Ticketmaster bastards!

Maybe Pearl Jam was right.

I used to go to Ottawa Senators games. Getting tickets through Ticketmaster was about as fun as breaking out of Stalag 17, only more dangerous. A more byzantine, inefficient, cost-hiking system could not be devised.

Living closer to Toronto and it being summer, I now attend many Blue Jay games. Blue Jay tickets aren’t sold through Ticketmaster; the team sells directly. Getting tickets is a snap. No markup and easy as pie. You have to buy from scalpers to get REALLY good seats, but if you want to pay a little less and get slightly inferior seats, it takes about thirty seconds to select and purchase your tickets at face value.

Why, exactly, would anyone WANT to sell their tickets through Ticketmaster? What advantage does it confer on the people holding the event?

Lunasea, I met you at a very strange time in my life. (Cue explosion of Ticketmaster headquarters).

As to what advantage Ticketmaster confers, the venue typically has an exclusive deal with TM. Pearl Jam tried to do without TM and found that they could not book most locations. Sounds like a predatory monopolistic practice to me…

I agree that it’s predatory, but I don’t understand how the arrangement came to be in the first place. If I’m running the Rick Jones Stadium, what would possess me to have an arrangement with anyone to sell tickets? I’ll sell 'em myself and keep the distribution margin.

One presumes that there is kickback involved for the venues - otherwise, why would they refuse to book acts like PJ that aren’t using TicketBastard?

There used to be two ticketing agencies, not just one. Strangely, no one raised a fuss when TB drove the other out of business, thereby creating themselves a monopoly. (Extra points if you can name the other agency.)

I loathe them. I hate paying their fees, and in fact will drive two hours or more to buy at the box office. And even then you often can’t avoid the TB fees.

[slightly OT]Interestingly, I discovered recently that Billy Joel “buys out” the first five rows at all of his shows, then sends “his people” out into the more distant levels of the venue on show day and hand those tickets out to folks who “look like fans.” These, of course, are people who’ve already paid $35, 40 plus for nosebleed before TB’s fees.[/ot]

Would that other agency happen to be Sunshine Promotions? Seems that I recall a promotion company by that name a few years back. (ok, the 60’s and 70’s were a little more than a few years back) :rolleyes:

Sunshine Promotions was, well, a promoter. They weren’t a ticket agency. I’d be willing to wager that they’ve been swallowed up by SFX.

I know there used to be Ticketron, and a few other small ticket outlets, but they’ve all long since been trampled by Ticketfucker.

Most venues don’t sell via Ticketsquicker at their windows, but I have noticed that some have raised their own per-ticket “convenience fee” to a similar level. Sigh.

BTW, Swiddles–how was the show?

Dr. J

Bonus points for DrJ - Ticketron wasn’t that small :wink:

Cool! We have Cincinnati dopers here! I used to live 10 minutes from Riverbend… they had lots of good concerts there. The Coliseum (What is it now, The Crown? It wasn’t when I moved) had all the acoustics of a parking garage. I do remember trying to buy tickets for events through TicketMaster for stuff at Riverbend… we’d stop at the Camelot Music store on Beechmont and stand in a 45-minute line to get the only surly and slow guy working in the whole store. Luckily we never had to buy tickets for The Crown, since the only things we saw were organized through my dad’s office (they had a box). Not that we saw much.

Ah, I miss Cincinnati…

Reading this post, it seems rambling and incoherent. But it’s late, and I don’t care.

SanibelMan - it’s still there, but now it’s called (sigh) The FirStar Center. Of course, it’ll always be the Coliseum to me.

And they’re knocking down part of Cinergy Field as we speak…to make way for the Great American Insurance Field. It’ll be across from the Delta/Albert Sabin Convention Center.

It’s enough to make me want to lock the doors and stay in my house – I mean, the Fred’s Tackle Shop center-- all day!