Ticketmaster Rip-Off Monopoly

thegeezer

So a huge company like Ticketmaster which has exclusive tie-up rights to seel tickets over the Internet with most major promoters here, can still exist trying to justify charging €5 or more PER TICKET !!!! I wonder what their actual profit margin is over the actual costs of providing this "service" ? Maybe when it reaches €10 per ticket, the actual artists and promoters will realize what a rip off this is when they find their stadiums half full.

ejmaztec

How did these people get the monopoly exactly?

thegeezer

ejmaztec wrote: »

How did these people get the monopoly exactly?

By tying up exclusive deals with the likes of MCD - exclusive outlets for online ticket sales.

eightyfish

thegeezer wrote: »

€5 or more PER TICKET !!!!

For printing my own ticket with my own ink and my own paper and my own electricity, they charged €6.35 service fee for Fatboy Slim this summer.

Everybody's giving out about the airlines and their hidden charges. Why don't promoters have to advertise the FULL ticket fee including the un-avoidable service charge?

indiewindy

Some concerts are listed on www.tickets.ie no booking fee and €1 delivery charge:)

mcaul

eightyfish wrote: »

For printing my own ticket with my own ink and my own paper and my own electricity, they charged €6.35 service fee for Fatboy Slim this summer.QUOTE]

Naturally their IT costs are Free, their staffing costs nothing, banks don't charge them for credit card fees, their website builds itself and all the security onm the website must be open source and that allows ticketmaster to "pocket" €6.35 from everyone.

As for monopoly - Concert promoters use Ticketmaster because they simply have the best system in the world for processing tickets securely. The investment Ticketmaster have made in IT infrastructure is in the hundreds of millions which makes it very difficult for anyone else to come into the market.

eightyfish

mcaul wrote: »

Naturally their IT costs are Free, their staffing costs nothing, banks don't charge them for credit card fees, their website builds itself and all the security onm the website must be open source and that allows ticketmaster to "pocket" €6.35 from everyone.

Of course they have costs. But to charge the same fee for self-printing a ticket as having one printed and posted to you seems unfair. Also, €6.50 per ticket is ridiculous.

My main problem, however, is that promoters lie with their ads. Advertising a ticket for €6.50 less than the actual cost is misleading, and if the airlines get criticised for it by the consumer's association, then so should concert promoters and ticketmaster.

rubadub

mcaul wrote: »

Naturally their IT costs are Free, their staffing costs nothing, banks don't charge them for credit card fees, their website builds itself and all the security onm the website must be open source and that allows ticketmaster to "pocket" €6.35 from everyone.

Yes there are lots of costs involved which makes it even more questionable, www.tickets.ie was mentioned. If it has the concert in question I can buy the exact same ticket with CC online for box office collection, BUT on ticketmaster it costs me €6.35 EXTRA than on tickets.ie, EXTRA- above and beyond what a small company can survive on. If I am getting tickets sent out to me ticketmaster charge €5.35 extra for the same ticket.

Now look at the costs mentioned, the in place infrastructure and system setup- due to economies of scale you would expect tickets.ie would have to be charging more per ticket than ticketmaster. Also I expect the average amount of tickets sold per transaction is at least 2. So per transaction they are charging €12+ above what another smaller company can obviously make a reasonable profit on. They are certainly not only making €6.35 per tickets, tickets.ie are not a charity.

thegeezer

Any other alternatives to the ripoff boys ??

Guy:Incognito

rubadub wrote: »

Yes there are lots of costs involved which makes it even more questionable, www.tickets.ie was mentioned. If it has the concert in question I can buy the exact same ticket with CC online for box office collection, BUT on ticketmaster it costs me €6.35 EXTRA than on tickets.ie, EXTRA- above and beyond what a small company can survive on. If I am getting tickets sent out to me ticketmaster charge €5.35 extra for the same ticket.

Now look at the costs mentioned, the in place infrastructure and system setup- due to economies of scale you would expect tickets.ie would have to be charging more per ticket than ticketmaster. Also I expect the average amount of tickets sold per transaction is at least 2. So per transaction they are charging €12+ above what another smaller company can obviously make a reasonable profit on. They are certainly not only making €6.35 per tickets, tickets.ie are not a charity.

So ticketmaster dont have a monopoly afetrall and theres a choice?

