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Ticketmaster to Start Online Ticket Auction
Jason1729 writes "According to the NY Times, ticketmaster is going to begin auctioning off the best tickets to events online. They claim it's to eliminate scalping, but in truth it guarantees every seat will be scalped for the highest price with all the money going to ticketmaster. It also eliminates the possibility of getting a decent seat by waiting in line or being lucky."
If the price being asked for a ticket is too much then maybe you didn't really want to go that much
As long as there are safe guards in place to create a safe / fair auction, eg single blind bid
This is such a great thing!! ...Because Ticketmaster's monopoly and average $10 per ticket fee (half paid by promoter, half paid by customer) is not enough profit. Plus, they even make you pay $2.50 extra when you want to print out tickets on your own printer since they just scan in the barcodes anyway. Sometimes Ticketmaster charges up to 35% of the face value of the ticket.
When was the last time you have been to a major ticketed event where Ticketmaster didn't control everything? Ticketmaster is the primary ticket seller for 27 of the 30 NHL teams and 28 of 30 NBA teams. An anti-trust case has been brought against them in the past, but it was unsuccessful. Ticketmaster has even been accused of signing you up for services you never ordered.
The end-user has really very little choice in matters like this, aside from not going to ticketed events.
Sound to me like the free market in action, the average libertarian slashdotter should be just fine with it. Tickets are pretty damned scarce, the market will sort it out.
Isn't this just the logical conclusion of capatilism and the free market economy? Supply is limited, Demand is large, thus the price should go up? The only reason scalpers exist is because there is a gap between the price of supply and the price at which there is still demand.
Guess they were wanting a piece of the pie that scalpers normally would get.
"I guess the capitalist inside me would say, `Hey, if that's what they can get for tickets, I guess that's just something I can't afford, like a yacht and a Learjet.' "
Hrm. Maybe you might want to suppress that part of you when you think about scalping next time. The visible hand of force to lower things works quite well when ethics gets thrown out the window - whether it's a want or need.
Industry watchers agree that auctions will affect all concertgoers. Prime seats are undervalued in the marketplace, said Alan B. Krueger, a professor at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, who has studied ticket prices. He predicts that once auctions begin revealing a ticket's market value, prices as a whole will climb faster.
Somehow reality and some people's interpretations of economics get quite warped when they let Mises throw their ethics out the window.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Ticketmaster has every right to dictate their business model. And I have every right not to buy from them. I applaud his efforts to take back money lost to middle-men nipping at his heels. As long as the market will bear those prices - then go for it. This means that concerts will increasingly become the past time of the rich, yes, and they will leave some of their best fans, the teenagers, out in the cold. If there's enough blowback they might go back to the 'wait in line at 8am on Sunday for cheap tickets' model - but not if they are making good money. Perhaps some alternatives will spring up to fill the gap. Who knows.
As for myself however, I find some of their business practices riotously lame, and I haven't bought tickets to a big concert in years, and I scrupulously avoid ticketmaster. Mostly because:
Maybe one day live music will return to a more sane level of operation. In the mean time I'll continue to partake of smaller venues and lesser known bands. With the money I save I can buy some albums and listen to them in the comfort of my car or on my stereo / computer at home. Obviously there are plenty of people who don't agree with me, because they fill the stadiums up with people at any price currently.
Like the situation with the RIAA, the only ones who can change it are the acts themselves. They have to conciously choose to publish independently (which is actually possible with the internet) and not use companies like ticketmaster when promoting and selling live events. It takes a serious amount of balls to be the first major act, but I believe if enough acts choose to go this route, it will reach a critical mass that will again change the industry. All it takes is for one well connected entrepreuer to convince some of his rock star friends to go in on a website where the site gets 10% of the cut and the artist gets 90%. Then you can sell songs for 25 cents or 50 cents a piece, and most of it goes to the artist. And the artist is still making directly more than he or she would than through Itunes, and the sales are good because of the low price
Ticket scalping is a sure sign of a supply/demand imbalance, just as long lines at gas stations in the U.S. were during the 1973 oil crisis, and Xbox 360's on EBay for $1000. If the market demand is high enough to sell some tickets at $500, it's almost a sure bet that someone will sell them for that price, and it might as well be the people putting on the show who earn the money, rather than some random guy who happened to be at the right place at the right time, who is contributing no economic benefit.
Bands may as well just cut out ticketmaster then, no use for them or the scalpers anymore. They no longer add value, and an auction site is the demo application in most web authoring tools these days.
Bye bye, and F' off Ticketmaster.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
If I wanted to get lucky, i'd play the lottery.
...) which are all added to the scalpers price, so by buing it directly from the source I should still be cheaper of. It's just cutting out the middle man.
Right now, if I want to get tickets for some event that is expected to sell out instantly, I can either invest a lot of time to hopefully be one of the "lucky few", or buy it from a scalper.
The scalper wants to make a profit too, and has business expenses (his invested time, possibility of not finding a buyer, the legal dificulties
Why are these tickets usually sold underpriced anyway? Surely not just because the organizers are so good at heart?
At first I read this article, and felt bad about the near monopoly that ticketmaster holds on the industry, but then I saw this article is from September 2003, and we haven't seen this yet. Maybe they thought better of the idea?
Slashdot, where news is relevant... but let's just pretend this is a slashback. Does anyone know what happened to this plan? It seems like it makes a lot of sense for ticketmaster.
1. cut-out middle-man (e-bay)
2. take a percentage of a premium for tickets
3. profit
no ??? needed
It's as simple as supply and demand... the basis of our whole economy. It's a function of a free market and with the internet as a huge enabler, I wouldn't be surprised to see more goods and services sold this way. Just look at how popular sites like ebay, ubid, etc. are. This move attempts to cut out the middle-man and allows ticketmaster (along with the event operators) to reap in even more profits. The only person who gets screwed is the average consumer who can't justify paying increasingly expensive ticket prices. Ticketmaster has nothing to lose by doing this, and only a lot more profit to gain. It's a brilliant business move and one of the side effects of capitalism.
But did it happened?
This isn't people being ripped off, this is everybody getting a fair price. The tickets go at the price people are willing to pay. OK, so we no longer get the chance to get lucky with a good seat for no extra money, but then again we never get unlucky with a crappy seat for the same price that people in good seats pay.
As for the comment that the scalping fee goes to the organizer, is that not better than it going to a scalper? We all talk enthusiastically about the day that the extortion of money from fans with high prices for DRM'd albums will stop and be replaced by artists earning money honestly with performances. This is a step towards making performance a more attractive source of income.
foo mane padme hum
Pure and simple. When the price becomes unpredictable and rapidly inflated I'm going to be happy letting others fight over it. I'll just buy the DVD.
It's already ridiculous anyway. I was looking at going to a particular popular circus performance but it $500 for a night out with the other half? !%@# that!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
This should ensure a healthy mix of the rich and the ignorant.
I don't understand why the summary puts such a negative slant on this. There are a lot of positive aspects to it as well, for example the people who want to see an event most, usually the biggest fans, who are willing to pay the most money, get to see it, not those who simply happen to get lucky. And don't tell me that it is unfair to the poor, because events are a luxury item, it is reasonable to expect them to be priced as high as the market will bear. Unlike food you can't claim that you need to go see whatver band you like at the moment.
Philosophy.
Either I pay the scalper, or I pay Ticketmaster. What is the real difference? The only thing that would piss me off that I worry about is the person who doesn't buy their tickets the second it is online. They miss the auction, and so they have to pay an inflated value even well above what the ticket went for in the auction. Effectively, the scalpers would be paying more to get their tickets, and those who snooze really have to pay.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
...in truth it guarantees every seat will be scalped for the highest price with all the money going to ticketmaster.
Don't you mean, "with all the money going to the artist who's performing"?
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
this article is from 2003
\.
This article was posted on September 1, 2003... but it could still happen.
I'm tired of the cavity search
I'm tired of rock concerts being at volume 11
not being able to see the band
perhaps you're just getting old and therefore out of the target demographic?
Maybe I'm just getting old.
ah, i see we agree. you forgot to mention how kids these days have no respect for their elders and how you liked walking uphill both ways to school.
What is with you ./s mindlessly spouting econ 101. Guess what, many of these events are held on public or publicly subsidized property. In addition, they cause massive amount of traffic congestion and police overtime, some of which is paid and some of which isn't. I know, I live in SF. Try to ride muni on game day or visit your girlfriend's south of market apartment, it ain't happening.
Regardless, with subsidies in place for stadiums and teams, there needs to be _at least_ a lottery and set-aside amount of regular NON-TRANSFERABLE tickets that aren't priced out the wazoo. This isn't that difficult to do and lets some lucky families of all classes see the games.
Capitalism is fine and dandy, but until stadiums and teams and their owners pay their way completely in terms of stadiums and city costs and costs to other city dwellers, a portion of their events should be treated like a public good and thus have some 'equity' in ticket distribution/pricing.
