I hate Ticketmaster
 

Grrr... Been waiting on my pc here for the last hour, refreshing the website, waiting to tickets to go on sale for the NIN show. At about 10:00:20 the option to buy comes up. I immediately set out to buy tickets. After a one minute wait it comes back and tells me my order couldn't be processed. I hit it again quickly and managed to score 11th row on the right side, but goddamn it, I should have been front dead center. Next time I will have multiple accounts waiting in multiple browser windows.

And for that level of service, what was their "service" fee??

I had a similar experience with Ozzy tickets a while back, except instead of being in the 11th row I was in the first balcony, and I got thru at roughly 30 seconds after the start of the ticket sales.

I hate ticketmaster more than you do.

Ticketmaster is the biggest f'ing racket in the world. I honestly don't see how that goddamn business is allowed to bilk the American public for doing absolutely nothing. Don't even get me started. I almost never go to shows anymore, mostly because I refuse to give one red cent to those bastards.

My name is Jason, and I HATE TICKETMASTER!!!

Does everyone here remember when you had to CAMP OUT FOR TICKETS?

Wow, how times have changed... You have to run multiple accounts in multiple browsers? Shit man, I used to get my mom to bring me a burger and hot chocolate at midnight so that I wouldn't freeze to death. I had to see Metallica. I had to.

How would you design the system? How would it work without the bottle-neck that is so frustrating to you and others?

Remember when you go to a movie, and there is the line-up that instantly disintegrates once the doors open? You patiently wait in line for an hour to see LOTR, you are fifth in line, the door opens and 50 people "squeeze" past you? It is mob mentality, and I have seen it get ugly. Especially when people CAMP OUT for tickets. People have died due to rush seating (was it a Who concert back in the late 60s? Help me out here, you old fogeys). That is what ticketmaster provides. A check and balance against mob mentality.

I think the internet thing is cool, but there should be a reservation list that ticketmaster puts out. Here's how I would do it:

You love Band A. You listen to them all of the time, and you remember seeing them when they were first touring pubs and little shit-holes. Now they are fucking huge. International superstars.

You go to ticketmaster.com, and you put down a deposit for the next time Band A comes to town. You put down however much you feel you like the band.

When the concert is announced, the list that you subscribed to instantly spits out your ticket, using a weighted average on your deposit amount and how long it has been reserved.

You put down 100 bucks 2 years ago for this concert, and you didn't even know when they would be there? You get front row, centre. You have proven your desire for this ticket with the one thing that the economy cannot dispute. YOUR MONEY.

Now, you can play with the numbers a bit to make the weighting system fair.

20 bucks a year ago should mean more than 100 bucks two weeks ago, IMHO.

Then the regular tickets get sold to the public.

Now, if you love lots and lots of bands, you could put your money into a pot, a deposit account with a list of bands, maybe in preferential order. You go to every concert in your city? Put in $1000, and say "I want to see these 10 bands." When the band announces, you go and get your ticket, and you know the only people that are ahead of you in seat selection are those folks that paid MORE THAN YOU, and also said that they want to see that band.

What is your system?

you can still camp out, there are ticketmaster locations and a box office, the website just allows for internet pre sales by like 2 hours.

BigBen - I think you to run (not walk) to Ticketmaster and sell them your idea. It's basically a way for them to make even more money, and they don't actually have to sell anything in the short term. If you fork over $100 for 2 tickets 2 years out from the still-unannounced show, and the tickets are $59.95 for the seats, they have your $100 in today's dollars (which are worth more than 2-years-from now dollars). In small sums, it's not much but when you're dealing with millions, that's a big windfall.

Patent that one, my friend.

Ah, I remember camping out for tickets once. I was 14, and surrounded by adult women who didn't think twice about shoving a kid aside to get a better place in line. I was devastated that I didn't get to go to that Garth Brooks concert!!

