Feisty Underdog TicketMaster To Beat Scalpers At Own Game!

I just got confirmation from the Beacon Theater this morning that Ticketmaster processed a refund request I made several months ago by taking back the ticket and NEVER refunding any money for it. Wow, Ticketmaster you piece of shit, you really find sleazy new ways to make money!

Seriously, if you processed any refund requests with them, double check your credit card statements, and if nothing shows up, contact the venue. (I was also told by the venue not to contact Ticketmaster, contact them when requesting or checking on refunds. Venues should have a guest services or customer service number you can use.)

Wow... 18 years ago

Gone will be the days of camping outside a ticket booth in -40 C weather with a group of hard-core fans who are all hoping to get first crack at those tickets to the World Series, the Stanley Cup playoffs or Bruce Springsteen.

LOL

Hey Lil' Wayne at the Apollo! I mean, how can you not want to see Wayne at the Apollo?
https://www.ticketmaster.com/lil-wayne-new-york-new-york-04-16-2023/event/00005E3B08DA9760
Tickets start at $540 and go up to $3800 (with an inclusive $700 fee)

imagine paying $700 for the right to spend $3100 for one ticket

i would not pay that to see a resurrected Prince
okay i probably would but that's about it

That's it, I'm totally taking my business elsewhere.

well i'm certainly not seeing Wayne at the Apollo!

god i'm thankful i mostly go to smaller shows.

Madonna this summer i had to take an Affirm loan out on

Bob Lefsetz keeps insisting the performers can dictate to Ticketmaster re prices and fees . Now in his email Lefsetz has gotten onetime Jeff Beck manager Harvey Goldsmith to agree with him:

I read Jack Antonoff’s comment about ticketing issues, made at The Grammys over the weekend

"it’s not ‘cause of Artists" he says.

How wrong he is.

The Artists, through their representatives, totally control every aspect of Live Touring. From what is on stage, backstage and indeed the ticket price.

Promoters may recommend ticket prices, but the Artist always makes the final decision.

Ticketing Companies will suggest a whole tariff of ways to fleece the fans.
However the Artist always has the final say.
Those Artists that always blame everyone else are the same ones that sanction the problem.

It is totally in the Artist's remit to say whether ticket prices should be "as printed" on the ticket or not.

The Promoter can negotiate the Ticket Commission, but often the artist will demand its share if there are surplus profits.
The exception being if the Promoter has its own separate deal with the Ticketing Company.

At the end of the day only the Artists can stop the madness that besets us.

Some already do, but not nearly enough.

Harvey Goldsmith

I don't know about the added fees, but didn't Springsteen say something like - "I used to find out what our peers were charging, and said 'let's charge a little less'... but for this tour, I said, 'We're in our '70s, let's charge the same as our peers'," etc.

let's relegate lefsetz matters to the lefsetz thred plz

oh no it's the greedy artists that are ruining the music biz!

tho in this case, they def appreciate having ticketmaster around as a shield

I think if some artists told Ticketmaster no variable pricing, limit the fees to x, limit the price to y, that Ticketmaster would say that can’t be done unless you the artist work for free

oh hey, here's West Coast pop punk band The Garden playing two nights at Irving Plaza, popular enough that they can book more than one show but obscure enough that I'm sure tickets via livenation can't be too much aaaaaand GA for a punk show is $83 with seated tickets running up to $330

who the fuck is buying at these prices?

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/6-ways-to-fix-the-broken-concert-ticketing-system/

Pitchfork contributor on how to fix Ticketmaster mess

Well to comment on two of those suggestions...

Artists already can opt out of dynamic pricing. Every decision on how each tour is sold is a collaboration between agent/manager and their contact at TM. If artists care enough about the fans, they will be involved in that process and opt out - and some do. I think most artists selling through TM just remain wilfully ignorant of that process and leave it to their people to sort it out.

Similarly, artists also have the option of blocking resale - its been done by some massive artists already. Many don't because they take a cut of the higher resale prices, or actively get their people involved in doing the higher-priced reselling themselves (Metallica management got caught out on this).

Of course Ticketmaster have always been fine taking the blame for this stuff, they act as a convenient shield between the artist and the ripped off fans... who will never want to think the artist could have some responsibility in flushing out their bank accounts.

Springsteen claimed that if he blocked dynamic pricing that non- Ticketmaster approved ticket scalpers would up the prices and make money that Springsteen said should go to he and his band. I dunno.