RTFA. Most of the "extra" money goes to the performers, promoter, venue, etc. TicketMaster gets a percentage or a flat fee. As someone who has purchased tickets from scalpers, I'd be happier paying the (inflated) price on a ticket that was guaranteed to be legitimate, rather than have to carry lots of cash to pay for a questionable one. On the other hand, TFA doesn't explain how the auction process will work. Will they auction a few seats each hour, or a few dozen once a day, or some other scheme? Or do you just bid on some number of seats within a specific area, and they dole them out to the high bidders? If I am willing to spend, say, $200 on the "best available at the price" seat, will I be guaranteed to get some seat somewhere (assuming that not all the seats in the house went for more)? What if I'm flexible on the exact date? What about groups of 5 that want to sit together? And how long do I have to wait to find out if I got a seat or not? It seems like it would be tricky to come up with a scheme that even just keeps all the rich people happy. There's also an existing "TicketExchange" feature, where customers can re-sell their tickets for more or less than they paid for them. TicketMaster is getting close to establishing a REAL market here, where you could even sell a ticket short! Now that's exciting -- "I think this upcoming mega-show with the big stars is going to be a flop, so I'll sell a ticket I don't own yet, wait for the bad reviews to come out, and then cover my short sale by buying a ticket that's now really cheap". How about a Broadway Futures market? Or Mutual Funds (an unmanaged portfolio of dramas; or a basket of musicals with no more than 20% revivals; etc.)?
What we are approaching is a graded experience; from right at the front with a great view, great sound (and atmosphere); through the also rans in the arena; to those watching live at home, and finally those watching the concert DVD. People will pay varying amount depending on the quality of that experience. Particularly stupid people will pay very, very large amounts. At the same time, the performer may well want demonstrative fans at the front to feed off. That brings in the concept of 'fan points', offsetting pure money will other contributions to the event.
The smart promoter will do more than a simple auction of seats - they will optimise on the value of the event and the contributions to that both on and off stage; and in reputation and future album sales.
I wonder if there actually are any smart promoters out there?
The tickets are already being sold for those prices, to people willing to pay for them. If your favorite band, or team, decides to work with Ticketmaster and you think their unethical, you might want to re-think your allegiance to the band or team.
For my part, there's nothing Ticketmaster can do to force me to purchase their product. I decide whether I'm will to pay the price for the event, and if the market price for the even is out of my range, that's fine.
I don't see what's better about armbands and luck of the draw, it just reduces the amount of money the band receives by pushing the profit out onto the sidewalk with scalpers instead of them.
As a side note, it's not like they're trampling civil rights here, it's a stupid sporting event or concert for crying out loud. I have no inherent right to pay the price I feel like paying to get into an event. They can set it wherever they like, and I can accept or decline voluntarily. It's nice like that, but I'm sure Ron Wyden or John McCain will be out front of the cameras to solve this injustice any time now.
Sure it fights scalping at the gates; now it's just Ticketmaster doing the scalping.
Obviously, Ticketmaster was jealous of some of the profit margins of the professional scalpers. This is like the government fighting the War on Drugs by taking over the dealers' businesses...
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
There is no simple way of releasing tickets for big events. If you go 'first-come first-served' online, then many of the first in line will be scalpers selling on the tickets at very high prices to those who couldn't press refresh quick enough, or were at work. If you allow everyone who wants a ticket to apply and then draw the winners out of a hat (a lottery, used by Wimbledon and other events), many of those in the hat will be scalpers (or touts) and once again those who actually want to be there, have to pay through the nose, because they lost in the ballot.
Ticketmaster's new scheme, seems to be to legitimize touting and pricing tickets out of the reach of those who want to attend the event, instead of preventing touting.
Some might say that this is just the free market at work, but normal people (more important normal families) wont be able to make it to any major events, under the two schemes above they at least have the chance to be there.
It seems to me that the most obvious way of making sure that there is a minimum of black market activity (you will never eliminate it) is to sell the tickets with the intended recipients name and check ID on entry to ensure the name of the person taking the seat is the one on the ticket.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
tickets for events could be bought at an auction discount for events that aren't in high demand. I say that if they want to play the market for the popular tickets they should be forced to deal with the same system for the less popular.
I hate this brand of capitalism that always favors the corporations.
It also eliminates the possibility of getting a decent seat by waiting in line or being lucky.
Only if Ticketmaster has a monopoly or it catches on with all the other competitors. Without most of the players in that market colluding to act in unison, the ones trying it won't have much luck because people will just take their business elsewhere.
BTW: Are ink cartridges more expensive than they used to be? I was talking to a friend about collusion, and she corrected me and said no they didn't used to be cheaper. Really? (I've never owned a printer.) Is there a better contemporary example?
I'd much prefer to go to a festival and see a huge range of bands rather than be scammed for the one band who may not perform so well on the night. Reading, Glastonbury, Leeds... we're spoilt for choice really =O)
Sig sig go away come back another day
T.U.G.
I find all the recent comments about libertarian slashdotters funny. I've been reading Slashdot since a little after it's inception and I've found that it's the same people - they've just grown up and left college. Everyone is a socialist in college. In the early days, Slashdot was vehemently left leaning.
Try starting your own business, you'll rearrange your priorities very quickly. It's not like a religion where you have to be converted by reading books or listening to a talk. (people like to bring up the Ayn Rand card all the time...) Though I do admit Heinlein incorporates basic free market principals and spins good yarns at the same time...
-M
Will I be able to get an unsold seat at a never-sold-out event like a Minnesota Twins baseball game for $1?
Besides Ticketmaster, Broadway shows have also instituted "premium" ticket pricing (up to $400+ a ticket!). If someone's willing to pay that price, more power to them. If the new economy of ticket pricing puts the tickets out of range for most patrons, that's fine by me. The market will provide more local, "lower-scale" entertainment -- more regional theater, more minor league ballclubs, more local bands and performers -- all within reach of the average audience.
For entertainment (at the very least), a free market can correct itself in very short order.
- Richie
I'm curious how much of a "convenience" charge will be tacked on to an autioned ticket. It's already bad that they charge almost $10+ for the convenience of buying a ticket online, then charge another $2.50 for you to be able to print out a ticket. I'm of the opinion that in the case of an auction, the convenience of buying online decreases and I should be charged less but something tells me ticketmonster disagrees...
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
When tickets are auctioned, the amount of money made by the act is more closely related to the number of people who want the tickets.
When you have a lot more money coming to you based on the number of fans you have, it becomes much more tempting to release your music for free to make it back on the concerts.
The better technology gets at distributing bands' music for them, the more attractive this gets.
paintball
The ticket agents (scalpers) have networks of people (smurfs) who buy tickets for them to the desriable shows. When ticketmaster limits sales to 2 tickets per address, they don't really affect the ticket agents because the agents each have dozens of smurfs buying tickets. That's why popular shows sell out within 5 minutes of going online on ticketmaster.com. I can see what the idea is here. If the ticket agents had to compete with the fans on the same level, then the advantage would go to the fans. Currently, the ticket agents are gaming the system to get the best tickets for themselves and then mark them up at a high price to the fans. If fans could buy tickets at the price the ticket agents would pay, it would put the ticket agents out of business.
Of course, I'd rather see a real competitor to TicketMaster.
My other first post is car post.
Ticketmaster has every right to dictate their business model. And I have every right not to buy from them. I applaud his efforts to take back money lost to middle-men nipping at his heels. As long as the market will bear those prices - then go for it. This means that concerts will increasingly become the past time of the rich, yes, and they will leave some of their best fans, the teenagers, out in the cold. If there's enough blowback they might go back to the 'wait in line at 8am on Sunday for cheap tickets' model - but not if they are making good money.
Strange that things are always good to do when you've thrown ethics out the window and they're bad if you try to replace ethics in economic activity.
Ticketmaster is once more proof positive that "free market" systems can fail. Start with the allowance of an endgame that is rewarded inversely of what ethics you practice, back it up with a hollow "it's a want, we arent pointing a gun to your head" justification, and you have market failure.
Regulation is all that is needed - and enforce it, even if it is unprofitable. Even things that are pure wants deserve protection. Just be sure to lock out the lobbyists out of the process, to ensure that the regulation isnt watered down.
Perhaps some alternatives will spring up to fill the gap.
Not in my lifetime- that's going to be quite a long one presuming ethics still is present in the economics of healthcare (given that it left us this year).
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Maybe this is not a big deal, it's just "Ticketmaster", but everything has a beginning.
:P )... the tickets will have the "same" minimal prices (maybe somebody save some bucks some day), but they catch that people who buy tickets at EBay (at least a big part).
I think that the "new" system, only generates more profit (everybody knows this
If Ticketmaster have the infrastructure is a really good move.
Some ppl pay more than 5 times (even MORE) the "original price".
Take a look at Madonna:
On Ticketmaster
and
On eBay
Rock and Roll
Of course, this system would be fine and dandy if the opposite end of the spectrum worked out--where people could get ridiculously cheap seats for undersold concerts ("Hey! We're gonna see Candlebox for 25 cents a pop"). Something tells me that Ticketmaster hasn't yet implemented the falling-price system for these forthcoming auctions, however. They hint to "fluid" prices, but the premise of the article is about raising ticket prices--not lowering--and that's for a mighty good reason.
In the end, it's a sucky prospect, and it's the market's damn fault. Way to blow it for the real fans, lazy scalper-lovers.
Performers aren't going to be very happy their fans are going to be treated on a two track system, which obviously further alienates the regular working class fanbase. I imagine some shows can be bought off with the lure of extra revenue sharing, but I also think most artists recognize the good duty and sense to undermine structural societal shifts of this nature.
Pay attention as arguments and policies designed for 'free'ing the market continue to wither those 80% who are labor-dependent. And by that I mean you without a portfolio that has you set for life. The era of the post-WWII/New Deal is over and the consequences for being you and your children will only grow harsher.
