Dear Ticketmaster and Livenation,
I hate you. I really do. I hate you more than I hate…today’s Top 40, and that’s a lot. How you two have not gone under investigation for being a monopoly is completely beyond me.
All of this “rage”, if you can call it that, has been boiling up since…let’s say 2002, when I saw my first Guster concert in Boston. Ironically, all of this hate came to a head yesterday (Friday), buying tickets to see another Guster concert–in Boston. But this isn’t just any ordinary Guster concert. This is a 10 year anniversary of their best album (and one of my all-time favorites), Lost and Gone Forever. As an avid Guster fan, you can imagine how excited I was for this concert. I was so excited that I even bookmarked the Livenation site to buy tickets the second they went on sale: 10:00:00 AM EST, Friday, July 18, 2009.
However, my giddiness fell immediately when at 9:58:00 AM, EST, I went to the Livenation page, and constantly refreshed the page, hoping for tickets to “accidentally” go onsale a bit early. No luck. In fact–I wasn’t able to get tickets until 10:05:something AM EST. So, Livenation, I ask you, what the fuck? Now, I was really hoping to get great, front row seats, but alas, I am now in the Orchestra section of The Orpheum. Now, I’ve been to the Orpheum twice, and there aren’t really any bad seats–just cramped ones–but I digress. I ended up with 4 seats for my friends and my sister, sitting in section R.
The seats were supposed to cost $32.50. Very respectable price–in fact, cheaper than the NY show. But that’s not the problem. When I went to go pay, I saw the (total) price had jumped from $130 to $188.80. Now I know that they like to fuck with our brains and add charges after you have selected your tickets…but something really bugged me. Below are the fees I was charged:
Tickets: $130.00
Charity: $2.00
Ticket Fee: $48.80
Venue Fee: $8.00
Total Ticket Charges for Event: $188.80
Okay. Ticket’s is cool. I understand that. I paid for the tickets. That should be the end of transaction, right? No. Now I’m all for charity, in fact, I think donating to a charity or somehow helping a charity is awesome, but why wasn’t the charity fee built into the original ticket cost? I mean, it would only bring each ticket up by 50 cents. I wouldn’t care. In fact, I’d think anyone would be hardpressed to find some one who would refuse to donate a measly 50 cents to charity.
My real problem comes with the Ticket and Venue Fee. What the fuck is a Ticket Fee? I paid for the tickets–clearly that is the fee, right? Apparently not. Apparently there is a fee for paying a fee. Again I say, what the fuck? You’re going to charge me $12.20 per ticket to pay for a ticket? Call me dumb, call me stupid, I simply just don’t understand it. Same with the Venue Fee. If I go to The Orpheum and buy tickets, none of these feeds would be included. Clearly, you’re charging these fees because you need to make money. And while that’s admirable, you’re also screwing your customer–you obviously never took an Ethics class.
Now, I know some one is going to read this and say to themselves, “why didn’t you just go to the venue and by them then?” To answer that question, am currently on break, and do not live in Boston.
I understand that Ticketmaster and Livenation are businesses and need to make money–but what happened to making money via advertising? What happened to making money without screwing your customer?
Unfortunately, because Ticketmaster and Livenation have a monopoly on every venue, it would be silly for me to say “I will never use you again!”, but instead I’ll say this, “I’ll do my best to try and never use you if I don’t have to!”. Maybe not as self-satisfying, but it gets the job done. I hope you change your ways and stop screwing your customers (and in turn, the bands who play at the venues).
Best Wishes,
Ben Cooper.
