I know this feeling is shared by many other people, and it isn’t original, but I hate Ticketmaster with a fiery passion. The only reason I don’t hate Live Nation as much, is I haven’t had to use them. I don’t really know how this happened, I guess its some sort of testament to the type of music I listen to or something. Though when Live Nation fully merges with Ticketmaster, I’m sure ill get the pleasure, which from what people tell me is about the same experience.
These companies have a solid lock on the ticket sales industry. Like most monopolies, they are also extremely greedy. For an accurate example, I searched for an Infected Mushroom show on Live Nation, since they will be absorbing Ticketmaster and are therefore more relevant. The tickets were 35 dollars for the ticket, 12.20 was the ticket fee, and 1.50 was the facility fee. This does not include any type of shipping and handling. Isn’t the venue already getting paid? Isn’t that why they have shows? How is 12.20 an acceptable fee to charge me? All they have to do is print the ticket, unless I want to print it for an extra fee.
The record industry has recently been in shambles. The price of music has changed, if you want to take advantage of it, all music is now free and available with web access. To be honest, I buy CD’s, because I like collecting them. But those record industries were really greedy for a long time, taking advantage of artists and fans alike, and they made a ton of profit. But music was taken back by the fans. Music is not hurt by this, people will always make music, and more then we need. However, the aspect of music I’m concerned with here is how tickets are distributed, and I say it’s wrong. I say, we take this aspect of music back as well.
My proposal is this: Make a site that does exactly what Ticketmaster and LiveNation do, except don’t charge a ridiculous service charge. Now, this is a company, so it is understandable to charge a fee. But there is no reason that it should be 12 dollars. I would say 5 dollars is the max, and it should be consistent. Charging more for a more expensive ticket is absurd, as the company is still doing the exact same thing as with a cheaper ticket.
To be honest, you don’t even need to charge a convenience charge for tickets. Advertisements could be used to support the site, or at least help subsidize convenience charges. There is no reason fans should have to pay so much.
Speaking of paying a ton of money for tickets; it seems that is the only way to be a true fan nowadays. If a band is popular, it seems the only way to see them is by paying incredible amounts of money by buying tickets from scalping sites for way more then the bands intended to charge. You used to be able to go to venues or Ticketmaster locations and camp out till they went on sale. However, they have a new policy that uses a lottery system, so coming early only makes you the person that waited longer. How are you supposed to get tickets without paying scalpers? It’s a terrible policy and should be changed back. Lines tend to manage themselves, so I don’t know what they are so worried about.
Basically, I think that Ticketmaster and LiveNation have a monopoly that can easily be toppled, because there whole customer base hates them, and they don’t do anything that is hard to do at all. Therefore, the industry is ripe for the picking; just don’t be a really greedy person.
Note: When Live Nation was first made, the conviencence charge it had when you purchased a ticket was 2 dollars.
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