Ticketmaster now reserving the best seats for themselves

ilockyer

SHZA said:

High Fidelity 2000 said:

mpedone said:

Get_Right said:

mr bungle said:

mpedone said:

High Fidelity 2000 said:

mpedone said:

Ticketmaster has won.

I get tired of people saying everything is Ticketmaster. The band's management signed off on this. They sign off on 10% of the tickets being sold for "premium" prices to rip off fans at 4-5 times the cost. Why would they sell all those good seats for $185 to the ten club members when they can sell them for $1000 to stupid desperate people who log on and find that's all that's left when they get through the queue? It's a scam. The band AND ticketmaster are in on it. The band is making more money, too.
Don't believe me? The Cure toured without premium seats, and everything was affordable with their top ticket prices being around $130, lawn $25, t shirts were $25. And somehow they did this for every show on a huge tour all last summer. It was probably hard but it can be done, but management (I'm guessing) doesn't want to do it. Weak.

That is exactly my point, though. Pearl Jam fought Ticketmaster, and Ticketmaster has won. Whether it's the actual band members making these decisions or they've turfed it off to management with tacit approval, the fight is over (probably has been for some time).

Probably one of the reasons Kelly Curtis "retired".  It was probably too hard seeing the fans not being prioritized.

Ticketmaster did not win. They came up with a business plan that takes money away from Stubhub and puts it in the artist's pocket. The band said yes to that plan. Truthfully they could charge much more and still sell out most arenas. I think the band took a medium path capturing some of that revenue but not totally gouging the fans.

How is that not Ticketmaster winning? Non-transferable digital tickets accomplish the same thing. Nothing is stopping someone who bought a MSG "premium" ticket from selling it for twice as much on StubHub if they think they can get that much. Also, I think one of the things people are pushing back against is the idea that a band that's so often railed against greed is now interested in "capturing some of that revenue".

Exactly this. "Hey, Stubhub sellers are screwing the fans! Wait a minute... WE could be screwing the fans!" Well, approximately 10% of them anyway. The band has to be willing to say no like the Cure did. 

Only some Cure shows had $400 first row (which by the way, is kind of a bargain for first row compared to a lot of Premium Platinum bullshit, don't even get me started on the Chili Peppers prices), some the whole front sections topped out at $130 or $150 something, I can't really remember at this point. Decent/good reserved seats were under $100. Anyone can do it if they want to, they just don't want to. They most likely get shown a dollar figure from the Live Nation for so many shows and say wow sign us up. Why do you think Beyonce and Bruce and Madonna and everybody and their moms did a huge tour last year or this year? They found out how much they can make/how much people will buy tickets for. Chili Peppers are the biggest frauds in all this. Lawn seats for $120, pit for $420 or "early admission pit" for an extra $200. It's all a scam.

They could say no to platinum, but why is that necessarily better for the fan? Plenty of fans who attended Cure shows paid platinum prices--they just did it through Vivid, stubhub, and seatgeek instead of ticketmaster. So the ticket brokers made the money instead of the band. Why is that a better system? 

The tickets were supposedly non transferrable, apart from the markets where that is not allowed. 

https://www.nme.com/news/music/robert-smith-the-cure-ticketmaster-north-america-tour-tickets-scalpers-3413725

Zod

ilockyer said:

SHZA said:

High Fidelity 2000 said:

mpedone said:

Get_Right said:

mr bungle said:

mpedone said:

High Fidelity 2000 said:

mpedone said:

Ticketmaster has won.

I get tired of people saying everything is Ticketmaster. The band's management signed off on this. They sign off on 10% of the tickets being sold for "premium" prices to rip off fans at 4-5 times the cost. Why would they sell all those good seats for $185 to the ten club members when they can sell them for $1000 to stupid desperate people who log on and find that's all that's left when they get through the queue? It's a scam. The band AND ticketmaster are in on it. The band is making more money, too.
Don't believe me? The Cure toured without premium seats, and everything was affordable with their top ticket prices being around $130, lawn $25, t shirts were $25. And somehow they did this for every show on a huge tour all last summer. It was probably hard but it can be done, but management (I'm guessing) doesn't want to do it. Weak.