Flashback aside, I like the way that the store I work for does tickets. For the few shows that Ticketmaster DOESN'T do here, you have to go get an arm bracelet to wear before the tickets go on sale. The day they go on sale, a random number is called, and that person gets to be first in line. I guess it kind of sucks if you have the number right before the number called, but it does help control the masses. Also, there is a limit on the tickets one can buy...ages ago, each person could buy 10+ tickets, so people in the front would buy ten, use six, scalp the rest, and actually make money. Big Ben, your idea may be the best yet.

Gold amex (if they gave me one, they will give anyone one) has a number to call for tickets to pretty much any event available... no ticket master to deal with... tickets are pretty easily available and you don't have to refresh refresh refresh...

camping out for tickets used to be fun, though... made it more of sport to try to be first in line...

Plus this my friends;

Ticketmaster would find that the number of "Blank Reserve" tickets would be a good predictor on a band's ability to sell out the show...

Band's Manager: You are telling me that 2,000 people already committed money for us to show up in Tulsa, OH? We haven't even announced a tour yet!

Ticketmaster: Yes, and 2,500 want you to go to Portsmouth, 5,730 want you to play in Lincoln, and there are 25,000 who put money down in Lancaster.

Manager: LANCASTER? Where the fuck is that?

Ticketmaster: It doesn't matter. You already sold out the show.

Manager: Oh, okay. I guess we'll book Lancaster on the next tour.

Ticketmaster: Yeah, book all of them. Our data suggests that for every 2,000 people that get on this list, 20,000 people will buy tickets to the show. We only capture the big fans with this subset, not just the fans willing to buy tickets. We think you should add 3 shows to the Lancaster bill.

Manager: Why don't you just set the tour dates up for us?

Ticketmaster: Sure, we could do that for a small fee (insert evil laughter here)

BigBen = evil marketing genius?

Except that scalpers could just put money down today for all the hot acts for the next few years.

I'm not so sure about that. Scalpers are into the game for the gain. If they can't get a pretty immediate ROI, I would think they'd be much less willing to shell out the dough.

Putting $100 down for a couple of seats for a show that may never happen is a HIGHLY speculative practice. THey're already dealing in speculation, but do so on a short-term basis. Extending the time between investment and payoff should effective squelch the scalpers.

Bigben's plan would essentially turn Ticketmaster into a bank. They could invest your funds, offer interest, credit, loans and so on. Oh, and charge you service fees. They're good at that. :D

I know I wouldn't want Ticketmaster managing my money, so I would be SOL if a show came up that I wanted to see. Furthermore, I think that even if you were a ticketmaster "client", you'd still have to compete with a large base of others for tickets. This would also create a new class of non-clients who are guaranteed never to get a decent ticket.

In the current setup, it's merely technology and apparent randomness that is the obstacle to equal access. Under Ben's plan, you have an economic system defning and stratifying that access. Ticketmaster is a defacto monopoly too. The more I think about this, the more it's not sitting right with me.

This sounds awfully familiar. I'm sure there's a lesson here about economic and political models, but I can't quite get my head around it.

[off topic] Big Ben, The Who stampede was in the late 70s. [/off topic]

In Cincinnati and 7 people were trampled to death if memory serves.

1979... 'festival seating' got blamed but... festival seating is where a person wasn't assigned an actual seat... 11 people were killed dozens more were injured-- and it really wasn't the seating that was the problem it was poor crowd control on the part of the arena security... (sound check had started, and the people thought the concert had started and rushed the stage...) (and it even made into a WKRP in Cincinatti episode)


I really am an old fogie :)

BigBen, what happens when I book a show for Band X, who is my favourite band who I desperately want to see, then Band X's lead singer OD's on meth? Do I get my money back? Do I get interest? Do I get first dibs on Band Y, who I don't really like nearly as much but who are all I have left to feel the gaping void in my soul caused by Band X's absence?

I could see lawsuits coming out of this.