At the end of the day , the promoter should be free to sell his tickets through the channel they want. Most choose ticketmaster. If people dont like it, dont buy tickets.

thegeezer

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

So ticketmaster dont have a monopoly afetrall and theres a choice?

At the end of the day , the promoter should be free to sell his tickets through the channel they want. Most choose ticketmaster. If people dont like it, dont buy tickets.

NOT true at all - this vendor (Tickets.ie) have a VERY limited number of events available, all of the major events are ONLY through the aforementioned monopoly. In the UK, there is a choice of online vendors for nearly all gigs, in Ireland, you HAVE to pay the ripoff prices charged by these bastards

jack presley

thegeezer wrote: »

NOT true at all - this vendor (Tickets.ie) have a VERY limited number of events available, all of the major events are ONLY through the aforementioned monopoly. In the UK, there is a choice of online vendors for nearly all gigs, in Ireland, you HAVE to pay the ripoff prices charged by these bastards

It's the promoters' choice to use Ticketmaster exclusively so the beef should be with them. Obviously I don't know the ins and outs of their contract but I'd imagine it's beneficial to both parties. If it was worth MCD/Aiken's while to use tickets.ie I'm sure they would.

thegeezer

jack presley wrote: »

It's the promoters' choice to use Ticketmaster exclusively so the beef should be with them. Obviously I don't know the ins and outs of their contract but I'd imagine it's beneficial to both parties. If it was worth MCD/Aiken's while to use tickets.ie I'm sure they would.

So basically the choice is pay and shut up, or don't go to watch any decent bands. Isn't that the same as a monopoly ?

youcancallmeal

thegeezer wrote: »

Any other alternatives to the ripoff boys ??

Not really and I wouldn't see it changing for the foreseeable future. Ticketmaster can do whatever the like (Within reason) because MCD and Aiken bring them all the biggest events. Even if there was a viable alternative Ticketmaster would undercut them and they probably wouldnt last long. At the end of the day ticketmaster are there to make a profit. You've just got to get over it if you want to go to a gig they happen to be selling tickets for?

jack presley

thegeezer wrote: »

So basically the choice is pay and shut up, or don't go to watch any decent bands. Isn't that the same as a monopoly ?

Cartel is what I'd call it as opposed to a monopoly.

youcancallmeal

jack presley wrote: »

Cartel is what I'd call it as opposed to a monopoly.

Exactly!

ejmaztec

Here's the Wiki info on the omnipotent Ticketmaster. They don't seem to care about being described as monopolistic, and carry on regardless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticketmaster

keithclancy

mcaul wrote: »

eightyfish wrote: »

For printing my own ticket with my own ink and my own paper and my own electricity, they charged €6.35 service fee for Fatboy Slim this summer.QUOTE]

Naturally their IT costs are Free, their staffing costs nothing, banks don't charge them for credit card fees, their website builds itself and all the security onm the website must be open source and that allows ticketmaster to "pocket" €6.35 from everyone.

As for monopoly - Concert promoters use Ticketmaster because they simply have the best system in the world for processing tickets securely. The investment Ticketmaster have made in IT infrastructure is in the hundreds of millions which makes it very difficult for anyone else to come into the market.

Their systems suck, try booking anything when its high demand :pac::pac:

sandin

I was in tesco yesterday and bought 2 packets of cornflakes - surely based on what people expect ticketmaster to do, Tesco should have charged me less for the second packet as they should only be allowed to make profit on the first one!

keithclancy wrote: »

mcaul wrote: »

Their systems suck, try booking anything when its high demand :pac::pac:

There's a way around it - log into ticketmaster UK or ticketmaster Germany and in many cases you can buy tickets for concerts in other countries, thus avoiding the "traffic jam" on the main site.

keithclancy

sandin wrote: »

I was in tesco yesterday and bought 2 packets of cornflakes - surely based on what people expect ticketmaster to do, Tesco should have charged me less for the second packet as they should only be allowed to make profit on the first one!

keithclancy wrote: »

There's a way around it - log into ticketmaster UK or ticketmaster Germany and in many cases you can buy tickets for concerts in other countries, thus avoiding the "traffic jam" on the main site.

I tried that before, while you can get to the main page the back end database hosting it is the same, so while you can navigate the site fine the whole thing falls over when you get to the payment process.

maps and atlas

Check out this forum which discusses not only service charges but the reason why the likes of MCD use Ticketmaster.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055905167

Icepick

If it's really such a money-making machine, just buy their shares and make the money back .. and then some.