That is exactly my point, though. Pearl Jam fought Ticketmaster, and Ticketmaster has won. Whether it's the actual band members making these decisions or they've turfed it off to management with tacit approval, the fight is over (probably has been for some time).

Probably one of the reasons Kelly Curtis "retired".  It was probably too hard seeing the fans not being prioritized.

Ticketmaster did not win. They came up with a business plan that takes money away from Stubhub and puts it in the artist's pocket. The band said yes to that plan. Truthfully they could charge much more and still sell out most arenas. I think the band took a medium path capturing some of that revenue but not totally gouging the fans.

How is that not Ticketmaster winning? Non-transferable digital tickets accomplish the same thing. Nothing is stopping someone who bought a MSG "premium" ticket from selling it for twice as much on StubHub if they think they can get that much. Also, I think one of the things people are pushing back against is the idea that a band that's so often railed against greed is now interested in "capturing some of that revenue".

Exactly this. "Hey, Stubhub sellers are screwing the fans! Wait a minute... WE could be screwing the fans!" Well, approximately 10% of them anyway. The band has to be willing to say no like the Cure did. 

Only some Cure shows had $400 first row (which by the way, is kind of a bargain for first row compared to a lot of Premium Platinum bullshit, don't even get me started on the Chili Peppers prices), some the whole front sections topped out at $130 or $150 something, I can't really remember at this point. Decent/good reserved seats were under $100. Anyone can do it if they want to, they just don't want to. They most likely get shown a dollar figure from the Live Nation for so many shows and say wow sign us up. Why do you think Beyonce and Bruce and Madonna and everybody and their moms did a huge tour last year or this year? They found out how much they can make/how much people will buy tickets for. Chili Peppers are the biggest frauds in all this. Lawn seats for $120, pit for $420 or "early admission pit" for an extra $200. It's all a scam.

They could say no to platinum, but why is that necessarily better for the fan? Plenty of fans who attended Cure shows paid platinum prices--they just did it through Vivid, stubhub, and seatgeek instead of ticketmaster. So the ticket brokers made the money instead of the band. Why is that a better system? 

The tickets were supposedly non transferrable, apart from the markets where that is not allowed. 

https://www.nme.com/news/music/robert-smith-the-cure-ticketmaster-north-america-tour-tickets-scalpers-3413725

There are loopholes.  There's no linking of the TM account to the wallet you download the tickets to.  You can download the tickets to whatever wallet is on the phone you are using.  You can either use a burner TM account, or temporarily share the password with the buyer so the tickets are downloaded into the Google or Apple Wallet.

It's pretty restrictive, but resellers are figuring out the quirks and loopholes.

I have wondered if they'll try to figure out a way to connect TM wallets with Phone wallets to verify it's the same user.  I'm guessing probably not, as TM does fan2fan to appease artists, but most likely aren't worried about it.

BF25394

High Fidelity 2000 said:

Why do you think Beyonce and Bruce and Madonna and everybody and their moms did a huge tour last year or this year? 

Because there was a worldwide pandemic that kept them from touring in 2020, 2021 and 2022? And leave my mom out of this.

Poncier

Luckytwn1 said:

Ticketmaster makes no decisions at all as to what tickets go where. Those decisions are 100 percent made by the promoter in conjunction with the act, in this case Pearl Jam.

Ticketmaster is the promoter.
They and Live Nation are the same entity.

SHZA

ilockyer said:

SHZA said:

High Fidelity 2000 said:

mpedone said:

Get_Right said:

mr bungle said:

mpedone said:

High Fidelity 2000 said:

mpedone said:

Ticketmaster has won.

