| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| therippa |
Posted - 09/02/2003 : 6:26:02 PM
You all know I hate these bastards, but soon it'll have gone too far...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/01/tech/main570971.shtml
Ticketmaster is going to start auctioning off the best seats at a concert to the highest bidder. Those racketeering bastards.
A good comment regarding this that someone posted on fark (my source)...
"Hey this is a good thing!Cause now when you go to a concert and you are way up in the balcony you can hurl your trash and foodstuffs at the front row with complete confidence, knowing that the goof up there is simply there cause he makes more money then you!"
Your thoughts?
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| 7 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Miss Sorrel |
Posted - 09/02/2003 : 9:34:02 PM
wow... with shitty radio stations, TV music stations that don't play music (and what they do play is far from perfect), overpriced cds, and now overpriced concerts I'm wondering if more people are going to get fed up in general. i know music holds way too much importance to ever be shuffled aside, but getting to it is becoming a hassle.
It may be because I am short on TIMe and money, but I am certainly not buying as much music any don't go to nearly as many concerts as I did in the past, and this whole change of TM plans isn't going to help. I really liked all the sources online to find music (music doesn't circulate really well in Fl... although, after becoming friends with Full Sail studnets (where Dirty Sloth went) my music knowledge is expanding)...
I think a lot of people are getting annoyed though... I am seeing more foots stomping down and demanding that music be just that, and not some money scam... |
| Fluffy |
Posted - 09/02/2003 : 8:39:51 PM
Hey BlackLotus, LONG TIMe, NO SEE!! It's great to see you and based on your above comments I wondered if you had seen this post:
http://www.timreynolds.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4082 |
| Fluffy |
Posted - 09/02/2003 : 8:36:06 PM
From the New York Times about ticketBastard. This one is a little more in-depth and definitely scarier, but it did come from the NY Times. LOL
September 1, 2003
Ticketmaster Auction Will Let Highest Bidder Set Concert Prices
By CHRIS NELSON
Three years after Ticketmaster introduced ticketFast, its online print-at-home ticketing service, consumers have so embraced it that the company now sells a half-million home-printed tickets for sporting and entertainment events each month in North America. Where ticketFast is available, 30 percent of tickets sold are now printed at home, said the company, which is by far the nation's largest ticket agency.
But consumers — many of whom have complained for years about climbing ticket prices and Ticketmaster service charges — may be less eager for the next phase of Ticketmaster's Internet evolution.
Late this year the company plans to begin auctioning the best seats to concerts through ticketmaster.com.
With no official price ceiling on such tickets, Ticketmaster will be able to compete with brokers and scalpers for the highest price a market will bear.
"The tickets are worth what they're worth," said John Pleasants, Ticketmaster's president and chief executive. "If somebody wants to charge $50 for a ticket, but it's actually worth $1,000 on eBay, the ticket's worth $1,000. I think more and more, our clients — the promoters, the clients in the buildings and the bands themselves — are saying to themselves, `Maybe that money should be coming to me instead of Bob the Broker.' "
EBay has long been a busy marketplace for tickets auctioned by brokers and others. Late last week, for example, it had more than 22,000 listings for ticket sales.
Venue operators, promoters and performers will decide whether to participate in the Ticketmaster auctions, Mr. Pleasants said. In June, the company tested the system for the Lennox Lewis-Vitali Klitschko boxing match at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The minimum bid for the package — two ringside seats, a boxing glove autographed by Mr. Lewis and access to workouts, among other features — was $3,000, and the top payer spent about $7,000, a Staples Center spokesman, Michael Roth, said.
Once the auction service goes live, Ticketmaster will receive flat fees or a percentage of the winning bids, to be decided with the operators of each event, said Sean Moriarty, Ticketmaster's executive vice president for products, technology and operations.
Along with home printing, auctions are central to "a new age of the ticket," Mr. Pleasants said. In the second quarter of this year, tickets sold online, with or without home printing, represented 51 percent of Ticketmaster's ticket sales. The rest were sold by phone or at walk-up locations.
Ticket Forwarding allows season ticket holders for several sports teams (including the New York Knicks, Rangers and Giants) to e-mail extra tickets to other users, with Ticketmaster charging the sender $1.95 per transaction.
TicketExchange provides a forum for season ticket holders to auction tickets online. The seller and buyer pay Ticketmaster 5 percent to 10 percent of the resale price, a fee the company splits with the team.
