Friday, January 08, 2010
Stop The Ticketmaster Merger Monopoly
Intentional Foul: "The potential Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger sounds like a bad deal for those of us who actually like to attend live events, be it sports, concerts or otherwise. If you think purchasing tickets has bad surcharges now, imagine what it will be like when two ticket giants like Live Nation and Ticketmaster become one. Without any competition, the new monster will be able to put whatever extra charges on a ticket purchase it sees fit. Without the specter of “I’ll take my business to your competitors” to scare them away, companies like the new TickemasterNation won’t have to fear consumer blow back, because if you want to go see the Los Angeles Lakers play bad enough, and if the new TicketMonster is the only game in town, you’ll pay what they tell you to or you’ll be watching Kobe Bryant do his thing on television."
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2 comments:
Generally, I am somewhat opposed to sites that provided access to tickets for a increased cost. Mostly this is because these sites have a habit of buying up a ridiculous number of tickets prior to the tickets being available to the public. Now, merging the two "evilest" of these sites just seems like an invitation for me the consumer to find myself paying far more then even remotely sane for a ticket that I could not camp out for because I was otherwise obligated.
I would have no problem with Ticketmaster if it remained optional, but far too many shows seem to want to make it an exclusive arrangement so there's no other way to buy a ticket aside from paying all of the surcharges, convenience fees (for the convenience of giving them your money?), parking surcharges (regardless of whether you'll be the driver, or even have access to a car or can drive for that matter), and any other fees they might want to add. As I found out once when a concert is cancelled, all of the fees and surcharges are non-refundable, they only refund the base price of the ticket.
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