I get tired of people saying everything is Ticketmaster. The band's management signed off on this. They sign off on 10% of the tickets being sold for "premium" prices to rip off fans at 4-5 times the cost. Why would they sell all those good seats for $185 to the ten club members when they can sell them for $1000 to stupid desperate people who log on and find that's all that's left when they get through the queue? It's a scam. The band AND ticketmaster are in on it. The band is making more money, too.
Don't believe me? The Cure toured without premium seats, and everything was affordable with their top ticket prices being around $130, lawn $25, t shirts were $25. And somehow they did this for every show on a huge tour all last summer. It was probably hard but it can be done, but management (I'm guessing) doesn't want to do it. Weak.

That is exactly my point, though. Pearl Jam fought Ticketmaster, and Ticketmaster has won. Whether it's the actual band members making these decisions or they've turfed it off to management with tacit approval, the fight is over (probably has been for some time).

Probably one of the reasons Kelly Curtis "retired".  It was probably too hard seeing the fans not being prioritized.

Ticketmaster did not win. They came up with a business plan that takes money away from Stubhub and puts it in the artist's pocket. The band said yes to that plan. Truthfully they could charge much more and still sell out most arenas. I think the band took a medium path capturing some of that revenue but not totally gouging the fans.

How is that not Ticketmaster winning? Non-transferable digital tickets accomplish the same thing. Nothing is stopping someone who bought a MSG "premium" ticket from selling it for twice as much on StubHub if they think they can get that much. Also, I think one of the things people are pushing back against is the idea that a band that's so often railed against greed is now interested in "capturing some of that revenue".

Exactly this. "Hey, Stubhub sellers are screwing the fans! Wait a minute... WE could be screwing the fans!" Well, approximately 10% of them anyway. The band has to be willing to say no like the Cure did. 

Only some Cure shows had $400 first row (which by the way, is kind of a bargain for first row compared to a lot of Premium Platinum bullshit, don't even get me started on the Chili Peppers prices), some the whole front sections topped out at $130 or $150 something, I can't really remember at this point. Decent/good reserved seats were under $100. Anyone can do it if they want to, they just don't want to. They most likely get shown a dollar figure from the Live Nation for so many shows and say wow sign us up. Why do you think Beyonce and Bruce and Madonna and everybody and their moms did a huge tour last year or this year? They found out how much they can make/how much people will buy tickets for. Chili Peppers are the biggest frauds in all this. Lawn seats for $120, pit for $420 or "early admission pit" for an extra $200. It's all a scam.

They could say no to platinum, but why is that necessarily better for the fan? Plenty of fans who attended Cure shows paid platinum prices--they just did it through Vivid, stubhub, and seatgeek instead of ticketmaster. So the ticket brokers made the money instead of the band. Why is that a better system? 

The tickets were supposedly non transferrable, apart from the markets where that is not allowed. 

https://www.nme.com/news/music/robert-smith-the-cure-ticketmaster-north-america-tour-tickets-scalpers-3413725

Supposedly, but all of the major resale sites were selling marked up tickets even in non-transferable markets. I know of many people who bought from those sites and got a link that either had a moving barcode on a separate website or a download to the phone wallet. Same thing happened with the PJ shows last year in Minnesota, Indy, and Texas. 

https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxjqz4/the-cure-tried-to-stop-scalpers-brokers-are-selling-entire-ticketmaster-accounts-instead 

BF25394

Poncier said:

Luckytwn1 said:

Ticketmaster makes no decisions at all as to what tickets go where. Those decisions are 100 percent made by the promoter in conjunction with the act, in this case Pearl Jam.

Ticketmaster is the promoter.
They and Live Nation are the same entity.

The venue is also involved in this. The reason that the Forum and MSG have lower-bowl seats excluded from fan-club ticket blocks and Vancouver, Seattle, Las Vegas and Portland don't is because of pre-existing ticketing policies at the Forum and MSG that Pearl Jam cannot circumvent.

SHZA

BF25394 said:

Poncier said:

Luckytwn1 said:

Ticketmaster makes no decisions at all as to what tickets go where. Those decisions are 100 percent made by the promoter in conjunction with the act, in this case Pearl Jam.

Ticketmaster is the promoter.
They and Live Nation are the same entity.