I kid, I kid. This is a great idea. Anyone know if Ticketmaster is a public company? Ack.. I may have just given away my scheme to make it to the other 20%.
They already do auctions for the best seats. Where has the author been? I just bought some tickets this way a few weeks ago, and it's a total scam. They also end the auction one day *after* general ticket sales, so if you don't win that auction, you get nothing. Totally evil, and designed to make you bid to the max so you don't get left in the cold. I really wanted to see that concert, though (I rarely find one I want to see), so I bid high just like they wanted.
It's they're product, and they're entitled to try to maximize revenue from it. This isn't unlike how airlines charge different fliers different amounts based on whether they're business travelers (spending freely with the company's money and not wanting to spend the weekend after the conference away from home) or vacationers (tight on money and often just going for a weekend). Price discrimination takes many forms... and some of them are fairly nuanced. Holding an auction is a fairly blunt way of going about it, but it's a legitimate business practice.
Now, I'll also point out that I sometimes scalp tickets. A local county fair usually has some very attractive acts that all go on sale on the same morning. If there's an act that I want to see (so I'm in line overnight, anyway...), then I'll buy the max they'll allow me for each act and then I sell them on eBay. My justification for doing this is that... without scalpers, those with more time than money (ie, students, slackers, etc.) would get all of the great seats. Scalpers allow those with more money than time (lawyers, doctors, etc.) a chance to get good seats, too. So, everybody gets a chance.
Before you say that I was just trying to justify my greed, I'll point out that the part about this that I do have a problem with is that it freezes out the first group I mentioned... those with more time than money. So, I think the auction is no better than having everyone stand in line. It would be nice to see some blend, where some of the tix went for auction and others were for people willing to do something incredibly boring for a long time.
Ticket prices will go up initially... but I suspect that in the long run this will give a shot in the arm to theaters, which have been doing poorly and ending up doing a lot of annoying advertising. If this works out well for them, they will end up building more theaters and the initially high prices may drop...
What does worry me is that they will try to game the system. With anonymous bidding run by ticketmaster it would be pretty easy for ticketmaster to bid on its own tickets to boost the price, then if they accidentally win just award the ticket to whatever real bidder bid the highest.
If they did that, would it actually be illegal? Otherwise, it seems like something they almost should do to boost profits. They are beholden to their shareholders after all.
I know this isn't the popular opinion, but I'm actually in favor of this.
I've been very frustrated when the tickets I want are only available by "professional scalpers" on eBay. These people join fan clubs, get in line at 10am, and do whatever else they can to purchase tons of tickets just to resell them.
The end result is that for me to get decent seats I have to pay the scalper. I would much rather have the artist get that money, even if it means TicketMaster keeps half.
Am I upset about all the crazy fees TicketMaster gets for "convinience"? Sure. But that's nothing compared to the markup a scalper gets.
-David
Just when I think Ticketmaster has hit rock bottom in corporate greed, they find a new way to put the screws to consumers. Their last invention was ticketFast, which would let you print off tickets at home...for a price. According to the NY Times article, it would cost you between $1.75 and $2.50 to do Ticketmaster the favor of using your own printer, paper and ink to print off tickets so they woudln't have to. You can go buy a ticket and have to pay over $16 in fees these days.
One reason why we need regime change here in the U.S. is so we can get a DOJ that doesn't look at anti-trust laws with distain. Ticketmaster should either be broken up or forced to include all fees in the advertized ticket price.
Guess they were wanting a piece of the pie that scalpers normally would get.
At least with scalpers, while illigit, are working hard to make that buck. They stand in line, they shell out money for tickets, and resell them. They peform a useful service for those of us who can't stand in line... and that service is worth a few bucks to say the least. Better yet often times for overpriced over hyped shows they sell them at a huge discount. For example the Who's tour for their album Next seemed to have more scalpers than attendees... as also was the case for the U2 ZooTV tour.
Ticketmaster on the other hand is working with venues to artificaly infact the cost of tickets that normally would be flat rate. Call me silly, but I prefer the scalpers. It's income for the otherwise unemployed, and it sure beats selling things that are outright illegal and very much harmful like *crack*.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
1. I'd be ok with this ALL tickets were auctioned, bringing the very real possibility that the last row of the 3rd bowl tickets could go for $5 (just as front row goes for $1000). The average price would still probably go up for the popular stuff AND Ticketmaster and the artist/sporting event retain a higher amount of the profits for the premium tickets. Plus average bums who would be happy just to be there finally could afford to do so on a more frequent basis. Everybody wins (unless you're an unpopular event that nevertheless still sells a decent amount of tickets or even sells out above market value).
1a. However, the possibility of the $5 last row ticket is exactly why Ticketmaster DOESN'T do this. They would say that's unacceptable, cheats the artist by cheapening the "event", blah blah blah, ignoring all the other factors increasing revenue and profits listed above. Just like record companies pushing for "variable pricing" on iTunes is not about keeping the average at $0.99 or dropping some tracks below that point.
2. What surety do we have that Ticketmaster (or somebody, choose your villain) won't pump up these auctions if they find prices "lagging" below expectations, or no matter what? eBay has a lot more of a "neutral" stance to try to prevent this from occuring in my mind, because their profits are not positively affected by scamming brokers pumping up the price; at least, not to the direct effect it will have on Tickemaster's profits.
3. Wouldn't this make scalping laws irrelevant? Why would it be illegal to purchase a ticket in a publically accessable auction and then "flip it" at an even higher price? Or buy a bunch of those $5 tickets and sell them at $10. This happens every day on the stock market, which is essentially what Ticketmaster is aiming to become: The Charles Schwab of event tickets.
This is one of the most disturbing ideas I've heard about in a long time. They're limiting the number of fan club tickets sold (at least, according to Pearl Jam's fan club management), they're raising the price and number of fees for no discernable reason, and any reasonable person can see that they have a larger monopoly than Microsoft and are leveraging it even more with business practices like these.
There really needs to be an artists' revolt here. Most of their money comes from touring because they're already screwed by the RIAA.
Monopolies suck.
Capitalism is a real system, economics is a theory about that system. In the real system of capitalism, i.e. what really exists, there is no such thing as perfect information, perfect competition, market clearing equilibria, non-sticky prices, etc. Arbitrage (e.g. scalping) is rampant. Monopoly power is rampant. That IS capitalism. Maybe you have some kind of dream idea of some kind of capitalism (like 'warm and fluffy capitalism') where everything works perfectly, but if we're talking about the real world, this is as smoothly functioning as capitalism gets.
The tickets go at the price people are willing to pay.
Willingness or lack of a "need" are not valid forms of consent to exploitation. Just apply a non-scalping regulation at the highest level that covers this kind of case and any "regulatory fee" endruns. Then we can talk about things being fair.
Only in the "free [to exploit] market" do you get promotion of ethical bankruptcy over ethical actions.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I have bee reading Slashdot since the beginning, as my uid shows, and I feel the opposite way. That is, in the beginning the readers, or at least the commentators, on slashdot had a libertarian slant. But during the last few years more and more statist and socialist ideas have come to dominate.
This truley saddens my as I live in a country that has been totally dominated by socialist ideas for all its democratic life and I would not recommend it to anyone seeking liberty or freedom.
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
Ok, first of all, as many people have already pointed out (but few seem to notice), this article is from September, 2003.
In any case, their auctions are not replacing their current ticket selling system, it is just a way for them to make some extra money, and people to be able to score a few last minute tickets at prices that they would be paying scalpers anyways (so basically it is just a way for ticketmaster to make more money). For certain big-name concerts they apparently hold a few sets of tickets and auction them off after the rest of the tickets have sold out. I regularly get concert updates from ticketmaster and it seems like once every month or so there is one of these auctions (the last few I remember are Roger Waters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Madonna...), and they have rarely been of any interest to me... for one thing, these are the kinds of concerts which often have face value prices of $100+ to begin with.
I think most everyone here agrees that ticketmaster has way too much of a monopoly over ticket sales, and their fees are ridiculous. But this whole auction thing is nothing new, and it just moves some money from money-grubbing scalpers to money-grubbing ticketmaster executives, and hardly changes anything. The fact that nobody here seemed to notice that this auction thing has already been going on for some time pretty much proves my point.
I can't imagine many bands being happy in a situation where the front ten rows of every gig is filled with overweight corporate businessmen in their forties and their precious little princesses with their Gucci handbags. You know it's coming. Every gig I've been to in the last few years has had more than its fair share of people who are only there so they can call everyone in their phone's address book to inform them that they are there and that therefore they are cool, whilst paying no attention to the people on stage 'cept to film them with their stupid f-ing phone cameras to prove that they were indeed there.
I live in northern New Mexico, you insensitive clod!
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
On one hand, we have Ticketmaster selling tickets tickets for 1k that otherwise would have been scalped for 1k. The difference here is that the band now gets some of that 1k instead of a person with connections in the office.
BUT Ticketmaster is doing this in an auction format. Something that scalpers already do on eBay. Couldn't it be possible that the bands just avoid Ticketmaster's probably 40% (I'd think it would be even more) comission and just put them on eBay themselves for a substantially reduced cost?
I'd imagine that it wouldn't be that difficult for eBay to implement a system just for concerts. I mean, I imagine that most of Ticketmaster's business is online anyways, eBay is a lot more popular and could easily promote and develop something for tickets.
