 2020, I don't know how anyone thought the "Premium" tickets would be any different,

I did not get tickets in 2020.  There was no disclosure of this, and given the whole point of this process is to prevent people from profiting on resales, it stands to reason that more egregious practices would have been prohibited.  

mpedone

JZ280705 said:

Some risk is expected.  Being locked in so you can’t lower your price was not.  TM won’t let you resell for less than standard ticket price but these are Premium tickets which they deliberately mis priced.

Given that F2F was locked in at Face Value in 2020, I don't know how anyone thought the "Premium" tickets would be any different,

I did not get tickets in 2020.  There was no disclosure of this, and given the whole point of this process is to prevent people from profiting on resales, it stands to reason that more egregious practices would have been prohibited.  

This gets into semantics a bit, but "Face Value" is whatever TicketMaster charged you for the ticket. It sucks, I know, but they told us upfront that tickets could only be sold for what you paid.

washed in black

mpedone said:

JZ280705 said:

Some risk is expected.  Being locked in so you can’t lower your price was not.  TM won’t let you resell for less than standard ticket price but these are Premium tickets which they deliberately mis priced.

Given that F2F was locked in at Face Value in 2020, I don't know how anyone thought the "Premium" tickets would be any different,

I did not get tickets in 2020.  There was no disclosure of this, and given the whole point of this process is to prevent people from profiting on resales, it stands to reason that more egregious practices would have been prohibited.  

This gets into semantics a bit, but "Face Value" is whatever TicketMaster charged you for the ticket. It sucks, I know, but they told us upfront that tickets could only be sold for what you paid.

Correct. Which is why it's very risky to purchase "premium" tickets if there is any chance that you won't be able to attend at the last minute. There has been only one instance when I could not use my 10c tix - Krakow 2018 - due to a family emergency. There was no way to transfer them to another 10c member and I needed to claim them with ID at the venue. Both my husband and I happened to win tix to that show, so we were out over $400. 

I'm sure a lot of people did not expect that TM would undercut the price, particularly of "face value premium seats", by dropping the cost hundreds of dollars, making it nearly impossible to resell similar or worse seats that were just overpaid for. Hey, if you can afford to drop a mortgage payment on a pair of PJ tix without blinking an eye, cool for you, but many people cannot, and I personally would not. 

We got our EdVed tix for Newark less than a week before the show and paid $119, while seats in the same row, 4 down from us were over $600. It's a hard lesson, but I really hope that people are paying attention. With this new dynamic pricing garbage, it's worth waiting it out til the last minute. I completely understand not wanting to travel without having secured tix, which is why I'm only traveling to Hamilton / Toronto, since I won tix in the drawing. The MSG & Camden shows are local, so even if I didn't yet have tix, it wouldn't be a big deal to just show up and hope for the best, if I didn't find normally priced seats in the days prior.

JZ280705

Look how all of sudden tons of cheap tickets - BETTER SEATS - opened for Oakland after fucking people showing only minimal tickets left with prices at 5X.  I’m done with this shit.  Fuck you Ticketmaster and Fuck you Pearl Jam.