The venue is also involved in this. The reason that the Forum and MSG have lower-bowl seats excluded from fan-club ticket blocks and Vancouver, Seattle, Las Vegas and Portland don't is because of pre-existing ticketing policies at the Forum and MSG that Pearl Jam cannot circumvent.

Must be a new pre-existing policy 

BF25394

SHZA said:

BF25394 said:

Poncier said:

Luckytwn1 said:

Ticketmaster makes no decisions at all as to what tickets go where. Those decisions are 100 percent made by the promoter in conjunction with the act, in this case Pearl Jam.

Ticketmaster is the promoter.
They and Live Nation are the same entity.

The venue is also involved in this. The reason that the Forum and MSG have lower-bowl seats excluded from fan-club ticket blocks and Vancouver, Seattle, Las Vegas and Portland don't is because of pre-existing ticketing policies at the Forum and MSG that Pearl Jam cannot circumvent.

Must be a new pre-existing policy 

Yes, that's correct. The venue had one policy in 2019, when the seating was worked out for the 2020 shows that got postponed to 2022. The venue adopted a new policy that was in effect in 2023 when the seating was worked out for the 2024 shows. Thus, the policy pre-existed this tour. A thing can be both new and pre-existing depending on your frame of reference.

Eddieredder

This is nothing new. Since the beginning of time the following get their ticket alottment. Before any kind of sale goes on. 

venue
promoter
band
misc (credit card company, sponsors, season tix holders)

And people have been reselling their alottment forever too.

Its all negotiated to a point. But at the end of the day TM is the venue and promoter in most cases. Don't like the deal? Then you can't play here. Its pretty simple. But also, the band has to agree to the terms. They also don't really have a choice or alternative. 

Eddieredder

I'm a Kraken season ticket holder in Seattle. Normally we get presale for all shows at Climate Pledge. For what its worth, my rep said the band/promoter made it so there is no season tix presale for the Seattle shows

HailHailVitalogy

BF25394 said:

SHZA said:

BF25394 said:

Poncier said:

Luckytwn1 said:

Ticketmaster makes no decisions at all as to what tickets go where. Those decisions are 100 percent made by the promoter in conjunction with the act, in this case Pearl Jam.

Ticketmaster is the promoter.
They and Live Nation are the same entity.

The venue is also involved in this. The reason that the Forum and MSG have lower-bowl seats excluded from fan-club ticket blocks and Vancouver, Seattle, Las Vegas and Portland don't is because of pre-existing ticketing policies at the Forum and MSG that Pearl Jam cannot circumvent.

Must be a new pre-existing policy 

Yes, that's correct. The venue had one policy in 2019, when the seating was worked out for the 2020 shows that got postponed to 2022. The venue adopted a new policy that was in effect in 2023 when the seating was worked out for the 2024 shows. Thus, the policy pre-existed this tour. A thing can be both new and pre-existing depending on your frame of reference.

So it’s Dolan’s fault yet again

BF25394

It's always Dolan's fault. We should count our blessings that JD and the Straight Shot aren't the openers for the tour.

Eddieshometown

How are you guys able to determine where the 10c seats will be?  More just curious.  I have been a 10c member since about 2000 and every tour since about 2014, my seats are getting further back.  In 2023, my seats at the UC were far worse than in 2006/2009 (as was the case for virtually everyone). 

Lerxst1992

BF25394 said:

It's always Dolan's fault. We should count our blessings that JD and the Straight Shot aren't the openers for the tour.

Seating chart is a bit of a joke. It’s because there are so many club seats now at the garden as compared to four years ago, but still it’s absurd for them to be in love with that damn arena. So many other options here in NY yet the band insists on rewarding Knick and rags fans.

One would have hoped SOMEONE in the band would look at that seating chart and say fix it or we are going to Belmont, Brooklyn, or NJ.

Get_Right

Lerxst1992 said:

BF25394 said:

It's always Dolan's fault. We should count our blessings that JD and the Straight Shot aren't the openers for the tour.