I mean, the only benefit I can see Ticketmaster has over a tickets.ebay.com type setup would be the physical presence at a few locations... but I believe they hire a different company for that (at the venue). How hard would it be for companies that already sell Ticketmaster tickets to create a business account on ebay to purchase set-priced tickets for customers and print them right there?
"Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"
By the time you are a week from a gig happening, it's all in play. If Ticketmaster still have 100 tickets, would they rather they be unsold, in which case they make money, or sell them for a reduced price, and get something?
If you had a spare ticket, would you sell it for $10, or say "no, I really want the $50 I paid", and find that the day after the concert, it went unsold?
There is still nothing to prevent a scalper winning the auction and then putting the tickets out on ebay for an even higher price.
Oooh, snowball !
Maybe they can have both? Not going to suggest how they divide it up, but an allotment of the good seats will go as auctions, and the other allotment of good seats will go to those who were lucky and happened to be at the right place at the right time, or for those who waited 12 hours in line to get them.
however, for those who got cheap tickets, they must prefill their name(s) and when they appear at the concert, their id has to match the ticket. sort of like airplane tickets. you can't really buy airplane tickets for cheap and resell them because you happened to get an early bird ticket home for a holidy. that way, they can make more money through auctions (for those who have the money) and for fans who don't, they can still get them at cheap prices given that they are okay with waiting in long lines or got lucky and be willing to show your id at the entrance.
HD Trailers
You can't copy the experience of a live performance and obviously there's a lot of value in it to those who are going and willing to pay insane prices. So that is a huge source of new revenue for artists and promoters while CD sales are tanking.
They need to take the next step and think of pre-recorded distribution of material more of a promotional item to drive up demand for concert tickets. Let prices for CDs and online music drop to where it's no longer worth making fake copies and get it into people's hands. Then make those lazy-ass spoiled bands tour more often!
The free market always has the answer. Let it guide you!
How does this work in states where it is illegal to sell a ticket for more than its face value? Although I guess if you're the one printing the tickets, you can make the "face value" whatever you want it to be.
How long until they decide ALL seats are the best seats and begin to auction them off? And will they still charge for "convenience"? Doesn't seem all that convenient to wait and see if my ticket bid won. I'm beginning to think I'll go back to the waiting in line model. I bought a $30 ticket to see Ministry that cost me $45 ($9 convenience charge + taxes and fees). I've never been able to determine how they calculate "convenience", as it changes even if it's at the same venue or at the same ticket price.
Damn it, who's going to buy my captcha solvers now?
-- Making computers see, hear, and think... http://www.componica.com/
No one has ever been able to explain to my satisfaction why ticket scalping is illegal. Ticket "brokering" is legal, but scalping is a crime?
Scalping is a short term investment. If someone takes the time and money to buy 20 seats to an event, why shouldn't they be able to sell those tickets to people who want them? Why shouldn't they be able to charge whatever people are willing to pay for them?
It's not like concert tickets are a life and death matter. People don't NEED them. In the days of $3.40 gallons of gasoline it's idiotic to tell people what they can and can't charge for tickets to concerts and sporting events.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
If too many people get ticked off at Menudo or New Kids on the Block for the incredibly high ticket prices perhaps these groups will find ways to play without having to use Ticketmaster.
Menudo? New Kids On The Block? Incredibly high ticket prices? Let me be the first to welcome you to the future, young time-traveler! Reagan is dead, we're back at war, and there's 3 new Star Wars movies! Don't be scared by any of this; sit back, relax, and surf your way through our new "cyberspace".
Seriously. They did this for the 2005 fall NIN tour. That's the first one I'm aware of, so that's at least 6 months that they've been doing it.
...God damned f***ing Ticketbastard...This situation has gotten completely disgusting now. I live concerts, I love live music. However its alreay gotten to the point that I can barely afford to see some of the bands I like. I suppose its over now, I'll probably never be able to see another concert again. Its bad enough that the last one I went to I got tickets 3 minutes after they went on sale, and I was sitting in nowhere land...mind you these were pre-sale tickets through the band's web site!
Can't we just go back to the days where you had to stand in line, and if you were first in line you got the best tickets!
F***ing greedy a**monkeys!
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
The guy is not right and someone (I don't know who) needs to step in and take control of the matter.
Actually lets use all this Homeland security crap for something useful. Tickets will only be issued in a persons name and ONLY that person can use them!
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
I work at Ticketmaster. turns out to be a great place for a hacker. it's a very pro-Free Software place. all my work is on Linux, and I get to use Linux as my desktop system too. of the half-dozen programming jobs I've had, this is by far the most challenging and interesting.
I can count on one hand how many tickets to concerts/shows I have bought from Ticketmaster. I choose to support smaller clubs and more intimate venues. Ticket prices are more reasonable, the overall experience is better, and I have never waited hours in a line *hoping* to get a *chance* to buy a ticket.
I know how hard it is though for some to resist seeing the new "American Idol" concert tour of barely talented marketroids, or the latest boy band, or lip-synching barbie doll... and to them I say auction away!
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
i used ticketmaster last week, and "bid on auction" is already an option. http://www.ticketmaster.com/auction/02003C92BB47B8 53/1/ why does the article say late this year? between this and pre-sales, we (avarage joe) will never again get a decent ticket at a resonable price. i can't wait for the roger waters show :)
While I really hate scalpers, and I generally appreciate efforts to reduce their impact, I don't like systems like this that split up the ticket pool.
Even though the scalpers are usually the big winners, I like the idea that if I care enough and get in line early, or get to the site right when the tickets go on sale, I have a shot at getting the best seats in the house for face price. I think that's a fair expectation - that if you buy your tickets at the earliest point, you stand to get the best possible tickets available to you.
(While I admit I've never managed to get front row this way, I have gotten a good number of 2nd rows and usually can get something in the first 10)
When you start splitting it up this way, it gets very confusing and unclear. Should I buy in the general sale? Wait to the auction? Or maybe the presales are better? People feel very betrayed when they make an effort to be the first in line and then find out that people who came later got a better deal.
Anyhow, for the fans, it misses the point. The reason to crack down on the scalpers isn't because they take potentional profit from the artist, it's because they make it more expensive to see the show. Having Ticketmaster become the scalper doesn't help.
This is indeed excelent news! Fixed prices for shows have the same problems that fixed prices for everything else: either a) they're too much, so those people who can't afford the price simply don't go and you end up having empty seats, or b) they're too low, so more people than available seats are able to afford them and you end up having tons of people unable to attend the show.
Please note that the above is the case even when you include scalpers in the equation. Why? Because in that case you'll have "x" seats scalped, and "y" seats unscalped, so at the same time "a" and "b": "a" for the "x" seats and "b" for the "y" seats. Only at the instant the show is beginning and the doors are closing the scalpers' prices drop to the middle point to fill the remaining few seats.
So, by having the seats auctioneed way before the show, you solve almost all of the above problems, since the seat price will approach the best it can the ideal offer/demand equilibrium point. Of course this won't be always perfect, but even so, it will be better than what we have today.
Now, I only wish movie theatres start doing this too. If you wish to see the movie the day it's launched, it's just that you pay a premium, with the added bonus of no queues. And if you're price concious with a very limited budget, you can simply wait until the price to drop enough to reach your price point. And in all of this the theatre owners would guarantee many more full houses compared to what happens today, thus more profit, what would in time prompt more theatres to open, thus dropping the prices again. Everyone wins.
Many times (not always, of course) a free market approach is the way to go. This one is a clear example of such a case.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
This is a valid point, particularly if you are older. The sense of hearing diminishes with age, which should mean that older people are more tolerant of loud volumes. If "old" people are finding the concert unpleasantly loud, the chances are that it's actually doing permanent damage to your hearing.
In retrospect, mabe it's so loud because the sound man has been cavalier with his hearing, and needs volume 11 to even hear the sound-check.....
I find the same with movie theatres. Somewhere along the line, someone made it company policy that their wonderful new THX-certified sound sets weren't being used to the full unless the volume slider was jammed up against the stop. Either that, or it's a rather transparent attempt to overwhelm your sensorium during the advert trailers. Or they have adopted it to compensate for the increasingly rude and noisy moviegoers we have these days (damn, I sounded old there).
It's still too loud. waves walking-stick agressively
Their are a few localities where scalping is illegal, and yet Ticketmaster is the monopoly ticket agent. How does this service apply in places with these laws? I wonder if Ticketmaster will be able to work around these laws by not assigning a "real value" to the seat. That may be interesting.
For the Roger Waters concert this fall, ticketmaster had auctions set up. It was kind of stupid, because the end date of the auction was several days after the tickets went on sale, so if you *really* wanted to go to the concert, you either had to buy "regular" tickets (to make sure you got a seat), then bid on the auction seats, or you had to cross your fingers that you would win the auction, and bump up your bid to a price you may not have wanted to pay.
The state that I live in (Minnesota) has laws against scalping. The law as I understand it (IANAL) says that it is against the law to charge more for a ticket than the face value of the ticket. Since these tickets being auctioned off like this in essence have no face value until the auction closes, I wonder if this will be seen as a way to skirt the law legally or if they will find that it is illegal.
I have always suspected that something underhanded goes on with many ticket sales anyway. I know that there are pre-sales and that many times sponsors get the best tickets (which are simply never offered up for sale to the public at all). Frankly, I've thought these steps to be pretty slimy. There are however always great seats available from out-of-state ticket vendors, the tickets are expensive but available if you want to pay hundreds of bucks for a fifty dollar ticket. How do these vendors get such choice seats to sold out events? How can they deliver dozens or even hundreds of tickets to medium to large venues for sold out shows? How can they do this time and time again? Something is crooked.
