Ticketmaster charges a fee to deliver tickets in electronic form. I've known about this for a long time, but today I realized how idiotic this is. Most airlines have gone the paperless route, charging if you want physical tickets. Credit card companies and banks have incentives in place for customers who choose to view their monthly statements online. But not only does Ticketmaster charge a fee to e-mail your ticket to you, it offers standard rate mail as a free option. (Free being relative of course, since no matter what you're paying $5+ in "processing fees".)
Let me break this down for you. Once I heard that my beloved Peacemakers were going to be in town, I went to their website to find out how to get tickets. I was directed to Ticketmaster. Bracing myself for the worst, I checked out the prices. $10 presale, $12 at the door? Sounds good. Even the $3.50 surcharge wasn't so bad. But by the time I had reached the payment screen, the charges had added up to create a $20 ticket. Twenty dollars! A $3.50 processing fee, some other $3.50 fee, and $3 to actually e-mail the ticket to me so I could print it out.
In a sweeping gesture of stupidity, Ticketmaster single-handedly defeated the whole purpose of raising ticket prices on the day of the show. By getting a ticket at the door, I would actually SAVE EIGHT DOLLARS. I didn't want to risk it being sold out, so I made a bold move: I got in my car and drove down to Kroger where they have a Ticketmaster outlet. That's right. Final ticket price: $14.16. I saved five dollars by getting in my car, killing our environment just a little bit more (if you subscribe to that philosophy), and standing around for 20 minutes while the cashier figured out how to work the Ticketmaster program, which looked like it was written in assembly code circa 1985.
I have no sympathy for Ticketmaster. I refuse to even link to their site like I normally do with my subject matter. I'm certainly in favor of ticket brokers being able to profit from sales, but this is ridiculous. So I'm signing off with a big fat "SUCK IT!" to the fine folks at Ticketmaster.
Let me break this down for you. Once I heard that my beloved Peacemakers were going to be in town, I went to their website to find out how to get tickets. I was directed to Ticketmaster. Bracing myself for the worst, I checked out the prices. $10 presale, $12 at the door? Sounds good. Even the $3.50 surcharge wasn't so bad. But by the time I had reached the payment screen, the charges had added up to create a $20 ticket. Twenty dollars! A $3.50 processing fee, some other $3.50 fee, and $3 to actually e-mail the ticket to me so I could print it out.
In a sweeping gesture of stupidity, Ticketmaster single-handedly defeated the whole purpose of raising ticket prices on the day of the show. By getting a ticket at the door, I would actually SAVE EIGHT DOLLARS. I didn't want to risk it being sold out, so I made a bold move: I got in my car and drove down to Kroger where they have a Ticketmaster outlet. That's right. Final ticket price: $14.16. I saved five dollars by getting in my car, killing our environment just a little bit more (if you subscribe to that philosophy), and standing around for 20 minutes while the cashier figured out how to work the Ticketmaster program, which looked like it was written in assembly code circa 1985.
I have no sympathy for Ticketmaster. I refuse to even link to their site like I normally do with my subject matter. I'm certainly in favor of ticket brokers being able to profit from sales, but this is ridiculous. So I'm signing off with a big fat "SUCK IT!" to the fine folks at Ticketmaster.
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posted by Brandon at 6:30 PM
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