Seating chart is a bit of a joke. It’s because there are so many club seats now at the garden as compared to four years ago, but still it’s absurd for them to be in love with that damn arena. So many other options here in NY yet the band insists on rewarding Knick and rags fans.

One would have hoped SOMEONE in the band would look at that seating chart and say fix it or we are going to Belmont, Brooklyn, or NJ.

It is probably a combination of factors that led to those sections being shut out of the 10C sale.  Not the least of which is the 1M TM promised the band from premium sales. Pure speculation on the amount, but the band had to sign off on it.

kosteva2

Lerxst1992 said:

BF25394 said:

It's always Dolan's fault. We should count our blessings that JD and the Straight Shot aren't the openers for the tour.

Seating chart is a bit of a joke. It’s because there are so many club seats now at the garden as compared to four years ago, but still it’s absurd for them to be in love with that damn arena. So many other options here in NY yet the band insists on rewarding Knick and rags fans.

One would have hoped SOMEONE in the band would look at that seating chart and say fix it or we are going to Belmont, Brooklyn, or NJ.

They’re obviously going to be sold as premium tickets.  They (MSG, Ticketmaster, Pearl Jam) can get way more than the $185/ they’d get from selling as a 10C seat.  When they played MSG in Sept 2022 secondary market get in prices I think were running $300-500 upper level, $800-1000 lower.  Can’t fault them for taking advantage of the market.  For those that hit in lottery for MSG $185/ for a floor/lower level seat is a steal.

Hard to turn down MSG.  Great sound.  Energy there in the arena unmatched anywhere else.  Whole different level than Barclays or whatever they’re calling the arena in Newark these days.  It’s always a premium ticket for bands that like to play there (Pearl Jam, Phish, etc).

Luckytwn1

Poncier said:

Luckytwn1 said:

Ticketmaster makes no decisions at all as to what tickets go where. Those decisions are 100 percent made by the promoter in conjunction with the act, in this case Pearl Jam.

Ticketmaster is the promoter.
They and Live Nation are the same entity.

True but also an oversimplification as to what's going on.

Luckytwn1

Eddieredder said:

This is nothing new. Since the beginning of time the following get their ticket alottment. Before any kind of sale goes on. 

venue
promoter
band
misc (credit card company, sponsors, season tix holders)

And people have been reselling their alottment forever too.

Its all negotiated to a point. But at the end of the day TM is the venue and promoter in most cases. Don't like the deal? Then you can't play here. Its pretty simple. But also, the band has to agree to the terms. They also don't really have a choice or alternative. 

Ticketmaster/LN has no ownership interest in either The Forum or MSG. The Forum is owned by Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and as others have noted, Dolan owns The Garden. It's not like AEG which owns Crypto.com arena and then promotes shows there. 

Eddieredder

Luckytwn1 said:

Eddieredder said:

This is nothing new. Since the beginning of time the following get their ticket alottment. Before any kind of sale goes on. 

venue
promoter
band
misc (credit card company, sponsors, season tix holders)

And people have been reselling their alottment forever too.

Its all negotiated to a point. But at the end of the day TM is the venue and promoter in most cases. Don't like the deal? Then you can't play here. Its pretty simple. But also, the band has to agree to the terms. They also don't really have a choice or alternative. 

Ticketmaster/LN has no ownership interest in either The Forum or MSG. The Forum is owned by Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and as others have noted, Dolan owns The Garden. It's not like AEG which owns Crypto.com arena and then promotes shows there. 

But TM still runs the ticket distribution in those venues though right? They always get an alottment of tix for providing that service. Always.  

And Dolan and Ballmer get their piece as well. They get their fee, and they get their ticket alottment. Thats just how it works. 

Eddieredder

Luckytwn1 said:

Poncier said:

Luckytwn1 said:

Ticketmaster makes no decisions at all as to what tickets go where. Those decisions are 100 percent made by the promoter in conjunction with the act, in this case Pearl Jam.

Ticketmaster is the promoter.
They and Live Nation are the same entity.

True but also an oversimplification as to what's going on.

there are definitley outlier situations. but in a majority of venues this is definitely the case