Ticketmaster and dynamic pricing

Even if every ticket price tier were advertised in advance(as they should have been) the mechanics of an in demand and oversubscribed event would mean that it would only be when you got to the top of the queue before you know what options were left from that pre published list of tickets prices.....you'd still have to make a decision with the information available to you at that point in time. It is very obvious to me based on the example from earlier today when people had plenty time to make decisions that there are enough people out there willing to pay big money for tickets no matter what queues exist.

Thats the crux of this issue, setting enforced top prices for tickets may solve it but is that right?

not the same in the UK apparently.

It was though. Giving you the price before you check out is sufficient to meet the requirements of being informed of the price in advance of purchase. It's black and white in that sense. It would only be a problem if you pressed 'Purchase' on a face-value ticket of €150 and THEN they charged you €450.

When you have the ticket in your basket, the full and final price is broken down with the service charge and delivery charge (if any) - BEFORE you commit to the purchase. THAT is sufficient for you to be told of the price.

not even close lol

Remember years ago when Ticketmaster set up a resale company. I think recent laws stopped it. I recall because I got ripped off on it by Ticketmaster when I resold tickets. I had to cough up money.

Yep, Seatwave. The new ticketing law made it no longer viable to run (for them).

Fully agree. The sales process doesn't bother me much at all. But the queuing for hours seems so needless and a waste of people's time. They need a better infrastructure for handling more users at a time and get people through the queue quicker.

The CCPC investigated Ticketmaster in late 2021…and here we are today.

https://www.ccpc.ie/business/enforcement/civil-competition-enforcement/civil-court-cases/ccpc-publishes-report-on-ticketing-investigation/

The report is well worth a read into how the industry works behind the scenes.

It doesn't change the fact that you have no idea what options you will actually get when you get to the top of the queue untill you get there. All you know is the range you might get, you'll still have to make a decision.

There's obviously enough people out there for an event like this who are willing to pay four or five hundred euro for a ticket and if the artists wants to they will take advantage of this, no matter the pricing details.

But all you will know is the possible list of options. You won't know what options are available to you until they are available to you, at which point it will be very clear what is available to you. What I am saying is they should publish the price ranges but for a gig like this it doesn't make a blind bit of difference to the issues of not enough tickets for demand or indeed the cost of the tickets.

Literally a first world problem. Go back twenty years and see how painful actual queueing is.

I amnt a complete tech head but I know that for something like the situation you had Saturday and the amount of moving parts, it's not as straightforward to scale to the levels you are looking for.

In this instance it wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference. Gig would have sold out same as, and people would have been complaining anyway of the high prices.

People need to stop paying these prices. Only way to change things.

Jesus Christ , it would have made a difference to plenty of people , how can you not understand that.

That's the one. I was delighted to see the end of them. Awful crowd

If tickets were sold on the basis that x were €85, x were €110, x were €250 and so on and that was flagged in advance it would have allowed the consumer to know, in advance, what the ranges were, what the likelihood of getting a ticket in a particular range was and decide, in advance, what range they were happy with.

Not knowing, having a massive queue which crawled and then getting presented with an expensive ticket with 6 or 7 minutes to decide is a massive pressure tactic. Yes, the tickets sold. Yes, they would have sold regardless. But the consumer is not being protected here, and they should be.

Yes that's true but it did closed down as the bill was introduced to the Dail (which was in 2018).

Just a coincidence, the bill had nothing to do with them closing.

Seatwave operated across Europe, and its sister site GetMeIn was Uk based.

Decisions by Irish politicans had about as much effect as a fly on an elephants back.

Tickets were provided by another company is the UK, don’t change anything. That other company (SeeTickets/Gigs and Tours) provides a (imo) much more frustrating experience than Ticketmaster

yeah uk and ireland have invitation to treat as basis for purchase laws I.E the price on shelves can be wrong and you’ve no right to the advertised price on the shelf, it’s only price once on the checkout Till that matters. As TM clearly state the price on the checkout screen I don’t see how either Irish or uk authorities will find wrong doing on that aspect.

There's also several other ticketing companies operating here and in other jurisdictions.

Artists/promoters overwhelmingly choose to go with Ticketmaster, as despite whinging about the occasional huge gig from people who have zero clue about the process, Ticketmaster does a perfectly good job for the thousands of events it sells tickets for in Ireland every year, on behalf of their customer: the promoters of those events. Those customers are perfectly happy with the service they get.

And for the people buying tickets, Ticketmaster works exactly as it should for the dozens of events being held every single day. People who think TM deliver a "bad service" have clearly never had to regularly deal with SeeTickets, AXS or Dice.

I think that the biggest issue re: the Live Nation monopoly is how they've tied up certain venues in Ireland when there are a distinct lack of alternatives. Would agree that Ticketmaster is the least of the industry's problem - whilst they could do better in some aspects, they just become the fall guy.

Folks i got a presale link to imagine dragons and I tried to get tickets on Wednesday.
To cut a long story short I selected two tickets and the TM website said “we are securing your tickets”

I went through my PRSB authentication process and the TM website then continued processing my tickets, but then I got a message on the screen from TM saying “it’s not you- it’s us, we are currently experiencing an issue with your order”

No money was taken out of my account and I have no tickets.
Is this just a case of the TM website being a joke shop, or was I unlucky or what’s the craic.
I don’t hold out much hope of securing two tickets in the general sale.

I was buying a ticket for Linkin Park presale today in London. Joined queue, was number 8k or so, got to top of queue. Very little available. Every seat I clicked disappeared. Then I got kicked from queue. Rejoined, now I'm 33k in the queue.

Got back to top of queue, more seats available now than earlier. But weird restrictions. I was only buying 1 seat. I was told I couldn't buy a seat it if left only 1 seat available in a row. I was told I couldn't buy an aisle seat unless I bought 2 seats.

Kept refreshing the page and finally for sorted, but what a pain in the hole. Are these weird scenarios likely to be a ticketmaster policy or a venue policy I wonder?

And what's the story with seats randomly appearing and then disappearing while you queue?

I also had issues buying a Linkin Park ticket, I kept refreshing and by the time I got zoomed into the section the seats were gone. I did this over 20 times. Then half an hour new tickets came up via AXS and had to make do with a standing ticket. I wonder why standing tickets are more expensive when you are almost guaranteed a worse view?

I got two tickets for a concert from ticketmaster today and it says mobile only (FFFFFS) does this mean I have to be there with my phone (they aren't for me) or give my phone to the person, or can they download the app and I give them my log in details to show on their phones on entry?