Sorry, if you can't be bothered to read ALL the statements in a comment please keep your ignorant opinions to yourself.
My book, podcast
So now Ticketmaster is providing you a service whereby you don't have to stand in line to get the ticket you want.
Of course, the greed factor here is you have to buy the tickets ahead of determining whether the venue is going to sell well or not. And if it doesn't sell well, you'll have paid more than what you would have through scalpers.
But at least the scalpers won't be losing (counting their time standing in line for you) money on overhyped events.
Remember, in Capitalist United States, what's illegal for people to do, is OK for a monopoly corporation to do.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
They claim it's to eliminate scalping, but in truth it guarantees every seat will be scalped for the highest price with all the money going to ticketmaster.
You silly goose, they're already doing this. What did you think those convenience charges were for?
i hate to say it, but this is good for the consumer. when was the last time any of you tried to get good tickets for a REALLY high-demand show? it is impossible. I recently tried to get tickets for the Tool concert. At 10am when tickets went on sale, I was on 3 different computers, with an IE and Firefox open on each. At 9:59 I was hitting refresh on every screen. Guess what? I didn't get through once- not even for crappy seats. I ended up paying a broker $300 each for tickets.
But here's the most annoying part: at 9am- long before tickets went on sale to the public, there were at least 30 tickets for sale on ebay. They were all brokers, and the all said "seats will be revealed at 10am." The brokers are not working hard for their $.
This has happened to me for several other high-demand events- White Sox playoffs, Seinfeld stand-up. I either get no tickets, or nose-bleed seats, yet every broker in town has tons of front-and-center seats. I always end up paying the brokers. At least with the auction system I still over-pay, but it will be some sort of "fair market" price- and the brokers can't scam the auction by running up the price because they don't make a dime.
Personally I think brokers are total scam artists, and as much as I don't like ticketmaster, I still prefer to remove the brokers.
Maybe if the record companies and other officials that are setting up tours should take a look at the ticket prices. This article doesn't really concern me because it has always seemed like the front row tickets were near impossible to get anyways since band members, radio stations, and other places are sometimes allowed those tickets. I think the prices in general have gotten out of hand. I remember paying $30 including fees to see some shows. If I remember correctly, I think I paid $40 for Warped Tour AND Ozzfest combined and I believe Ozzfest alone was around $35. I also remember paying about that for the 1 day Lollapalooza. I know that there are probably a lot more costs associated with concerts these days with all of the newer light show setups but did they ever think that maybe if a band was actually good that they may not need as many new-fangled do-hickeys to get Johnny A.D.D. to pay attention to the whole show!?
Really, this is Ticketmaster wanting to cash in on scalping by calling it an auction. Well, Ticketmaster, if you want to do that why don't you go ahead and allow anyone to "auction" tickets off for any price in any state. You can help "the little scalper" by lobbying to get these laws removed. I wonder if these "auctions" are legal in the states that require you to sell the ticket at or below face value. Oh yeah, Ticketmaster prints the tickets so they can put whatever face value they want on them. Hey Ticketmaster, if you don't want to be hypocrites sell tickets with little blanks on them so that scalpers can assign the face value too. That sounds fair to me. That way ticket prices will be really high for good performances and really low for bad ones. Then let's go a step further and auction all of the tickets off for a starting price that covers the artist and some costs. Maybe then some of the boy band and bubble gum pop tickets would go for a few weeks of a kid's allowance. Maybe that would help reduce the crap that is coming out.
If a company upsets you, don't pay them. Your money is the only way companies learn to respect you, the consumer. I wouldn't hate having an auction for tickets IF there was no reserve. I would bid ten bucks for most newer bands any time I wanted to go out. Problem is, they have an minimum price and would rather have empty seats then a realistic price.
Guys, this article is from Sept 1, 2003. This is really old news, that have been doing auction for 2 years, some for charity and some for greedy bands... all and all this is BS, but the bands is agreeing to it so it is their fault...
I thought this was Ticketmaster's mission statement?
My hope is that auctioning the tickets will actually mean prices will go down, since they seem to be artificially high to begin with. Unfortunately, the minimum bid will probably the ticket's normal price. Not to mention games which can be played by limiting availability (closing certain sections when they know it's not going to be a sell-out) to reduce the supply.
I wonder if the "auction surcharge" is going to include the Ticketmaster "convenience fee" or be in addition to it? Oh, never mind, I already know the answer.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Auction off the tickets to the highest bidder but keep the grand total they would make the same. So if they sell the first 1,000 tickets at the price they would have gotten for all tickets at face value, give the rest of the seats away free. Let the rich pay everyone's way in!
...I *never* could comprehend what's even "illegal" about ticket "scalping" in the first place. It seems like it's nothing more than people practicing capitalism at its finest. The "scalpers" didn't steal the tickets, right? They stood in line and bought them, just like anyone else would!
In my mind, ticket sales companies like Ticketmaster writing "contracts" on the backs of tickets that make it some sort of "violation" to resell them at a profit is equivalent to WalMart claiming it's now illegal to buy and resell the latest fad toys around the holidays. (If you manage to get the next great "Tickle Me Elmo" type doll this year by fighting crowds and waiting hours in line to buy yours, you're an illicit scalper if you mark it up $10 and resell it to a friend! You've been warned!)
But yeah... I don't really care *how* Ticketmaster wants to try to sell their tickets, or at what price-point. Most of the big concerts are, ultimately, "entertainment for the wealthy" already. Notice the plethora of rock concerts nowdays where as many as 10+ bands are all billed on one ticket? Hordefest, Pointfest, Lillith Fair, Ozzfest, the Warped Tour, etc. etc. That's the result of people feeling a need to stretch their ticket dollars a lot further. The high-dollar concerts tend to be the big-name "has been" bands, more popular with an older, more affluent audience (The Stones, U2, The Eagles, etc.).
- You won't pay $500 for a bogus/counterfeit ticket.
- You won't have to wait 3 days in line for front row tickets.
Be sure to remember the Programmers Prayer
They claim it's to eliminate scalping, but in truth it guarantees every seat will be scalped for the highest price with all the money going to ticketmaster. It also eliminates the possibility of getting a decent seat by waiting in line or being lucky.
No bias there at all. Just to add a little counter-spin, it also means it is possible to get good tickets for a show when you want them. Right now the good tickets are, at best, chaotically distributed, meaning there is no way to ensure you get an optimal seat. Really want a good seat? A band you've been a fan of for ten years? Want to treat your girlfriend to an extravagent night out? Tough.
Why can't you get them? Since the best tickets go for the same price as the good tickets, there is no upside in selling the best tickets. They all go to concert promoters and wind up being given to local celebrities in exchange for a possible sound byte on the local news, or given away on the "Annoying Morning Stupidity" show. How does that benefit the real fans?
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
You put a lot of things in bold, but it's pretty obvious why.
Nowhere in there is any support for your assertion that what is being done by Ticketmaster is unethical.
That is of course, because there's nothing "unethical" here at all, just something you don't like.
Oh, wait. This article came out in 2003. Oh, well better late than never. I for one welcome our new Ticketmaster Overlords. In other news water is wet.
Anybody upset by this news needs to re-evaluate their priorities. This is an example of the market determining the cost of access to ENTERTAINMENT. Under no realistic circumstances, never in your life will you or anyone you know ever NEED to go to a concert. It is not a basic human right to get front row tickets.
The costs of the food you eat and the energy you need to be warm and comfortable are driven by supply and demand, and fluctuate daily. Those are things that matter. Entertainment, in the big picture, doesn't matter. Why should anybody be guaranteed good, cheap concert tickets? Should entertainment be goverment-run and socialised?
Especially here on slashdot, the argument has repeatedly been made that the entertainment industry needs to rethink its business model to better reflect how people receive and use their entertainment. Now, a major part of the entertainment industry has rethought part of their business model and has come up with an idea which is fair and makes a lot of sense. Relying on supply and demand will does not unfairly tip the scales in favour of Big Business. If people don't want to spend a lot of money to see a concert, then prices will stay low. Prices will only rise if you decide you want to spend more.
I have made the point on slashdot before, that the people who complain the most about the cost and quality of entertainment, be it CDs, movies or concerts, are probably the ones who should be paying the most, because they value it the most. If you are afraid that opening up the pricing of concerts to direct market forces will push your costs through the roof, then you are really complaining about your own (and others') problem of putting too much emphasis on securing entertainment, and spending too much money on it.
If you don't like it, don't go. If it's too expensive, don't pay for it. It is only entertainment; you could make your own for free, if you tried hard enough. It really is that simple.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
"If somebody wants to charge $50 for a ticket, but it's actually worth $1,000 on eBay, the ticket's worth $1,000."
I suppose we can trust TicketMaster not to send associates from India online to bid-up the prices of theese tickets...
Legal Scalping, what will they think of next ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
From TFA - "The band's biggest fans ought to have the best seats, not the band's richest fans," said Tim Todd, 47, of Kansas City, Mo., who used ticketFast recently to buy tickets for a concert by the rock group Phish.
More of this entitlement bullshit... so because I like something I'm more deserving of it. If the band wants to give discounts or preferential treatment to their fans let them... but if they want to sell their tickets via auction they can do that to. Of course... for Phish lovin' hippies that's a hard concept to grasp while your takin' your next toke.
