Today I purchased tickets to see Ron White (Comedian-Blue Collar Comedy Tour) through Ticketmaster. What started out as $39.50 tickets ended up costing me $50.00 each because of an $8.50 convenience charge per ticket plus a handling charge that brought my total to $149.00.
That’s 20% higher than the ticket’s face value.
Ticketmaster’s claim is that the convenience charge is for the convenience of being able to purchase tickets 24 hours a day and not having to drive to the ticket box office to purchase the tickets.
But $8.50 for each $39.50 ticket.
Apparently some consumers have taken Ticketmaster to court over the fees but to no avail. Although the fees are excessive, they have always been disclosed. Case dismissed.
I agree. So I buy my tickets elsewhere whenever I can. Unfortunately I often can’t. Until they have competition this problem will probably only get worse.
This is why I virtually always buy my tickets from the venue or promoter directlly. I’ve seen surcharge’s as high as $17 a ticket on a $40 event. If you can make it to Box office hours at most places they will charge you face value for the ticket. Its just a pain to get to the venue sometimes when the box office is actually open.
I can understand a charge for them providing the tickets without me having to travel to the venue to get it, but I think the charge should be per transaction, not per ticket. So IMO, they should charge $8.50 for your order of 2 (or 10 or 20), not $8.50 x 2 (or 10 or 20). This subject is one of my personal pet-peaves, and I refuse to get “taken” by those Ticket Master thieves, so I stopped buying from them years ago.
I find them very convenient, and well worth the charge (although I would happily pay less)
I always use ticketmaster because they are so dang convenient. I have gotten a great seat at all but one event due to their service, much better than a seat I would get by standing in line in the rain waiting with the other chumps.
$8.50 on a $40 ticket isn’t too bad. I’m used to paying that plus having ticketmaster add $7 or more parking PER TICKET. Regarless of if you walk, take a bus, carpool, or drive yourself, every person has to pay for a parking space.
I bought a ticket to see the Darkness. Lastminute.com (I think) was the only place I could find standing tickets. The £22.50 ticket cost me £31.70 after all the ‘booking fees’.
If you’re buying one ticket, I agree with you completely. But if the rationale of the “convenience charge” is as described above, as something saving you the hassle of driving, time, etc., it should be a single amount per transaction. It’s not like they can’t figure out how to get their software to do this. That’s why they need more competition, so the price will be more in control.
I hadn’t heard of the parking fee. If you pay it with your ticket, what happens if you drive to the venue? Can you show your ticket and then not have to pay? That’s kind of convenient, but is clearly a ripoff if it’s intended to pay for a “regular” parking fee. Everybody who has one of those tickets should get out of the car (except the driver) and hop into the cars behind them so they don’t have to pay for their parking. Do that enough and somebody will get the message…