Unwinding the Ticketmaster and Live Nation merger is definitely essential. That relationship alone makes it extremely difficult to fight price inflation - there would still be a lot of things that need to be done after a split, but they would be virtually impossible to pull off (at least effectively) with that merger intact.

“Make ticket scalping illegal, level the playing field, and get back to where it’s just normal fans competing for the same Taylor Swift tickets,”

Ticket scalping should be legal-ish but you should have to pay cash to a weird guy in a dirty San Jose Sharks Starter jacket for two tickets a block away from the venue like the good old days.

More ideas not broached in Hogan's piece (I don't think):

(Further) limit the number of tickets people can buy.

Sell tickets directly.

Cap the bullshit fees, or make them flat. Why the fuck should the *fees* be dynamic as well?

Anyway, the problem with that Fork piece and ones like that is that they all begin from the position that Ticketmaster actually provides a real service. But of course TM doesn't do shit, especially in this digital era. They've embedded themselves in the process like parasites.

Even if there were no Ticketmaster, i imagine most venues would still choose to contract with ticketing services, rather than try to set up and manage their own software…?

I mean, part of the problem is that many of these big venues aren't just partnered but are *owned* by Live Nation/Ticketmaster! But yeah, the venues - as individuals or as collectives - would need to have their own ticketing systems, though that would also mean (I assume) keeping more of the money, which might be an incentive.

Springsteen claimed that if he blocked dynamic pricing that non- Ticketmaster approved ticket scalpers would up the prices and make money that Springsteen said should go to he and his band. I dunno.

― curmudgeon, Friday, March 10, 2023 12:33 AM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

there's no reason to regard springsteen in this matter as anything else but a full of shit rich guy

That's more or less the exact argument the Eagles made back in 1994 or whenever when they smashed through the ticket price ceiling.

The Eagles were the first rock band to shatter the $100 ceiling for tickets. Azoff pointed out at the time that the only people who complained were journo types who got their tickets for free, and it’s true that fans didn’t balk, with Hell Freezes Over selling out every show.

Twenty-two years later, Azoff stands behind that pricing strategy. “Tickets should be priced at what the fans are willing to pay to see the performer,” Azoff explains. “The key element in breaking the $100 ceiling was that it changed the dynamic of resale (by) having the revenue generated by tickets going back to the business — promoters, artists, venues, etc.” Clearly, demand to see the Eagles live after 14 years was sky high, but, “it wasn’t just about making more money,” Azoff says. “It was also about sending the message that Eagles were America’s biggest band, and perhaps one of the biggest in the world — charging like it influenced both fans and media that we were the biggest ever.”

many of these big venues aren't just partnered but are *owned* by Live Nation/Ticketmaster!

So they’re “direct ticketing” already… haha

Statement from the Cure (#onethread):

"We want the tour to be affordable for all fans, and we have a very wide (and we think very fair) range of pricing at every show. Our ticketing partners have agreed to help us stop scalpers from getting in the way; to help minimise resale and keep prices at face value, tickets for this tour will not be transferable. If something comes up that prevents a fan from being able to use a ticket they have purchased, they will be able resell it on a face value ticket exchange."

"Unfortunately, despite our desire to protect our low ticket prices for fans, the states of NY, IL and CO make this very difficult. They actually have laws in place that protect scalpers! For shows in these states we urge fans to buy or sell tickets to one another on face value exchanges like twickets.live and cashortrade.org. Fans should avoid buying tickets that are being resold at inflated prices by scalpers, and the sites that host these scalpers should refrain from reselling tickets for our shows."

Restricting re-sale, but allowing face-value transfers, totally makes sense. More artists should do that!

When I saw the Death tribute in 2021, Tix were $50, but if you needed to sell one, you'd input your buyer's name and email on the ticketers site, which would give them a link to pay, and would void/refund your original transaction, so you broke even. I had to use it and it was a crude system but it was great.

Reselling Tix you can't use now and getting face value is very difficult otherwise, esp if you use a service that takes a cut. And Craigslist is so filled with scams, people just don't want to use it

Yeah, if you're not doing it with someone you semi-trust, like a co-worker ("Ok, the Venmo went through... I'll transfer the tickets now"), you need some kind of digital escrow system.

My best friend and I once got scammed for Lightning tickets during the Eastern Conference Finals. He seemed legit and she had actually chatted with him for a bit, I sent the money via CashApp, nothing. Since you can't mark Goods/Service, they refused to refund. She was in tears.

