Ticketmaster ridiculous charges

[Wacka]

Scale the fee to the cost of the ticket. The Oakland A's have $2 upper deck tickets on Wednesday nights. The extra charge on them is $6! It was cheaper for me to drive the 15 miles each way to the stadium to buy them at the box office.

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

I think the mistake people are making here is that they seem to think that the price charged for a service is primarily determined by the price of the service.

 

Prices are set based on what the market will bear and that is about it.

 

The cost to give a service or make a product is somewhat involved, but only to the extent that if that cost is more than what the market will bear in order to turn the profit the investor wants then no rational actor will invest in making the product or providing the service.

 

However, since goods and services are often realtively cheap to produce in bulk and the costs of labor are going down relative to the product produced to trechnological advances and squeezing additional productivity out of US workets who in general (and increasingly specifically as technology nows allows for the outsourcing of even service jobs like phone answering to cheap wage countries) have to work harder to keep up with the joness, prices are really only determined by what the market will bear.

 

The fact it may only cost ticketmasters mere pennies per transaction to serve you is irrelevant to them (besides lowering these costs increases their profit) in terms of how much they charge you.

 

They are one of the growing number of businesses have been able to essentially create a monopoly in the market places where they sell services and thus can charge rexhorbitant prices until enough people stop buying tickets.

 

Just as the relative skill of a football player is only a starting point for how much he makes and timing issues of being in the league long enough to put his contract in the relatively free market and variations in the supply and demand of that market have much more to do with determining a specific contract value, so too does the relative cost of the service is far from the lead issue in determung the ultimate contact costs,

[Dr. Fong]

I hear you on the ridiculous charges. I really wanted to go see Mars Volta and System of a Down. The cheapest tickets are $30.50 with a $2 building fee (not Ticketmaster's) and $8.20 convenience charge from TM. Add in an optional $2.50 to have them email the tickets and that comes to $43.20 or a markup of 40%. I find that a bit excessive. And I get what FFS is saying about what the market will bear, but it'd be nice if Ticketmaster weren't a monopoly. So I'll be skipping this show despite the fact that I really wanted to go because I just can't stand the idea of paying that much money for the privilege of buying tickets from Ticketmaster.

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

I hear you on the ridiculous charges.  I really wanted to go see Mars Volta and System of a Down.  The cheapest tickets are $30.50 with a $2 building fee (not Ticketmaster's) and $8.20 convenience charge from TM.  Add in an optional $2.50 to have them email the tickets and that comes to $43.20 or a markup of 40%.  I find that a bit excessive.  And I get what FFS is saying about what the market will bear, but it'd be nice if Ticketmaster weren't a monopoly.  So I'll be skipping this show despite the fact that I really wanted to go because I just can't stand the idea of paying that much money for the privilege of buying tickets from Ticketmaster.

405585[/snapback]

 

I sympathize totally and actually commend you for making the tough choice. If you want to go even further in playing the market game then I would e-mail the folks of Mars Volta and System and let them know that you had to pass on enjoying their art (if they are in this for the expression) and not pay the band and their hanger-ons their 60% of the take because you found the Ticketmaster and others 40% excessive.

 

Ultimately as far as the free market Ticketmaster will only be rolled back when the artists that they live off of force them to lower their take.

[Marv Levy]

When you go to work tomorrow tell you employer you dont want a check and will work for free. Maybe then you'll have an arguement. Is ticketmaster supposed to offer their services for free?

405462[/snapback]

 

No, but they don't have to rape you to get some tix. Geesh, greedy corp bastards!!

 

Remember Pearl Jam sued them? Of course they didn't win.

[HopsGuy]

They are one of the growing number of businesses have been able to essentially create a monopoly in the market places where they sell services and thus can charge exhorbitant prices until enough people stop buying tickets.

405576[/snapback]

 

Exactly. Also, Ticketmaster engages in unfair business practices to obtain this monopoly. The DOJ went after Microsoft for those reasons, so why not Ticketmaster? How much does IAC Interactive contribute to each member of Congress?

 

Monopolies, by definition, are inefficient.