Lest we think AXS is any better with fees, here is my "Before & After" total for two Gaga MAYHEM Ball tickets


Insane!

The fees suck for any and all of most ticket sellers. My question is it worth paying $281.42 for each ticket to see one performer?

That is a shit ton of cheese for one ticket to see one concert. If we have normalized paying that much to see people sing a song live, then either I make too little, or I just have a low opinion on the worthiness of seeing a big-name band or artist perform live.

I mean, people bitch about 20 bucks a ticket to see a movie, but they will drop $300 to see a live show. It just seems weird to me. but again, I know that it is just my opinion, and I am not criticizing what people want to spend their money on. People can buy whatever they want to. It just amazes me that so many people will shell out that kind of money for just one concert. Paying $300 for a two- or three-day festival to see 20 different bands, I totally get. But $300 for one performer is asking a lot.

I guess performers will charge what the market will bear. I am just amazed it bears so much!

It's essentially what I said early in this thread.
I don't know how people will pay so much for a concert, but people can choose to spend how they want. What I don't understand is paying that much and then complaining about paying that much. No one is forcing anyone to go to a concert.
The thread title "where's the outrage?" makes me ask the same question. There can't be any outrage if you're fine with paying the price - since you're paying it.

My sister is a pretty regular concert goer. Yeah she doesn't like all the fees with Ticketmaster, but she accepts it. Going to concerts is her thing that she does with her friends and sometimes her husband and she enjoys it and that's all that matters. And she has a good income as well, so she's not crying poverty and outrage. In fact, she bought me a ticket months ago to join her to see a Dua Lipa concert this October for my birthday.

Different strokes for different folks. I rarely eat out or go to the movies regularly anymore like I use to. Live music is my one vice. I'll go with friends or myself. Would I prefer it be cheaper? Yeah and honestly there are plenty of small and upcoming artists that are cheap. Some A listers are too. Jack White was $99 after $23 in fees. Last year the vast majority of shows were under $200 and those aren't nose bleeds. That's GA and floor seats. Thinking back only the Stones were higher (a lot higher) and what's because I did splurge for GA pit. It is a bit of a game now with Artist Presales and venue presales and credit card presales but it's due able. Unfortunately the mega stars (and mainly female mega star) are at a premium. She's not my thing but I can see people willing to pay a lot for her.

I'm the same. I have a leisure budget and it's almost 100% shows. It's my entertainment of choice and honestly probably a little (well a lot) therapeutic.

1) Gaga has upper level, last few row tickets for $100 + fees. If you don’t care about having good seats, that’s very reasonable. If you want a good or great view, you will pay a premium for it.
2). She is a superstar act. She hasn’t toured in almost a decade. There is a lot of demand for her show that just isn’t there for newer or less-popular artists.
3). Just look at the price of the cheapest tickets on the secondary market. Four or five times mark up easily. I’d much rather the artists get reimbursed for what they’re worth than scalpers.

Having said all that, I know what Lady Gaga is giving me for my $600. A solid night of memorable entertainment that I can’t get anywhere else. Now what is AXS or Ticketmaster giving me for the $150 they charge? A digital ticket? Access to their website? A place to get a refund if the concert were cancelled? I don’t see any value proposition there. They even try to upsell ticket insurance. And the service provided for a $100 ticket is identical to the service provided for a $750 ticket, so why is that service so much more expensive on the premium ticket? Does the tire shop charge more to rotate the tires on an expensive car than a cheap one? Does T-Mobile charge more to use a flagship phone on their network than a budget smart phone? It just doesn’t seem fair.

JFC, if that's the price of the concert going experience for top tier acts I am happy to say that I am retired. Too rich for my blood. I'm over here still contemplating on whether I should go see John Carpenter live in the fall.

I saw him just before covid. He was incredible. If you haven't seen him... go!

There are only a couple acts I would pay that much for and they are all dead.

I saw him when he played at The Orpheum out here. It was great. Mick Garris sat a couple of seats away from me. This time out he's doing a small residency at The Belasco, which I've been to many times.

Again, the secondary market is a great indicator of value and demand. If people are paying 3 times as much as Gaga is charging, then it's hard to say she's charging too much.
Look at these prices for the Eagles at the Sphere tonight. These are people who are trying to unload their tickets in the next few hours.


Now you might think these prices are insane, but that's what they're going for.
JFC : $971 for last row tickets?

I totally get the complaints about service fees. When I buy tickets for big-name events, I always brace myself for that extra chunk at checkout that never really feels justified. I've noticed some venues or sellers are a bit better about breaking down what the service charges are for, but most of the time it just feels like I'm paying a premium to use their website. Sometimes I end up looking for alternatives, especially if the tickets I want are sold out or hard to find. For anyone who's tired of those crazy add-on fees or just looking for more ticket options, you can click here and see if you find something that fits what you’re after. Sometimes it's just good to have another option in the mix.

TM has gone to all in pricing (before taxes) so they hit you over the head from the get go now.

Honestly, with all the fees, insane general cost of tickets (for even some of the smallest bands/artists), crazy priced concessions/parking, time investment, shitty bathrooms, drunks, assholes who hold their phones up the entire concert, and generally, just how people act in public now, my concert-going days are basically over.

