Ticketmaster: Transparency or Attribution?
25 August, 2010 at 10:10 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia 2 comments
CEO of Ticketmaster Nathan Hubbard has launched a blog called Ticketology which appears to be part of the parent company Live Nation Entertainment’s efforts at greater transparency.
“We get it — you don’t like service fees. You don’t like them mostly because you don’t understand what the heck they are for.“
The mooted transparency appears to be more a case of attribution, however. Prices are not going down, fees are not being reduced and other than specifying some fees a little earlier in the sales process – the final price paid per ticket is still inflated by a diversity of fees and charges.
“Most of the parties in the live event value chain participate in these service fees either directly or indirectly — promoters, venues, teams, artists and, yes, ticketing companies.“
The promised “all-in-pricing” heralded by Live Nation Entertainment chief Irving Azoff still seems beyond his reach and the current sales process used by Ticketmaster gets in the way of that as suggested by Azoff on Twitter.
READ FULL ARTICLE Ticketmaster’s new blog: ‘We get it — you don’t like service fees’
Entry filed under: Dynamic Pricing, LiveNation, News, Ticketmaster. Tags: Booking Fees, Dynamic Pricing, live nation ticketmaster agency, price, ticketmaster azoff, Ticketmaster Live Nation, Venue Exclusive Contracts.
1.
Tim Roberts | 26 August, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Ticketmaster Tweaks Ticket Fee Transparency Via Twitter
“This new system is not totally transparent because Ticketmaster doesn’t explain the exact breakdown of the fees between the various stakeholders in each transaction. (As Azoff tweeted, “The fees don’t go to TM. Only a portion do.”) If transparency is the point, why not tell fans where these fees are going?”
“That’s not all. When you select a certain number of tickets from the dropdown menu, Ticketmaster does not update its prices to include the total price and fees for all the tickets, but instead, keeps listing the single ticket price. To that charge, Azoff tweeted in response last night that Ticketmaster “can’t boil all fees down to a per ticket fee until we know how many tix are bought and shipping method chosen, so it has to happen later.”“
2.
Tim Roberts | 26 August, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Ticketmaster’s Irving Azoff Unveils All In Ticket Pricing And Three Day Return Policy
“Ticketmaster’s response to the consumer demands for all-in ticket prices does not eliminate all ticket fees. In Azoff’s handpicked example, additional fees of $6.50 were added at the very end of the transaction.”
“Our test purchase of two tickets showed:
Tickets/Items
US $117.90
Order Processing Fee
US $4.00
TicketFast Delivery
US $2.50
That’s certainly a smaller fee than previously charged, but not an all-in price.”