That article is almost three years old!
okay, so 1) you people talkin' about waiting all night in line? you're posting on /. so I know you know about this Intarwebnet thing. You must be line-waiting for the fulfilment of some sort of weird social interaction fetish, cause I've gotten tickets to every event, movie premier, concert, etc that I've wanted to attend by purchasing tickets online the moment they're released. If you wanna lay on the floor in a sleeping bag in front of your computer for two days prior, that's totally up to you.
and 2, on the bid-for-tickets thing? that's capitalism for you. There'll still be scalpers...they'll pay more, they'll have lower margins, but they're not going anywhere. Yeah, maybe ticketmaster will make more...but if performers & venues handle their contracts correctly, so will the athletes/entertainers/artists, the venue, etc. In the end, everybody wins. Except students, hippies, and anyone below the upper-middle class.
Ah, capitalism.
They charge a few dollars for a "convenience" charge to be able to print out your ticket. Bunch of crooked mob associated bastards, how much of those charges go to mob as skim/
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
that's why you say fuck the big shows, and go to your local bar and catch local music, or the guys who don't sell out the big ticketbastards arenas.
but then, im in austin, so it's a lot easier here. but no matter what, get out and support your local bands. tickets are cheaper, hell you might even get to fire one up with the local guys.
-.no
Remember, in Capitalist United States, what's illegal for people to do, is OK for a monopoly corporation to do.
In case you aren't being sarcastic, you do realize that that sentence is an example of Socialism and not Capitalism, don't you?
Just because it is a corporation getting the government handout (making it legal for TM to do something but illegal for everyone else) does not make it any less socialistic.
When I bought tickets for the upcoming Shakira show at the Verizon Center in D.C., they were already doing this for the floor seats.
For me it's just one more reason to stick with smaller shows, where $10 gets you in the door, albums are for sale /directly/ from the band, and you can have a beer with the band after the show.
Never eat more than you can lift -- Miss Piggy
I don't understand what all of the huffing and puffing is about. You can still go stand at a line at the venue and buy a ticket without all the Ticketmaster convenience fees. I don't know of any venue that doesn't have traditional ticket windows for buying tickets. However, that wouldn't be convenient for you would it? I guess that is why they are called 'convenience fees'!
It is not like every good ticket is being sold this way. In all of the test markets that I've heard of, it was only a handful of tickets and they are usually put together with value added offerings. Want to meet your favorite performer? Get free swag from the performer's promoters? Get VIP access, a limo ride, or something no one else gets? Would you pay a premium for that? Why not? Sure TM gets a piece of the pie, but the venue/promoter/artist will get the lion's share. Who do you think is driving this?
What people don't seem to catch on to, is that TM is a *service* company that provides services for a client. What you don't see is all of the millions of dollars spent behind the tickets to support the ticketing business. It isn't like TM just puts up a website and sells tickets at a premium and that is it. If that was the whole story, then every little ticketing company would have whittled TM's business right out from under them by now.
Plenty of companies have tried to take away TM's business and have failed. Heck, I think that if you had any idea what was going on behind closed doors, you would be most pissed at the venues. Do you think that all of the fees you pay go to TM? Think again and do some research. Sure, they get what seems to be more than enough, but the larger venues make out hand-over-fist on ticketing as well. I think part of the value in using a juggernaut like Ticketmaster is that they have always looked like the bad guy and the venues use that to their advantage by tacking on a $12 facility charge and letting TM take the blame for excess fees.
As for auctions, when was the last time you got a great seat to a show? Most good tickets are held by the artist and promoter anyway... you can't get them. Until now. Now, if the artist/promoter want to get what the tickets are worth (who doesn't want to make more money?), they will have to surrender some of their holds and make them available to the people that are willing to pay the premium for them. Right now, you have to know someone who knows someone or be the 99th caller when some song is played to ever expect to get a good seat. Not every band is like U2 and make the best seat in the house the cheapest standing-room-only general admission ticket.
I get sick of listening to people belly ache about Ticketmaster. If you don't want to pay the fees, don't. Just go to the window and buy your ticket. Stand in line out in the rain with all of the other hardcore opposition who wants to save $10 in fees. This is America and people are free to take as much of the pie as the legally can. All the communists out there who think that every seat in a venue should be front front row need to wake up and realize that they live in a capitalistic society. Heck, this country is so great, that you are free to create your own company and knock TM off the hill. Ticketmaster did the same thing the Ticketron back in the 80's. The secret to their success back then? Innovation.
You would think that an audience like Slashdot would have some people who could get together and build a company to unseat them. Heck, if you have $20 million laying around, I would be more than happy to sit down with you and tell you how it could be done. The key is realizing that 'ticketing' is not where the business is at, ticketing is only one facet of a multifaceted service company. If you want to just sell tickets, you will become another Tickets.com who have yet to budge TM from their castle on the hill.
Just my $0.02,
"Perhaps most amazingly, votaries of 'diversity' insist on absolute conformity." -- Tony Snow
Damn! I love scalpers:
1) Go to a popular concert, and sit in the parking lot until just before the opening (unpopular) act ends.
2) Walk casually towards the venue, and wait to be approached by a scalper.
3) Buy a pair of tickets for incredible seats for less than the cost of one as the scalper desperately tries to clear out his stock before the value drops to zero. Wave to your friends sitting several rows back who paid out the nose for their seats.
It's the best system ever... and it's never not worked for me. I'm guessing that in the near future I'll have to go to the Ticketmaster counter, ask about tickets, hear their enormous list of ridiculous fees, then flip them off and walk away as in the past.
~Ben
This article was written in September of 2003! Auctions has been around for a while, they are used on occasionally. The article quotes John Pleasants who no longer works for Ticketmaster. Auctions is just one additional service that Ticketmaster offers clients, the venue chooses if such a tool is to be used and how.
To date, very few venues have done auctions since everyone from artist to promoter to venue has to be in agreement. I personally think that this give the general public a greater chance to get tickets that were not otherwise available. Odds are the auction tickets don't come out of general inventory, but holds that the promoter/artist had anyway. Most of the time, they are packaged with premium features like VIP parties, meet and greet with performer, free swag from promoters, exclusive parking or limo services, etc.
In actuality, TM is likely to get the smallest piece of the pie in the offering. Why should scalpers be the biggest profiteers in ticketing? When scalpers charge a premium, few people complain, but when Ticketmaster offers a tool to allow organizers to sell tickets at market value... stop the presses! Besides, this is old news.
Just my $0.02,
"Perhaps most amazingly, votaries of 'diversity' insist on absolute conformity." -- Tony Snow
TM has been auctioning tickets for years now. That hasn't really hurt the broker and scalper industry. Infact, it legitimized the brokers even more!
How are ticket prices artificially inflated through an auction? There's no artificial inflation, it's natural inflation based upon supply and demand. The artificial inflation comes from the scalpers and brokers who buy up huge number of tickets thus creating a scarcity that does not exist. The result is that demand is increased (false demand that is), so the price goes up and the winner is the scalper/broker.
Every time I hear about tickets to washed-up old men like the Eagles or Bob Dylan going for hundreds or thousands of dollars, it makes me cringe. In my town, at least, there are thousands of local musicians who struggle to make a living, sometimes working three or four day jobs to support their music. Yes, the quality can be hit-or-miss, but you'd be surprised how many talented local artists are out there if you go looking for them. Try visiting a site like http://www.garageband.com/ for some examples, or just go down to your local music club on a Tuesday night. I guarantee you'll find something you like, and have fun doing it. I don't understand why people cringe at a $5 or $10 cover charge, yet are willing to shell out hundreds for overproduced crap.
My guitar chord generator.
-- "The band's biggest fans ought to have the best seats, not the band's richest fans," said Tim Todd, 47
Haha, I guess this guy has lived under a rock his whole life. Hey buddy, in this world, money talks. Besides how the hell are you going to decide which fan is the biggest, by weight? I assume you mean by devotion, well it is a whole lot easier to use cash to decide these things than glam tats and face painting.
http://www.ticketmaster.com/madonnaauctions
Go out and find your local music scene! Not only will you have a lot more fun, but you'll also send an economic message and the big names that want your money, will have to compete for your dollar. Free market works both ways, Tickermaster.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
You know, there's this thing I heard of once called the Internet. A really smart ticket selling company would make it so that you could just logon to their website and buy those tickets online without making you go physically stand in line. I think I'm going to go work for TicketMaster and get that added to their website ASAP. I'll become the richest manager ever!
If people really did hate ticketmaster as much as they claim to, they'd ditch Kelly Clarkson or whoever and only see artists who they can buy a ticket from directly or through a booking agent that doesn't take the piss (as I do). Same goes for DRM - if an artist cares so little for their fans as to allow their music to be pissed upon by virus-riddled crap, they're not getting any of my money. I virulently believe in the right of businesses to do as they please within the law, but with that comes the responsibility of consumers to act in accordance with their own morals. Fuck "oh, it's too hard, the system conspires against us, we can't make use of the alternatives that already exist unless there's, like, a revolution, dude". You're lazy, you're a coward, you're a hypocrite who prefers words to action. I don't drive, I'm off the grid but I have actually ended up arguing with car-owning 'environmentalists' who see me as the enemy because I don't seek to force everyone to live as my theory on climate says they should. It seems most 'liberals' simply want the hard work to be done on their behalf, they want the government to come in, wave their magic wand and make everything OK without them having to get off their arses and oh, I dunno, vote with their feet, form cogent arguments to convince others and build alternatives themselves which, if better than the current option will be highly profitable.
