Ticketmaster putting best seats up for bid

[stpauler]

According to this article Ticketmaster is putting up the best seats for bid.
Its rationale:

“The tickets are worth what they’re worth,” said Ticketmaster CEO and president John Pleasants, in an interview with the Times. "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 think more and more, our clients - the promoters, the clients in the buildings and the bands themselves - are saying to themselves ‘Maybe that money should be coming to me instead of Bob the Broker.’ "

While that does make sense to some extent, I still don’t like it inasmuch as I don’t like Bob the Broker buying the tickets to resell them to begin with.

What are y’all’s thoughts?

[An_Arky]

It’s just another example of TicketBastard’s never-ending quest to monopolize the industry. While bidding for tickets is probably just capitalism in action, the result is going to be that the average joe isn’t ever going to get good seats.

[minty_green]

*Originally posted by An Arky *
It’s just another example of TicketBastard’s never-ending quest to monopolize the industry. While bidding for tickets is probably just capitalism in action, the result is going to be that the average joe isn’t ever going to get good seats.

First, the odds are quite low anyway that Average Joe is going to get good seats to a popular show through Ticketmaster. Second, you’d be surprised how little some of those eBay tickets go for. I got 5th row tickets last month for a great show at our local amphiteater for only $25 over face value. Yeah, it was more expensive than just taking whatever Ticketmaster still had available, but it was a show I really wanted to see and I was happy to blow the extra cash on it. My guess is that most music fans would happily shell out an extra $25 for that kind of seating.

[j.c]

If you want to see arena shows, you have to deal with corporations. That’s just the way it is.

There are a few bands who refuse to let Ticketmaster or Clear Channel put prices through the roof. A few.

[corndog_man]

I love “Ticketbastard’s”. Classic.

Simply, I hate ticketbastard because they charge a handling fee to buy a ticket. In other words, you have to pay ticketbastard money for the privilege of ticketbastard seeling you a ticket. Now ticketbastard will probably charge an “auction” fee, on top of handling. I have not gone to a show in years, because I refuse to stand in line for hours (because the ticketbastard monopoly does not care about customer service, hence one person selling tickets), and pay them a GD handling fee.

This is also a direct result of P2P. ingers and groups have to travel more, because album (old pre 80s term) sales have dropped, because people are downloading. So, naturally, these groups have to make up the difference somehow.

I also hate Joe Blow out there scalping tickets, he should be shot too. ut scalping is a risk, the value of said ticket might not be what he thinks it is. For example, Mike Tyson had a fight in Memphis, and scalpers bought a bunch of tickets, that they later could not unload.

[Darth_Nader]

I really don’t want this to turn into a hijack, but TicketMaster was a big pain in the ass years before P2P, Napster, etc…

Sadly, it makes sense they would cut out the middleman and start scalping on their own.