I decided to use a credit card and pay a majorly marked up price to acquire resale Tix on Ticketmaster. Something like $150 each. It was an expensive day but the look on her face during the game made up for it.

So yeah fuck tickets

We need to go back to the early 2000s, where I would physically meet up with some dude in an In-N-Out, and hand him a wad of cash for Strokes tickets.

Saw this going around re: The Cure (fees for each ticket exceeding the ticket price):

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FrREw7YWwAAu9Nx.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Guillotine%2C_Mus%C3%A9e_de_la_R%C3%A9volution_fran%C3%A7aise.jpg

^^ rejected alternate cover for Carnage Visors

(not really)

When I got the Ticketmaster email that said I had been *waitlisted* to be a "Verified Fan," my immediate reaction was, fuck that, I'm not going to be their dancing monkey, and didn't even bother trying for tickets.

But hey, I can go on Stubhub right now, and pay $150 a pop (before fees) for nosebleed tickets for a show in June that literally only went on (pre)sale this morning.

Sounds like the Drake presale was another clusterfuck.

And Drake tickets were apparently super expensive even without fees

Not playing this three-card-monte game again. Spending my money on new bands that could use it...

it wasn’t just about making more money,” Azoff says. “It was also about sending the message that Eagles were America’s biggest band

god, what a piece of shit

Robert Smith of the Cure got Ticketmaster to offer a $10 refund on service fees to verified fan Cure ticket buyers who bought those cheapest Cure tickets ; and $5 to other verified fan ticket buyers

https://consequence.net/2023/03/robert-smith-the-cure-ticketmaster-refund/

I seem to recall that sort of outcome being the straw that broke Pearl Jam's back, that after months of fighting they were only able to shave off something like $5.

https://i.imgflip.com/805ge3.jpg

Never saw that one; I guess this recent meme sensation would also fit:

https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/037/873/We

ain't gonna work. third-party reseller websites already make accommodations for stuff like this - Stubhub asks you if you have tickets in hand, or if not, when you will. People will frequently sell tickets they don't actually have in hand.

sometimes people sell tickets they haven't even PURCHASED yet on the open market - they'll give an estimated seating location, charge a fee upfront, and then get the ticket later, or refund the money if they can't get it.

yeah, they're called speculative tickets and you might as well pay a stranger on the street for a guarantee that you won't get cancer

that's kinda what Billy McFarlane was doing in his pre-Fyre venture, right?

*McFarland

Never saw that one

I just made it with a generator!

There's something uniquely shitty about the law in Illinois that makes it hard to thwart scalpers. For example, this was from the press release for the most recent Pearl Jam tour:

Tickets on this tour will continue to be non-transferable in all states except Illinois where it is prohibited by law. We apologize in advance to Illinois fans who may be subject to increased ticket prices on the secondary market.

And from Robert Smith's statement in his fight against scalpers:

Unfortunately, despite our desire to protect our low ticket prices for fans, the states of NY, IL and CO make this very difficult – they actually have laws in place that protect scalpers!

Tickets being non-transferable is pretty anti-consumer too tbh.

Fights scalpers but also inhibits people who can't go at the 11th hour

Which I assume is why it's pretty protected places.

Was it the Black Keys back when that tried to link tickets to the person that purchased them only to have it backfire?

Meanwhile:

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/music/irs-taylor-swift-eras-tickets-beyonce-lionel-messi-tax-480d346c

If you cashed in this summer by reselling tickets to Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” or Lionel Messi’s first games in a bubblegum-pink jersey, brace yourself to pay taxes.

A new law requires ticketing platforms like Ticketmaster and StubHub to give the Internal Revenue Service information on users who sold more than $600 worth of tickets this year.

The new requirements are taking hold amid a banner year for live events in which Swifties, soccer buffs and members of Beyoncé’s BeyHive paid sky-high prices for a chance to see their favorite stars in the flesh. That drove huge markups in the secondary ticket market—and delivered hefty profits to anyone hawking hot tickets.

The average price for Taylor Swift tickets sold in the U.S. on StubHub was $1,095, with the best seats going for thousands of dollars, according to the company, which operates an online market for people to resell and buy tickets. Averages for Beyoncé and Harry Styles clocked in at $380 and $400, respectively. After Lionel Messi joined Major League Soccer, the price of tickets to Inter Miami CF matches shot up to $255 apiece, from $30.

