Bass Ackwards

Three of us decided to head out to a small concert at a local venue. Being the tech-savvy guy I am, I looked up the ticket prices at the venue's website: $17.50 a piece. Perfectly reasonable. I should have known better when the "Buy Tickets" link redirected to Ticketmaster.

In addition to $17.50 a ticket, Ticketmaster tacks on an additional $5.00 per ticket "convenience fee" - though only on the final checkout screen. In addition, they want to charge $2.50 for me to print out my own tickets. Add that up and you get $17.50. That's right: at Ticketmaster, you can get three tickets for the price of four!

I understand that Ticketmaster needs to make money. I have no problem with a tech company providing technical services and charging for them. Hell, that's how I make a living. I even understand the technical challenges with managing a "gold rush" sale - an event where lots of people try to buy something at once, like, say, when a big blockbuster concert goes on sale.

It's still inexcusable.

What drives me nuts is that Ticketmaster manages to charge so much more over the Internet than a brick and mortar venue. You see, Amazon made a killing by leveraging the inherent efficiencies of the Web to sell things cheaper. There's no salespeople to hire, no rent to pay, no shrink (retail for theft). In fact, there was a huge outcry when it hit the scene - Amazon could undercut everybody by intelligently leveraging technology.

So...why does it take Ticketmaster 33% more to sell a ticket? I know my technology and I know people who work with "gold rush" scenarios as bad or worse than Ticketmaster - technology costs are no excuse.

And seriously: does it really cost more to have me print my ticket than for them to print it and distribute it to the venue?

Make no mistake - this is about wringing every last cent from customers.

I was about to hit publish on this post when Tera arrived. She'd taken the time yesterday to drive all the way to the venue to pick up tickets in person in order to avoid the Ticketmaster fees. I'm now watching her frown.

In person, it seems, the "convenience fee" is merely $4.50.