Ticketmaster has announced that by year’s end, they will begin selling concert tickets by auction. I don’t know if this applies in the U.S.A. as well, as this is a Canadian story and I haven’t seen anything on American newswires as yet.
They are upset that scalpers are making more money off of the resale of tickets than they are of the original sale of tickets. Their solution is to sell the best seats to only the highest bidders. They way they see it, it is better that they get all the dough and only the rich get the best seats, instead of the current system where the best seats are occupied by a combination of those with the resolve to line up early and get good seats and those who buy from scalpers.
I find this quite repulsive. It is yet another indication, as far as I am concerned, that the mega-bucks music industry just doesn’t give one rotten f*** about consumers. It’s time to rise up, I say. Upon Ticketmaster’s adoption of this new policy, I will never again attend an event where Ticketmaster is the ticket seller. Period. Well…maybe if Ben Harper comes to town, but that’s about it. Ok, maybe Jack Johnson. But that’s it. Maybe Ben Folds. Damnit…the bastards got me by the boys like they always have.
I see a couple of things wrong with your vent/rant
How is the current system any different from what the new system would be? With concert tickets costing an avergae of $50, it isn’t a cheap night out for ayone, except the rich. (Actually that’s a fallacy, but I won’t go into that here.)
Seems to me this is sorta like E-Bay. If you want to go to a concert badly enough, you can dig up the money somewhere,. And even if you don’t win a ticket auction, it’s not going to ruin your life. It’s only a concert.
I’d be very carfeul about lumping TicketMaster in with the music industry. You seem to have a very short memory as it was only a few years ago, back in the mid 1990’s when groups like Pearl Jam testified on Capitol Hill against TicketMaster. Of course their efforst went for naught, but it’s the thought that counts.
TicketMaster sells tickets to many events besides rock concerts. Basketball/baseball/football/hockey/Broadway shows/admission to various museums.
So while they do business with the music industry, they are a far cry from being in cahoots or marching lockstep with the record labels.
It’s just my exasperated reaction to an annoying trend.
I feel bad that now a die-hard fan has 0 chance of getting a good seat at a reasonable price.
I’m old enough to recall when you had to mail in requests for tickets ( lottery style) for “hot” shows. Sometimes you won, sometimes no, but you had a chance. Scalpers were in the same boat.
I wouldn’t be. Pearl Jam is not the music industry. Geffen/Interscope, Atlantic, Columbia et al are the music industry. If the record labels were behind groups that were against exorbitant ticket prices as much as they are behind those that oppose file-sharing, something (I’m not saying something big, but something) might have been done to make ticket prices more fair to the general public.
Saying a music group is representative of the music industry is akin to saying a low-level secretary for Halliburton is representative of the oil industry or that a Mexican sweatshop is representative of the textile industry.
Just an off-hand question BB, what’s a reasonable price for a good seat? Ticket prices are usually out of my range, but it’s the straight ticket price I’m talking about. Scalpers don’t even need to enter the picture. If groups sell out concerts then I’d say that the ticket prices were reasonable.
I guess that a reasonable price is what would be normally charged under the old system. Say Jethro Tull is playing at the local arena and the floor seats are $50, upper levels are $30.
It’s nice that a die hard can wait on a line at the box office overnight and get a first row seat if so desired.
This new system tells this fan to fuck off and makes it a question of strictly money, not devotion. The unspoken theme hear is that a wealthier person’s time is more valuable so that all they have to do is lay out some cash and they can have the best seat.
The old system was the great equalizer.
I would rather have seen scalping become a more serious crime, or with today’s technology, make tickets personalized like airplane tickets, which would not be transferable.
Pearl Jam is a part of the music industry. back in the early '90’s, they had a huge amount of power and influence, (neither of which they really wanted.
Record labels don’t set the ticket prices for an artists concert. It is the artist themselves usually in conjuction with the venue operators who do that.
Perhaps you’d like to look at some actual evidence. Pearl Jam took Ticketmaster to court because they felt Ticketmaster had an effective monopoly over ticket sales and were ripping off fans by charging large fees on all tickets sold. It was alleged that some of this fee was returned to promoters and venues in return for them keeping using Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster works very closely with record companies, promoters and venues: they are central to the music industry. Remember that live tours are where the real money is, not releasing CDs.
And I absolutely agree with the OP. Ticketmaster could have put resources into measures to stop touts, e.g. personalised named tickets, or mailing out tickets shortly before the concert to minimise the time for them to be sold on. But that wouldn’t have brought them fat profits.