Anyone else trying to get $25 tickets today? Looks like demand crashed the site within seconds.

Missed that this morning but am seeing this news trending

Typical

got Mastodon and Coheed tickets that way

site is mega buggy though, first took a ticket out of my cart, then kept saying they were unavailable despite being listed

I'm not sure how this works, but I guess you could get $25 Missy Elliott tickets if you connected with a Verizon account (like a deal was made with Verizon and subscribers got like a code or instructions). I don't have a Verizon and didn't see any pop up. We did get tix to the Roots (with Digable Planets and the Jungle Brothers) and Mdou Moctar, so at least we got something. (The latter wasn't expensive to begin with, it was originally only $5 more with fees, but I was planning to go anyway.)

I should say "plus fees" not "with fees"

Wasn't sure where to put this, but the Black Keys have cancelled their Fall US tour apparently due to the combination of low sales of expensive tickets in large arenas.

https://consequence.net/2024/05/the-black-keys-cancel-tour-dates/

this is not me being messy, im genuinely curious when they ever had the audience for that kind of a show?

Actually, they did. I was looking at their gig history in Houston on setlist.fm, and they've been in sheds/arenas since 2010!

From what I gather, they did an arena/shed tour with considerably lower ticket prices in 2022, so it's understandable if fans didn't want to drop more coin on them so soon.

Judging by the wording of this statement, I'd say they overestimated their draw:

The band wants to assure everyone that Dan & Patrick are alive and well.

Following the recent run of shows in the UK & Europe, including stops at iconic venues like Brixton Academy and the Zenith in Paris, we have decided to make some changes to the North American leg of the International Players Tour that will enable us to offer a similarly exciting, intimate experience for both fans and the band, and will be announcing a revised set of dates shortly.
 
Everyone who had purchased tickets and/or VIP to the initial tour dates will be fully refunded - and when the new plans are announced, will be the first to be able to buy tickets.
 
Thank you for your understanding and apologies for the surprise change… We’re pretty sure everyone is going to be excited when you see what we have in mind though, and look forward to seeing everyone soon.

lol whoops sry black keys but i thought fer sure this revive would be re: this

^ me too

and this

https://www.theguardian.com/money/article/2024/may/29/revealed-how-touts-drew-up-secret-plans-to-sabotage-labours-ticket-reforms

NOW THIS??
https://www.ticketnews.com/2024/05/ticketmaster-hack-data-of-half-a-billion-users-up-for-ransom/

cautionlol

yikes!

no big deal, just contact those 560 million users and tell them to change their phone number and credit card.

J.Lo cancels tour after rebranding it due to low sales

https://variety.com/2024/music/news/jennifer-lopez-cancels-tour-1236021391/

seems like I'm seeing a lot of that, I guess Nicki Minaj is having trouble, it's almost like ticket prices are excluding most of the audience!

Well, yeah.

And audiences who are going to shows are being choosier about who they see.

And some artists are charging too much too soon after doing cheaper post-pandemic tours.

And promoters are seriously overestimating certain artists' drawing power.

I got caught up in this y'day: https://www.404media.co/ticketmaster-crashes-during-olivia-rodrigo-presale-heres-why/

(once I finally did get into the "Waiting Room," there were 30,859 ppl ahead of me)

I thought this was a really good summation of where things stand:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u--se25_px8

Btw, related, at one point tickets to see the National and War on Drugs a couple of nights ago at the United Center were as low as $4 all-in on the secondary market. You know that something is really screwed up when the bottom falls out like that, starting with the fact that the National and Co. were touring arenas at all (let alone how high tickets were originally priced). To what extent are bands like that strong-armed into playing huge places or bilking their fans with ridiculous ticket prices, or how many of those decisions are being driven by market forces beyond their control. Like, is playing to a big but less than capacity crowd in an arena ultimately more practical than playing four sold outs shows at a smaller place (which is what they did the last time they were in town)? How much does it currently cost the National, a band with five members, several auxiliary members, and no doubt a not insubstantial tour crew and support network, to hit the road? I wonder.

