Swifties swiftly expose Ticketmaster

[Scout]

I have a feeling this is turning into the nightmare scenario we have all needed to reign in Ticketmaster.

Why can’t I link NPR here?

And white suburban Moms where I live are losing their **** right now.

 

[Scout]

In the immortal words of Randy Marsh… I thought this was America.

I mean this is classic supply and demand. People are pissed that someone bought something and are reselling it for a greater value.

I mean, tons of sporting events are like this. Memorabilia Is like this.

Thirty years ago you had to stand in line in person and not try to get tickets 1,000 miles away on your phone.

Isn’t it suppressing the free market, which gave all these people the money to even think about doing a bougie out-of-town trip with their princess, to cap the resale of these tickets?

I know people are pissed, but this seems like classic American hypocrisy; use the system to get all your money and then complain when the system takes all your money.

Another hot take… nothing pisses some people off more than figuring out that some people have more money than them.

 

[Driftwood]

The problem isn't someone selling their personal tickets at a markup. The problem is the bots and people who buy dozens of tickets they never actually plan to use and jack the prices.
I know people who have season tickets for Tennessee football and North Carolina basketball. They usually sell a big game - Vols vs. Bama or Tar Heels vs. Duke - to cover the cost of the season tickets. Nobody complains about that.
Ticket scalpers are scum just like price gougers during a natural disaster. They are preying on people.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

My wife saw the Beatles at Shea Stadium. The way she got tickets was to send a letter, self-addressed return envelope and a check to disc jockey Murray the K who held a lottery drawing -- for all 55,000 tickets. Maybe Taylor should try that method.

 

[BTExpress]

Just write a fake story promoting the concert for a newspaper you're interning at and send it to the promoter for tickets.

Worked great 40 years ago.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

The Ticketmaster scam of having you queue up digitally and then choose your seats is a nightmare. I did it for Garth’s stadium tour and I’d pick two open seats, click “Buy” and then I’d get a message those seats weren’t available. It’s a horrible system and not user friendly, but when you’re a monopoly you can say **** them concert goers.

 

[goalmouth]

Ticketmaster has been run as a defacto monopoly for decades, with the attendant abuses winked at by regulators. Ordering seven tickets together for the same event? No problem -- along with an added handling fee for each ticket in the same order.

LOL

 

[wicked]

There was a reason Live Nation was a thing. It was to break Ticketmaster's monopoly.

Then it merged with Ticketmaster. Free market and everything.

 

[dixiehack]

Ticketmaster Opens New Workhouse Where Taylor Swift Fans Can Labor To Earn Their Eras Tickets

 

[dixiehack]

There was a reason Live Nation was a thing. It was to break Ticketmaster's monopoly.

Then it merged with Ticketmaster. Free market and everything.

Even then though, wouldn’t venues go with one or the other and that was that? Other than NYC, cities usually don’t have their pick of Class A arenas to take their business to if one jacks up the rates.

 

[Huggy]

My wife saw the Beatles at Shea Stadium. The way she got tickets was to send a letter, self-addressed return envelope and a check to disc jockey Murray the K who held a lottery drawing -- for all 55,000 tickets. Maybe Taylor should try that method.

When Springsteen played three nights in Toronto in 1984 the only way to get tickets was through a mail-in lottery. I got four for the first night.

 

[wicked]

Even then though, wouldn’t venues go with one or the other and that was that? Other than NYC, cities usually don’t have their pick of Class A arenas to take their business to if one jacks up the rates.

Yes, but the main point was, there was competition.

If you're saying that Ticketmaster shouldn't be able to force venues into exclusive contracts, sure, DOJ could (and given the track record, should) step in.

 

[Driftwood]

How about we go back to the old days of venues actually having box offices?
The last major tickets I bought were to see Carolina basketball at Clemson. I went to the Clemson site and clicked tickets. It took me to Ticketmaster where two tickets wound up costing me double face value because of fees. If that's what you want to price the tickets at, fine, but don't say $75 then hit me for $150 at checkout.

 

[wicked]

You can’t buy tickets at venues anymore if you want to avoid the fees. The places that still sell tickets sometimes even charge you the fees if you go there to buy. Also, teams are doing the exact same thing.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Nothing will change.

 

[micropolitan guy]

Airline and Ticketmaster customers might be the most mistreated consumers on earth. Of course, you do have a choice, you don't have to patronize either, but that's not a realistic attitude either, since one has a monopoly on air travel and the other on buying a ticket to attend a concert or a show.

 

[sgreenwell]

Airline and Ticketmaster customers might be the most mistreated consumers on earth. Of course, you do have a choice, you don't have to patronize either, but that's not a realistic attitude either, since on has a monopoly on air travel and the other on buying a ticket to attend a concert or a show.

Airlines at least have the excuse of keeping these god damn giant machines flying through the air, and their safety record is pretty great overall. Given how unpleasant the ticket buying experience is, it's hard to see why Ticketmaster gets to keep skimming their percent.

 

[playthrough]

I told my teenage daughter every day leading up to the sale that Ticketmaster sucks, it's not going to work, etc., but after four hours in the queue she got in.

But, as mentioned, I don't think anything changes. Not counting on my guv'mint to do anything. And I can't imagine shows of that magnitude going back to box office sales -- arenas won't want to pay for the staffing and security, and you're gonna need a lot of the latter nowadays.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

I've been amused to hear the people in my age group reminiscing about how we used to get up at the crack of dawn and stand in line outside of a TicketMaster outlet if we were buying concert tickets. I keep hearing that it was so much better back then.

And as a frequent concert-goer in those days... it sure as hell was not better. Get up at 4am to freeze outside the Sears at a mall so I could get last-row seats no matter where I was in line? Screw that.

There are a whole lot of problems with the current situation, and the TicketMaster/Live Nation monopoly sucks. It was not better in the 80s or 90s.

 

[Starman]

Camping out overnight to get Springsteen or Stones tickets was ok in the Eighties, but that was usually in spring and summertime.

Nieces StarA and StarB, turning 17 next week, snagged four. Not sure what they ended up paying.