Burn Yourself Alive

Ticketmaster is indeed headed by Satan. You probably already knew this if you have ever purchased any ticket. Their fees continue to get worse and worse since their merger with Live Nation. Today my brothers I finally paid more in fees than for the actual tickets.

Ticket Price $5.00 x 6
Convenience Charge $5.85 x 6
Tickets/Items $65.10
Order Processing Fee $3.90
Standard Mail No Charge
TOTAL CHARGES $69.00

Only out of the kindness of their cold black heart did Ticketmaster not charge me for shipping. If I wanted to print the tickets out at home it would cost me $2.50 (If anyone understands this please let me know).

For those that don't know Ticketmaster makes all of its money on the charges and not the actual price of the ticket. So Ticketmaster is getting $39 in this case. Several lawsuits have been brought up that allege Ticketmaster is a monopoly. They have exclusive contracts with several venues and sometimes they are the only source to buy tickets (no box office). Exclusive contracts in general need to be banned but well save that for another time.

My fiercest complain with Ticketmaster lies in their presales that specifically make them the only place you can buy tickets first. If there is an event that might sell out you need to be in on the presale to give yourself at chance at decent seats. You have no other options but to pay the fees.

Most of us to not live down the street from the venue box office so we pay the fees online. My suggestion to you is that if an event is highly unlikely to be sold out buy your tickets at the box office and you will see no fee or a smaller fee (Comcast Spectacor charges $3 per ticket anyways and Jerry Jones charges full fees but includes them in the advertised price). If you are going to a concert and are getting general admission seats and the band is not Pearl Jam just wait. I realize this is hard to do when your excited for an event but it will save you some dough. I also urge you to scalp tickets more often because their actually are people with extras and the prices come down around the time of the event.