There have been a handful of high profile acts claiming it's unfeasible to tour, like Justin Bieber or Santigold. Other acts, like J. Lo or Black Keys, who may or may not have cancelled due to light ticket sales. But just a handful, at least that come to mind. I saw two of three High On Fire shows here a couple of weeks back (they ruled). Is the band, or any band at that relatively modest level, making any money, or is it a labor of love? How about all of the other bands and clubs that play or host shows every night, many of which sell out? Is it an illusion of success, as the Crowbar guy in the video suggests, and in reality all these places (and bands) are barely hanging on by a thread? Even some buddies in the biz have yet to give me a totally clear idea of just what is going on.

so on a whim i decided i'd like to go see bob dylan when he comes through the midwest on the next leg of his tour. i've never seen him before and i thought it would be good to correct that.

some context: maybe this sounds strange, but i rarely bother to see Big national acts because i guess i just get my fill from seeing lots of other (local, national, and int'l) music on a smaller scale, and i don't like going to arenas, and i don't have a ton of money.

so, i was looking at some of these tickets, and the tour wasn't announced all that long ago, and apparently all the tickets have already sold out. however, lots of "resale" tickets are available. so it's like, ticketmaster-sanctioned scalpers i guess?

my questions are:

1. is this now the normal state of things? do all concerts now sell out in a matter of minutes on the morning tickets go for sale, and anybody who decides to see the show after that time frame has to either pay an exorbitant price or get fucked?

2. is $200 now the "normal" low end ticket price to see an artist of bob dylan's stature and popularity? this sounds fucking insane to me, but then again in many ways i am not as tuned into the culture as i could be

yes and yes, sadly

lol i just bought tickets to see Cymande and i have to download an app on my phone to use the tickets? seriously fuck off

Not only are tickets priced high, not only do shows sell out immediately and tickets appear on secondary markets just as fast, but sometimes it's the artist themselves sneakily selling those tickets on secondary at (further) inflated prices.

Depends on the venue, artist, etc. And many shows you can find tickets in the days leading up to the date at below face value.

Dylan’s playing the Outlaw Tour with Willie Nelson, Wilco, and Lucinda Williams this summer. At Jones Beach tickets start at $54.50 with fees.

Saw Dylan there last summer, with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss (and should have also been Willie Nelson, but he was out sick and one of his son’s subbed). Was a great place for the show (and Bob was fantastic that night, making up for a lackluster show I saw a few months before).

i see live music all the time, and 95% of it exists totally outside of this totally predatory and whack system, thank god

maybe this sounds strange

Not at all! I've been to hundreds of shows and exactly one of them (my first, The Cure) was an arena show. That type of concert experience just doesn't appeal to me.

I have no problems with arena shows, per se. The problem is that the arenas are all owned by the same bad-faith players and therefore prone to the same ticket dishonesty.

Yeah, there are always solutions that aren't really solutions so much as coping mechanisms. Unless it's something I really, really don't want to miss, I'll wait until the week of and start watching prices then, and be prepared to walk away if they stay ridiculously high. That's not a solution to the problem, that's a strategy to deal with the problem.

I've started using cashortrade.org, by the way, which has yet to get bogged down in bullshit. When I wanted to see John Zorn at the Village Vanguard in NY, a tiny place, I found a guy on that site selling a single for face value. Right now there are zero Dylan tickets, which reaffirms that it's more a fan site and not just another cog in a corrupt wheel.

lol i just bought tickets to see Cymande and i have to download an app on my phone to use the tickets? seriously fuck off

I had to do that when I saw Garcia Peoples last year. It was annoying but the venue was so small and intimate that I didn't want to pass it up.

My best friend's husband got us NIN tix through AXS, and he'll have to download an app to get into the venue.

let me guess, the app to view/use the tickets is Dice? yeah it's annoying but the ticket buying experience is a million times less anxiety-inducing and annoying and evil there than Ticketmaster, a trade-off

Ha, mine was. I was just annoyed because I'm not sure I've had a chance to use it again since.

oh, I'm sure you will

at least here in Toronto, more and more non-arena/stadium shows are using it

i had to use Dice a few years ago to see the Sun Ra Arkestra. the app i had to download this time was Live Nation :(

hopefully i can just keep downloading different apps for each new show

The apps I've been encouraged or forced to use have been Dice, Ticketweb, Ticketmaster, AXS and occasionally some sort of bespoke app for a smaller venue. A whole generation or two has missed out on the joys of collecting ticket stubs.

all my ticket stubs are in the zip-up pocket of a CD wallet I have at my parents' place, pretty sure if I go through them the skin will slide off my bones

Music fans of the future will trade defunct venue apps in grimy basements while the Live Nation secret police scour the streets for any sign of the miscreants.