Interesting move. Maybe this will lower all the ridiculous fees. Perhaps when you go to VWA to purchase tickets they will no longer charge a Convenience Fee. Excuse me, but what was convenient about me driving there to buy the tickets? I guess it was convenient for them, one less envelope to mail. Give me a break.

Be very carefull with Live Nation, I bought the Mega ticket through them 2 years ago. By ordering I became a member of their “club” and charged $10.00 a month along with a few other people that bought the Mega tickets for the concerts. This was very disturbing and somewhat illegal. I called them and they refunded the money.

That should read “has to buy tickets”, not “able to buy tickets”. Ticketmaster is one of the biggest rip-offs around. I just looked at tickets for someone on Ticketmaster. Tickets are 44.75. Getting two tickets is then 89.50. However, the “convenience” fee on each ticket is 10.80, there’s a order charge of 5.35, and a delivery fee of 2.50. That adds up to almost $33 in extra fees, which is about 37%. I don’t know of any other middle-man that charges almost 40% and gets away with it. $2.50 to email me tickets so they don’t even needs stamps? Why isn’t that free? It used to be that they had automated phone systems, so I can understand some cost. But now it costs them nearly nothing to sell thousands of tickets every day on the internet, yet the fees have risen sharply in recent years. The worst thing is that they are a near-monopoly, and if they’re in control of tickets for a show you can’t do much.

Fortunately you can buy tickets with cash at the Pageant box office without paying any fees. That is my preferred method. I wish more places would use something like Brown Paper Tickets. I honestly don’t know what value I, as a consumer, get from Ticketmaster, nor do I think the venues get much value from them. There are plenty of companies that can reliably sell tickets.

The venue makes its money in tickets, TicketMaster, LiveNation make their money in charging arbitrary transaction fees. Oh, btw, a percentage of the fees goes back to the venue, that’s the reason why the use companies like TM or LN. Plus the added cost of not having to pay for a box office staff or to pay for a web presence…It costs the venue NOTHING to use TM but they make lots of $$$$ using them.

Of course, the greatest barometer of Pop Culture, The Simpons, does succinctly describe TM;

“Burns: And to think, Smithers, you laughed when I bought Ticketmaster. [imitating Smithers] “Nobody’s going to pay a 100% service charge.”

Smithers: It’s a policy that ensures a healthy mix of the rich and the ignorant, sir.”

Good information. Upon purchasing tickets to see Jill Scott and Maxwell last year at the Verizon Theatre in Houston, I noticed that they were only available at Live Nation vs. Ticketmaster. I thought that was a regional thing, not based on venue. As previously stated, they do assess convenience charges..wouldn’t matter that you’re going through a direct venue site or its affiliate. I did find a couple of interesting facts about Live Nation though…they apparently also play the role of artist promoter. They have 10-year, multimillion dollar deals inked with Madonna and Jay-Z, among others.