Talk:Ticketmaster/Archives/2014

Perspective

I think a lot of people have a negative perception of Ticketmaster due to the Pearl Jam lawsuit.And one thing he said was fuck this shit If tickets are available at the venue, there is generally no service charge. If you want to sit at home and call or order online, you have to pay to use the service. You are not required to pay that charge, it is a literal convenience charge for not having to leave you house, spend gas and time, as well as go only when the box office is open. It is completely unfair to criticize Ticketmaster for providing a service, and providing it well, and asking for compensation.12.211.107.206 20:31, 23 January 2006 (UTC)dellis

"If you want to sit at home and call or order online, you have to pay to use the service. You are not required to pay that charge, it is a literal convenience charge for not having to leave you house, spend gas and time, as well as go only when the box office is open." - Even if you drive to a ticketmaster outlet they still charge a $9 "Convenience Charge." Where does the convenient part come in? How can you stick up for these people? they're just middlemen that scrape profits off the top of mark-up prices

If I choose to buy tickets online from TM I get no choice over where I want to sit, and pretty much perform the sale from start to finish by myself. The phone isn't much better. This only costs me about $10 per ticket usually. Or, I can go to a venue box office and get customer service - that is, I can select where I want to sit and be assisted by an actual person - and this costs me about $0 per ticket. Clearly, this second option shows that the cost of selling a ticket is already factored into the ticket price. Not only that, but it is really hard to see how TM could have higher costs per ticket sold than a venue box office. What happened to economies of scale? Ticketmaster started off providing service, but now they seem to simply charge fees as though they were providing a service. Musser 20:13, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Ticketmaster's prices don't reflect their costs, they reflect market conditions. In particular, Ticketmaster has no competitive pressure to lower prices or to innovate (i.e. to allow users to choose seats). —Fleminra 23:20, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

"the cost of selling a ticket is already factored into the ticket price", haha, so TM should operate their business with no charges at all?? they don't own the venue you know. Ticketmaster's biggest service isn't selling tickets its acting as the whipping boy of the entertainment world. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.222.60.122 (talk • contribs) 17:49, February 2, 2006.

The problem is their "convienience charge" is based on a percentage and not a flat rate. Why does it cost $5 more for a $40 ticket vs a $30 one at the same show?24.94.95.3 23:02, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The venue already pays the cost of selling the ticket by paying box office staff, and it builds that cost into the venue fee, so why not build Ticketmaster's costs into the venue fee? Analogy to VISA and MasterCard, which managed to make their cards more desirable by requiring merchants to include merchant fees into the prices of goods and services instead of including them as a surcharge. --Damian Yerrick (☎) 16:51, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

This isn't entirely true. I have, in many cases, been required to pay a service charge for purchasing tickets directly from the box office. Typically this is for venues which are also owned by ticket vendors such as LiveNation. In many other cases there is simply no other way to purchase tickets. For example when the Smashing Pumpkins played their recent tour tickets were exclusively available from Ticketmaster and had to be ordered online with a service fee attached. When no alternative is provided there isn't much service being done. For the recent Outside Lands festival in San Francisco not insignificant service fees were charged even when tickets were purchased from a local box office and tickets could only be purchased with cash. Another recent incident was when a tour was canceled, but despite offering a refund on the ticket price no refund was offered for the service fee. Simply put buying from the box office is definitely not a way to avoid service fees. As for compensation with no competition for the same event there is no market pressure to keep prices to what the market will bear. It's Hobson's Choice. You either put up with the fee or you don't go. This has the further effect of forcing youth, who typically have little money, out of being able to afford concerts when they were formerly one of the largest audience segments. 69.181.55.239 (talk) 12:54, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

In general, this article bears little resemblance to what one would typically associate with a reference work. There's good analysis, well thought-out criticism, but very little context or description of what Ticketmaster is. It's griping seeking the imprimatur of Wikipedia. I understand why people don't like Ticketmaster, but the answer is to found competing companies that force it to change its ways. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ClarkTroy (talk • contribs) 14:17, May 17, 2006.

I have to agree with this previous comment. Furthermore, I feel that the entertainment.com section is incorrect and possibly biased. My best guess as to what is happening with that is: (1) ticket buyers are rushing when buying tickets because they want the best available seats as soon as tickets are on sale. (2) At the end of the ticket selling transaction, Ticketmaster prompts the buyer to click on a link where they can "find out how to get $25 back" (not sure of the exact wording). (3) That link takes you to a signup for Entertainment.com. (4) People who are in a frenzied rush to complete the transaction before losing their tickets inadvertently sign up for this unwanted service. (5) People don't realize that they are signed up for entertainment.com until they get the charge on their monthly statement; sometimes they remember rejecting this service in the past, but it only takes once to sign up. Overall, this is a practice I find unethical by Ticketmaster, but it's not quite as bad as described.InsultComicDog 17:07, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe that someone needs to proofread the article and check all listed sources. One major misinformation is that Ticketmaster is able to keep a portion of the face-value charge of tickets. Ticketmaster profits only through order processing fee, convenience charges, and extra delivery charges(ie UPS or Ticketfast). I will gladly testify to this as I work in the Charleston, WV call center in an administrative department. --206.165.139.129 02:52, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

This article needs a lot of work. It does not read like a reference, but more like a first draft of a negative feature on Ticketmaster. Look, we all hate paying the convenience charges and I think we can fairly debate the ethics of many of the items mentioned, but I feel the criticism should be moved to an explicit "Criticism" section and some sections linked to an Off-Wikipedia blog about its practices. To be a reference, more material should be included about the company, its profile, earnings, etc. I came to this article to try and find information about Pearl Jam taking them on, as I expected that fact to be part of the reference, but I also expect it to link me off to news articles and documents where I can decide for myself. An encyclopedia does not decide for us. I will try to help with the article in the future. cagomez 16:47, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem with major misinformation in this article and about Ticketmaster in general is that Ticketmaster is very good at doing their jobs: They sell a lot of tickets, in a short amount of time, making a lot of money for their clients and doing it in a way that makes all other parties involved seem victimized. NEWSFLASH: Venues, promoters, sports teams, universities and yes, even ARTISTS, all get their cut of the dreaded "fees" that Ticketmaster charges. Everyone gets their cut based on contractual agreements. Furthermore, Ticketmaster doesn't control any ticket inventory for sale. They are merely a distributor for inventory that is provided by the client. The client (whether it is the venue, promoter or artist management) determines which tickets are "held back" and it is those individuals that you can blame for never being able to get the "good" tickets. 24.251.93.91 (talk) 07:05, 24 July 2008 (UTC)