Next time you want to go to a show, find out it they scan the tickets at the door at that venue. In many cases they do not (at least not at the shows in the scene that I'm into).
If they don't scan at the venue, get your tickets online. Then fortunatly for you the mail will loose your order, oops... Then you can call them and have them put your tix on will call. If your tix do eventually arive in the mail, you have 2x as many. You'll have to rotate this process among friends to keep it up for a long time.
I don't advocate this for any music scene where you would be leaving someone without entry, but for the scene I'm into we all get in...
Ticket master's new system will certainly take some scalpers out of the business, which in theory will free up their labor to perform other work.
At least with scalpers, while illigit, are working hard to make that buck. They stand in line, they shell out money for tickets, and resell them.
Not in my town. Scalpers are more organized crime than anything else (scalping tickets is illegal here).
One guy shows up (usually first), and distributes numbered tickets to everyone showing up, explaining this is to "insure no one is cheating", and will be the real order people arrived.
Then the guy is replaced in the line and you realize that every 6 to 8 hours, friends are taking "shifts" in line.
4 or 5 hours before the ticket sale starts 10 to 25 guys shows up (there is often a limit of 4 to 8 tickets per client), all with valid "numbered tickets", you then realize the guy kept them in his pocket before distributing them. People start arguing, and you realized they are tugs, not afraid of menacing everyone's health.
I wrote: "what are the differences between supermarkets, US mobile telephone service providers, or auto manufacturers? Their products/services have mostly superficial differences, and they all follow the same business model."
...and they all follow the same business model within their respective industries.
When I should have written:
RTFM; please, I beg you.
Ticket Master should be broke up. I mean are they not a monopoly? You can not really buy decent concert tickets without going through them. Then if any other company starts selling tickets they just buy the new company out and close it down just like what happened to the company that Eddie Vedder started when he was trying to move away from selling tickets through ticket master.
I used to sell tickets through an org call Bass Tickets. Pretty much the same thing as Ticket Master... When they switched to the raffle system for line order we lost anyway to get good tickets. THese days we already lose to special groups getting early sales or other groups blocking off huge sections. Myself, I have pretty much given up on any assigned seating events over 10 years ago.
His comments are even more ridiculous when you consider that a lot of commodities are governement subsidized, and some commodities prices are governement regulated.
Ticketmaster has been tried as a monopoly and has some how kept it from sticking, the important thing to realize (and that many posters have missed) is that they still enjoy monopolistic power. They can implement price fixing that is not a result of market pressures, and other companies cannot compete with their exclusive contracts. The fact that a consumer can either 'buy it, or not' is no indication of a non-monopoly, or a healthy, free market. Thats really confusing democracy as an economic principle of some sort
If TicketMaster implements a $5 breathing charge on top of their ticket fees, what options do you as a consumer have (assuming you are buying a ticket)? None. If you're a TicketMaster competitor can you take this as an opportunity to sell at a lower price? No, you can't compete.
If Aldi's raises the price of milk by a dime*, you go to Win Dixie and shop there instead.
* Aldi's probably wouldn't do this. They're dedicated to low prices!
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
the privileged play while the slaves pay
And good thing there's no such thing as 'scalpers union', otherwise they'd be frivolous lawsuits against Ticketmaster for taking away the 'right to a job' for scalpers.
Maybe its just me but that story seems to be almost three years old, the date at the top of the page says "September 1, 2003"
Thank you! Finally someone on Slashleft gets it.
In practically every case of a so-called "failure of capitalism", the problem is really not enough capitalism rather than too much. Monopolies are usually a sign of government over-regulation, caused by rent-seeking established interests and their captive government agencies. Look at the taxicab markets in most big cities. In New York you have to buy a hugely expensive, strictly rationed "medallion" from some established operator if you want to drive a cab. In Las Vegas they actually have a government agency whose statutory mandate is to ensure that allowing any new entrants to the taxi business will not have any adverse economic effects on other companies that are already in the industry. An established taxi company can veto issuance of a taxicab license for any new competitor. This keeps prices higher than they would be with no government regulation whatsoever.
Similarly, the anti-scalping laws that exist in most of the country actually help TicketMaster by keeping legitimate competitors out of the market. If there's a law that says you can't charge more than $3.00 over face value for a ticket, that's fine for a huge company like Ticketmaster that handles such a large volume. But it prevents a mom-n-pop ticket broker from going to a theater owner and paying him more money for the ticket, then charging $3.50 over face value. If no such regulations existed, competitors to TicketMaster could arise, and drive the prices down for everybody once they were well-established enough to compete on high volume. Instead, TicketMaster skims their $3 off every ticket, plus "handling fees", and then more is raked off by the shady illegal ticket scalpers who are willing to flout the law that a legitimate business must follow.
It's no coincidence that most of this kind of foolish, counterproductive legislation and regulation takes place under the rule of the populist, economically-illiterate morons of the Democratic Party. But it is certainly ironic that their economic ignorance and coziness with special interests usually end up punishing their own voters. Taxi monopolies harm people who don't own cars. Minimum wage and prevailing wage laws harm young and unskilled workers. Anti-scalping laws harm poor music fans.
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Do tell, where has this hand of force worked so well? The Soviet Union? Zimbabwe?
Somehow reality and some people's interpretations of economics get quite warped when they let Mises throw their ethics out the window.
I'll take Mises over Marx any day. In fact, I would say that every vote I cast, every political dollar I give, and every opinion I voice for the rest of my life will be dedicated to making sure that Mises strangles the Marxist beast.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
I know it's fashionable to rip on Ticketmaster but things aren't always as clear-cut as they seem on the surface. What most people don't know is that much of Ticketmaster's public behavior (high service charges, etc) are a direct result of them being extremely customer focused.
I can already hear you howling in protest to that. "How can a company that charges 35% of the ticket prices in service charges possibly be customer focused?" Simple. YOU are not their customer!
Ticketmaster's customers are venues like Staples Center or large acts like U2 or promoters like Clear Channel. They are the ones that need to be happy. If the ticket buyer is happy in the end, then that's a plus... but it's not necessary. The primary concern is that the customer is happy.
With that in mind, let's try to answer a few questions:
Q: Why are the service fees so high?
A: All service fees are negotiated with the customer. Ticketmaster gets either a percentage of each or a flat fee, depending on the contract. The customer (venue or promoter, usually) gets the rest. So Ticketmaster certainly makes money on each ticket sold, but nowhere near as much as it would seem at first glance. It's the venue or promoter making off like a bandit, here.
Q: Why not just roll the service fees into the price?
A: Because then U2 or Bruce Springsteen looks bad. Artists are already getting flack for expensive tickets and rolling in the service fees would make it seem like it's even worse. So to pacify the client, Ticketmaster takes the flack for the fees.
Q: Why not just roll all the service fees into one fee?
A: Complicated contract requirements with the customer... again.
Q: Why are the auctions only for the high value seats and not for all seats?
A: All auctions are dictated by the customer. They decide what sections may go on auction and for how long and for how much. Ticketmaster has absolutely no say in any of that.
Q: Why is TicketExchange enabled for only some events?
A: Again, this is dictated by the customer. Many venues are reluctant to enable TicketExchange due to the fear that the sales will gut the normal general admission sales (hence the restrictions on dates and such).
Q: Why is there a separate fee for ticketFast when it's the end user that has to print it out?
A: I'm not 100% sure about this one. My understanding was that originally there wasn't going to be a fee or if there was, it was going to be less. However, millions of people using this service meant thousands having problems with their printers being out of ink or broken or PDFs not working or anything else that could possibly go wrong... resulting in calls in to the call centers. Support calls spiked as soon as ticketFast went live and have stayed up there ever since. The fee is there to offset the cost.
Stop crying you babies. Ticket Master, RIAA, publishers and artists don't want your business! Don't you get it? They hate your guts. They want you to piss-off and crawl back into that cave you emerged from so shut up, focus on your slave jobs and pay your taxes. In the mean time RIAA, publishers and artists are rapidly becoming irrelevant because accessible local artists with talent come around to play in your local pub where you realised you had a great time, you buy them a beer and downloaded their free MP3 so you can enjoy the music afterwards as well. Turns out life is good after all. So what is it going to be people? Do you really want these sharks to pull in their head and see them survive?
It is good that with an auction setup there is actually some hope of the artists getting a little more of the Lucre than they are with the scalpers.
However, Ticketmaster is part of the cabal which includes ClearChannel and the major record labels who would like to dictate what acts are going to get national exposure and are responsible for bringing us such crapola as Britney, 'n Sync and the boy bands, etc.
Support the smaller independent bands and venues via TicketWeb:
www.ticketweb.com
I use it to buy tickets for shows at places like the independent
http://www.theindependentsf.com/
and the bottom of the hill
http://www.bottomofthehill.com/
here in San Francisco, but they cover small and unusual venues nationwide.
Plus, I have more money for food and drinks when I only pay 10-20$ for the tickets.
-What's the speed of dark?
After the tickets to the local Tool concert sold out in 6 seconds, I've given up any hope of going to Ticketmaster concerts anyway. I had at least 20 people in my company all trying to log into their site the moment the tickets went on sale. Only 1 got in, and even though he had a chance to select how many tickets he wanted, it immediately came back saying there were none available. Of course, there were tons on Ebay for $600 immediately.