In the case of the ticketFast home-printing service, buyers pay an additional $1.75 to $2.50 per order, with the fee set by the event operator. Home printing has won converts among people who want tickets immediately, instead of receiving them by mail or a delivery service or having to stand in line at a will-call window.
One satisfied customer is Brian Resnik, 29, of Tampa, Fla., who says the home-printing fee is a bargain compared with the $19.50 that Ticketmaster charges for two-day shipping through United Parcel Service.
But some other users, who praised the convenience of home printing, objected to being charged an extra fee.
"It's kind of mind-boggling to me," said Joe Guckin, 41, of Philadelphia, who used ticketFast to buy tickets for a Baltimore Orioles home game last season. "You're printing up the ticket, on your printer at home, your paper, your ink, etc. — and you have to pay for that?"
The company replies that home-printing consumers are helping to pay for the technology that makes the service possible.
Ticketmaster has spent $15 million to $20 million to outfit almost 700 stadiums, arenas, theaters and concert halls in this country and Canada with bar-code scanners that read and authenticate the tickets and computers that capture information such as which seats are filled and which doors have the most traffic, Mr. Moriarty said. In 2003, the company has sold 400,000 to 600,000 ticketFast tickets each month.
Some ticketFast customers, like Diane DeRooy, 52, of Seattle, complain that Ticketmaster assesses a lot of fees even before levying the print-at-home charge. A ticket to see Crosby, Stills & Nash on Friday at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, N.J., for example, carries $13.80 in venue, processing and convenience fees, plus a $2.50 charge for the home-printing option. Without the fees, a ticket costs $30.25 to $70.25.
Many of those customers are skeptical about Ticketmaster's plans to auction the best seats to concerts.
"The band's biggest fans ought to have the best seats, not the band's richest fans," said Tim Todd, 47, of Kansas City, Mo., who used ticketFast recently to buy tickets for a concert by the rock group Phish. Ticketmaster would be, in essence, official scalpers, Mr. Guckin said, voicing a sentiment expressed by some other customers.
Industry watchers agree that auctions will affect all concertgoers. Prime seats are undervalued in the marketplace, said Alan B. Krueger, a professor at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, who has studied ticket prices. He predicts that once auctions begin revealing a ticket's market value, prices as a whole will climb faster.
Gary Bongiovanni, editor of the concert industry trade magazine, Pollstar, predicted that all ticket prices would become more fluid. After a promoter assesses initial sales from an auction, remaining ticket prices could be raised or lowered to meet goals.
The notion of ticket auctions is annoying, Mr. Resnik said, but he is resigned to them.
"I guess the capitalist inside me would say, `Hey, if that's what they can get for tickets, I guess that's just something I can't afford, like a yacht and a Learjet.' " |
| Black Lotus |
Posted - 09/02/2003 : 8:22:27 PM
This is just another feeble attempt to crumble the empire that has become eBay ... or, maybe it's just a bunch of greedy corporate bastards trying to fatten their wallet.
On another note, it could be something fueled by the RIAA to combat online music trading so the con artist pigs don't go bankrupt.
Who's the real thieves of music? The RIAA and the corporate record industry as a whole, that's who. Shutting down KAZAA and Napster just makes it harder to find some good indie music ... bastards. |
| Fluffy |
Posted - 09/02/2003 : 8:17:26 PM
Here is a lengthy thread from another board about this exact subject:
http://www.930.com/cgi-bin/ubb-cgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=004517
I am curious who would get the proceeds from such an auction, ticketmasterbater or "the band"? If it goes to the band I am less critical of tickmasterbater and more critical of the band gouging THEIR public. If the band is getting the proceeds then they should be able to tell ticketassmaster to FUCK OFF and to sell them for normal price, we don't want to gouge our public. IF ticketmASSter is reaping the benefits then damn their souls to hell, for they are no better than the scalpers the constantly condemn. God I hate ticketmASSter!!! |
| PJK |
Posted - 09/02/2003 : 8:09:41 PM
Ok I am confused as usual, by best seats how many rows or is it whole sections of seats! I guess this is soon how it will be everywhere, until people just don't care to get ripped off! Which won't happen because there will always be a fool who will pay the big bucks.
Now I am really pissed that artists are moaning about burning cd's! Ofcourse the artists won't take the heat, they will say it is up to the venue, but they will take their share of the profits!
Truly sad! |
| Saint Jude |
Posted - 09/02/2003 : 7:40:43 PM
well if everyone agrees to not bid over 10 bucks.... could be good.... screw the bastards out of $. |
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