Yes, I am old but not that old. But all the above has just made going to concerts unbearable and zero fun for me. I never had the money to go to all the concerts I wanted to go to back in the 90's and tickets were still considered cheap. Now that I have the money to waste if I want to, I have no desire to go see hardly anyone because of all of the above.

Other than a cheap show nearby by an artist that no one knows or just a small local live band at a bar, I am out.

Nugs and Veeps are the shit, and I can sit at home and watch a live or pre-recorded "live" concert on my 98" TV in surround sound without all of the above annoyances. Andfor the price of 1 ticket to one show, I can watch unlimited concerts for a year.

Now get off my lawn!

Thanks to a Biden-Era Federal Law. Not out of the goodness of their hearts or a newfound desire for transparency. Wouldn't be surprised if the Trump Administration reverses that policy like they did with overdraft fee regulation.

The guys bringing asbestos back. Surely you just.
Being serious, I don't see TM gong back. They were fine being the punching bag and taking the hits for artists in the past when it didn't affect their business. I think they don't want to do that anymore because it is now affecting their business. With everything lumped together at the start people aren't going to take notice unless they dig into the receipt.

I gotta say, not all ticketing problems are Ticketmaster fault. With the secondary market being so accessible, everyone is profiteering. Check this out : a bunch of new dates went up for the Backstreet Boys shows at the Sphere in Las Vegas. It's the hottest show in the country right now.
Just look how many seats for a random date in February are available just on Seat Geek already


I don't know if it's bots or people, but entire rows are available. And one thing I'm certain of is that these people didn't just suddenly discover a schedule conflict and decided to sell their seats.
While it's nice that the secondary market is not just in the hands of brokers or back alley scalpers, this sort of rampant online scraping is a really gross trend.

Yeah, but I also think it was probably inevitable. The internet means that ticket scalping (remember when this was illegal?) can go wide scale and international, the capitalists see a lot of money to be made, and it suddenly becomes legal and the new normal.

We're also in age where venues sell the best seats a premium and people are willing to shell out thousands of dollars to see major acts. And you can buy tickets anywhere in the comfort on your own home now. There's really no way that scalpers aren't going to take this over. It's too easy and there's too much money to be made. Scalping going corporate was something that was going to happen in this climate.

TM literally has a program for brokers.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/tic...egas-1.4828535

Unless the artist opts out it's active. Fan2Fan is broken but at least it prevents whole blocks of seats going straight to the brokers. The API that the brokers have not only lets them query faster but also prevents them from getting locked out.

OK, I know how the game is played but this really pisses me off. There are always hold backs to events. Always. But this is ridiculous. Over the last three days TM has released at least a thousand tickets 24-36 hours before shows that sold out instantly 11 months ago PER EVENT. Great seats AT THE STANDARD price. Why 24 hours in advance? Because less than that and people can’t exchange them for a $10 fee. I stumbled on the drop yesterday and as I waited on hold for forty minutes they slowly disappeared. By the time I got a human some were still available but she didn’t understand the process although she knew of it. Comically she’s learning in real time. By the time she figures it out after consulting with the tickets continue to get snipped. She finally gets an allotment and it hits under 24 hours and the system rejects it. Now this morning TM releases even more great seat I would have happy bought when it was Hungry games last fall. First world problems and all but just such shite from them. It’s a stadium show so it’s not a massive issue because if you are seated your are watching the screens but the principal o it and this damn business. This wasn’t even to manufacture fake demand.

I don't really understand all of your post Kdogg, but Oasis has been posting for weeks that there would be drops of production hold tickets late as they confirmed sight lines. Is this maybe that?

The production holds were last week. They had a sale were they basically sent a code to everyone that didn’t get tickets last October. They ended up sending a code to everyone I think because I got one. They sold out quickly and those tickets were nowhere as good as what’s available right now. The ones yesterday and today are additional to that. Huge block of seats. Check TM. Those were not available Friday or Saturday. They had more yesterday. I can understand a few hundred holdbacks. I’ve taken advantage of that. This is completely different. It might be that I don’t do stadiums so it looks more off with the quantity but I would have definitely done those in 111C, 112, 139 and 140. I thought about buying and listing mine in 236 but they would have not gone because of the new drop and other last minute resales. I was in NYC a day early and thought of getting a GA for yesterday so I’ve been checking daily for a couple of weeks.

BTW enjoy the show Doc. If you want to slum it come up to the second level 😀

Thanks. Seeing how much my seats cost, I think I'll stay in 128.

Went to the Oasis pop up yesterday and was heartbroken that all the Adidas stuff was already sold out. Got a shirt and a polo though.

It was gone by Friday morning from what I was told. Nothing there Saturday. The Flag Ship Store near Times Square had some stuff (the jerseys and track suits a few shirt) but sizing was limited (no large or XL… several 2XL and smalls.) I should have order than the hat from the UK. Oh well. The pop-up did have the only shirt I think with New York. The others are East Rutherford.

Edit: Now they drop the prices from $455 to the same $308 price that the second level was going for a year ago. Someone messed up.