So...screw it. I'm not going to spend an insane amount of money for tickets to shows where I won't get a good seat anyway. There's a great music scene in my town that I already enjoy and that's less than $10 at the door. Even standing in the back of the club is closer than the front row of a big act and I can usually share a beer with the band after their show. They're also more than happy to let me share their music with a friend. Pretty much an improvement all around.
Dude the article is from Sept. 2003. I dont see this as relevant!
Mayb we should look at dates people.
First of all, in response to the person who said that auctions are old news. You couldn't be more correct. Auctions have been occurring for months now on Ticketmaster. The author needs internet access on his deserted island.
Okay, moving on...
The vast majority of you are just plain incorrect. It amazes me to read all of your exaggerated testimonials and especially the complaints you claim that are Ticketmaster's fault when in real life Ticketmaster has nothing to do with them. Why people feel that Ticketmaster should just print tickets for free is way beyond me. Do you really believe that Ticketmaster sets the ticket prices? Do you really believe that Ticketmaster gets all the proceeds in an auction? Some idiot wrote about a $40 service fee for a $25 ticket price. Do you really believe that? If you believe the things you read in a forum or message board about Ticketmaster then you are highly confused since 90% are false. This is not an attempt to persuade you to view Ticketmaster in a better light. After all, you can't cure stupid, but you can cure ingnorance. Besides, most have made up their minds regardless of their actual knowledge on the subject.
I will say this though...
Please educate yourself before making such ignorant and false claims. It makes you look stupid to the ones who actually know the truth.
Jeez....unbelievable!!!
I buy a lot of concert tickets off ticketmaster, recently spending upwards of $200 on three. Many purchased tickets (to almost all popular bands) will have prices taht skyrocket on ebay (I could sell one of the tickets I payed $40 for [angels and airwaves, may 24th] for almost $200). This means ticketmaster will be making all that extra money, on top of their $8.75 convience charge (per ticket) and outrages shipping charges on tickets. If there was anything else I could use which garenteed me the ability to get tickets to almost any concert in best sections right when the tickets become availible, I would use it, but I don't see any alternatives.
Most likely Ticketmaster wrote/bought/developed the software that(venue of your choice) uses at their own box office. Ticketmaster may have even provided the pcs/sales terminals, networking equipment, installed the software, and trained the staff at the venue on how to do everything. Ticketmaster probably gives the venue monthly sales reports and tracks other stats for them. Depending on the nature of their relationship, Ticketmaster will allocate a certain bandwidth(online and in terms of number of operators on the telephone) to that venue for their big onsales. Ticketmaster will also have an employee whose job it is to interface with the venue, help them dole out tickets to the bands, promoters, take care of season tickets, work with promoters on stage and seating layouts, etc. Ticketmaster probably prints and mails/FedEx all the tickets. Ticketmaster is also the ones answering the phones if someone calls to complain about the order or has a problem. Ticketmaster's phone staff also handles all sorts of inquiries about "what day is such and such show, does a 3 yr old need a ticket, can I bring an umbrella inside", etc. While I've never worked for Ticketmaster I used to work in the industry so I'm speaking from some experience.
Ultimately, Ticketmaster-evil as they are-is providing a certain level of service and expertise to a venue that most venues themselves lack. Most venues probably are better off outsourcing a lot of the above mentioned stuff to Ticketmaster than trying to do it themselves. Ticketmaster has been doing it for years and has an economy of scale and a resulting efficiency that no single venue could ever achieve on their own.
"How hard would it be for companies that already sell Ticketmaster tickets to create a business account on ebay to purchase set-priced tickets for customers and print them right there?"
The problem with this is that Ticketmaster wrote and owns the software that tells every pc/terminal that can sell tickets what tickets have already been sold vs what are available. If you want each ticket to have a section, row, and seat number(and believe me, you *DO* want this) then you need the software that keeps track of this info. Without access to the software that does this, how do you keep track of ticket sales? In short, it would be very hard bordering on impossible.
this was from ticketnews.com http://www.ticketnews.com/Madonnatickets.html Prime Madonna tickets available for less than half price on secondary sites By CHRISTINE PALUF TicketNews.com May 22, 2006 - Madonna's "Confessions" tour debuted in Los Angeles yesterday. Initially the show was announced as "sold out" minutes after it went on sale. But there are plenty of seats that never went at all. Front row seats to Tuesday's May 23rd "sold out" performance start at $2,200 a pop. Second row seats start at a $2,000 low bid on Ticketmaster's auction. But secondary reseller sites such as TicketLiquidator.com have second row seats in the same section for only $950, less than half the price of the Ticketmaster auction. So how can tickets still be available for a show that supposedly "sold out" the day tickets went on sale? And how can they be priced for less than face value? "Customers ultimately get caught up in the hype when an artist claims a show is sold out," said Don Vaccaro, CEO of TicketLiquidator. "They bid on an auction, only to find out later that the show may not have been sold out. Because of perceived lack of supply, the artist can manipulate the price to higher than market value." In the case of Madonna's tour, the auctions went on sale when the shows were claimed to be sold out and supply was limited. That gave the impression that the supply was lower than it really was, thus raising the equilibrium price of the tickets, according to Vaccaro. "As close as I can tell, it's been going on for decades," said Dr. Stephen Happel, professor of economics at Arizona State University. "Any promoter or owner has 'holds' for themselves, the artist, fan clubs, etc. and it's their right to do with them as they wish. "A couple of states have proposed laws where they would have to tell how many tickets they were holding and where those tickets were. I'm for transparency. Release that information to the general public, and let people respond accordingly." Many of the tickets originally priced at $185 can be found for $100, and these discounts are pretty much available at most ticket levels. Now that it's apparent that tickets are still available, the price is beginning to reflect what the market determines they are worth. "When artists scalp their own tickets through auctions, it makes a compelling reason to shop TicketLiquidator.com or any secondary market site to save money on tickets," Vaccaro said. So buying tickets straight from the source isn't always the cheapest way to do it. Now the best seats in the house are up for grabs at a lower price than originally released. Whether they weren't purchased because of the high starting bid, or because this was simply the promoter's plan from the beginning, is up for debate. Madonna's promoter, LiveNation, did not respond to this inquiry. In most auctions, the level of your bid determines where you sit, so the more money you spend, the closer to the stage you end up. Ticketmaster's site claims that their auction product allows for a fair market price, and that the money stays in the 'right' hands: from the consumer to the venues, promoters and artists. The site also suggests that purchasers are getting a more secure, less fraudulent service than that found with other 'third party' resellers; a pricing system based on the fans' level of interest. But if a fans' only interest is in getting a ticket, any ticket, and they think the show is sold out, they'll buy whatever they can get. Being forced to bid above what they normally would have paid doesn't truly reflect their level of interest. It reflects their level of fear that they wouldn't get to see the performer. Claiming no tickets are available when they actually are is misleading. It may be legal, but isn't it slightly unethical? "It's clever, I'd do it myself if I were an event owner. Voluntary exchange benefits both parties," Happel said. But will fans catch on? Crying wolf only works so many times. Will ticket buyers learn that when a show claims to be sold out, waiting longer will produce a new flood of available seats? And that fans can avoid the auction and save money by going to secondary sites first? It seems to be the logical place to land.
September 1, 2003.
:-)
Apparently, the idea didn't fly.
I am a live audio engineer and have a degree in the study of the recording industry.
The cavity searches are the results of lawsuits against promoters and venues (and sometimes even artists) due to someone getting stabbed, shot, injured, poked, punctured, etc inside of an event. Over the course of time the courts have found liability more and more in the concert-goers' favor, thus the promoter and artists are forced to cover themselves to reduce liability as much as possible. Treating everyone to a long and generous cavity search is one way to do that. Thank the lawyers for that one!
Regarding volume, the sound guys (yes that's me) have to be able to ensure that every seat in the venue has the ability to hear the concert with intelligibility, over the crowd noise. This can either be done by cranking the main set of speakers up, or by distributing the sound via a delayed speaker system. Delayed speakers allow a smaller distance between you and the speaker, thus the volume must be lower (sound loses half it's volume every time the distance is doubled).
Since every venue is differently sized and shaped, and most large tours carry their own gear, and bringing enough gear for a delayed speaker system is exceptionally complicated (sometimes on the order of magnitude). Thus it is not economical, or logistically feasible to bring enough delays in order to lower the overall volume.
Besides, at a "rock show" people WANT it loud. To me personally, there is no better feeling than to hear my favorite songs by my favorite volumes as loud as I can possibly stand it. Yes I know I am damaging my hearing and all that, but I don't get to hear those songs performed that loud very often.
Libertas in infinitum
You put a lot of things in bold, but it's pretty obvious why.
That's because he failed to close his bold tag, idiot. Leave it to you to cite a triviality like an improperly closed tag as support for your 'argument'.
Leaving aside the fact that TicketMaster is evil, this is
a good thing if it ever happens. First is that as a buyer,
my confidence that I'll get the goods I'm paying for rises.
Second, the people who put on the event get more money, and as
a result might be more interested in more showings of the event,
putting the event in a bigger venue (or building a bigger
venue). Another submitter noted that Ticketmaster sells tickets
for most NHL teams. Most NHL teams are in financial trouble.
This will increase the revenues and put the league in better
shape.