Once again, I wonder why artists, their tour companies, and the venues on their scheduled tours put up with TicketMaster. I understand why fans do. They have no choice. On top of my ticket prices, I was charged these fees:
- Facility Charge US $2.00 per ticket
- Convenience Charge US $10.55 per ticket
- Order Processing Fee US $4.10
- TicketFast Delivery US $2.50
Years ago, before TicketMaster, the City of New Orleans imposed a 5% "Amusement Tax" on special events. It kept events away in droves. I think the Amusement Tax has since been repealed. 5%. The fees listed above represent about 25% of the purchase. These are tickets I printed on my own printer. Cost me $2.50 to use my own paper and ink. I just don't understand why the venues and artists can't get together and do this. They could lower prices and keep more of the profits. Not a big fan of TicketMaster here.
Quote of the Day
The Birds will be fine -- until Drew Brees gets out of his car.
Jeff Schultz, Atlanta Journal Constitution
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "Couple the NFL's most prolific offense against an Atlanta defense that made Tony Romo look like Troy Aikman on Sunday and it's a recipe for a long night in the Big Easy (and we're not talking about those type of fun nights on Bourbon Street that involve a lot of boozing, beads and another "B" we can't talk about on a family blog)"
I see that convenience charge on Twins tickets too. What does that mean? A convenient way to clip customers for a few more bucks?
That's a big part of the reason why we don't go to such events. We don't support unabashed gouging. My sympathies to you.
Things like that are hard on $5.00 Monster Jam tickets.
Yeah, Dave, I forgot about sporting events. The convenience charge is basically their cut for making a website.
I don't go to many, Lana, mainly because there aren't that many that interest me any more.
One of my former employers was a local sponsor for Monster Jam, Delmer. The premium tickets were $12/ea and you wouldn't believe how many people would ask me for free tickets. I used what little influence I had to get a guy 2 tickets. His response? "Oh man, think you could get me six more?". I wanted to take the two back.