Flashes of Panic

Friday, I bought tickets to see Josh Ritter (again!) at the Somerville Theater tomorrow night. For several reasons having to do with my not having bought the tickets sooner (I’ve known he was coming for a month—what was I waiting for?) I bought them through Ticketmaster instead of paying cash at the box office down in Davis Square. (I simply had no remaining time to get to Davis.)

I’m not the first person to complain about Ticketmaster; it should come as no surprise to anyone that I’ve decided they’re weasels. Here’s why:

1. The tickets were listed at price $x at the beginning of the process. Pricey for a night’s entertainment, but I knew it would be worth it and was willing to pay.
2. Then, upon clicking through, there was a small “facilities fee” and a whopping “handling fee” added, both per-ticket. The handling fee, despite the fact that I selected “Will-Call” and Ticketmaster will never touch the ticket.
3. With the fees, the price of the tickets went up nearly 50%.
4. I wouldn’t have been mad if the fees had been included in the price of the tickets; in fact, I might have considered the tickets expensive but worth it, and bought them without feeling cheated. Instead, they were tacked on above what I had been told was “the price.” It wasn’t the total that angered me, but the way it was presented, something which should be easy to fix.
5. The fees can’t be included in “the price” because then the fee revenue would be included in the concert revenue shared with the artist.

In other words, Ticketmaster squeezes, beyond what the market wishes to bear, both parties which contribute to concerts being something worth attending, while adding nothing commensurate to their revenue themselves. They anger their customers and screw the performer. See? Weasels. I don’t understand how that kind of business model is allowed to stand without being undercut by competition.

Now Playing: Thin Blue Flame from The Animal Years by Josh Ritter