As if I needed another excuse, Ticketmaster was kind enough to provide me with one. Recently, Dave Matthews Band tickets went on sale for two nights at Madison Square Garden. Naturally, I wanted to attend at least one of these shows, with thoughts that perhaps I would take in both of them. DMB performances at the Garden are legendary, and they band will not be touring in 2011.
Setting up ahead of time on the morning the tickets went on sale, I logged into the dreaded ticketmaster site and checked a few things. I wanted to know the price ($80 before all the tack on bastard fees). I wanted to know the ticket limit (4 per person). And I wanted to know the on sale time (10:00 AM sharp).
At 9:58 AM I refreshed the page and sat waiting for the clock to strike 10:00 AM and to see that tickets were on sale. At 10:00 AM, once the button showed that tickets were on sale, I clicked in to make my selection. The first thing that I immediately noticed was that although my limit was supposed to be 4, I could not select more than 2 tickets. What? What was going on?
I must have wasted a precious 60 seconds trying to figure out how to select more than 2 tickets. Once panic set in, I decided to just select 2 tickets and see what happened. It was 10:02 AM by the time I hit the “find” button and then the horrifying “wait time” screen came up. My wait time was over 15 minutes. I pretty much knew at that time I was screwed.
I decided to log onto Stub Hub as well as some other scalper sites that I know of to see what tickets they had available while I waited for my transaction to process. Much to my non-surprise, there were a plethora of tickets available for mostly exceptional seats (floor section, 100s, and 200s) all for a premium price. The price ranged between $125 - $3000. All while I was still waiting to purchase my tickets from Ticketmaster.
Needless to say, by the time my wait was over, there were no tickets available. As usual, nothing has changed with Ticketmaster. They still don’t care about concert fans. They still claim that people “stealing” music is the reason ticket prices are so high. And they still refuse to acknowledge that their fees are crooked. Unfortunately, there seems to be no fix to this broken system anytime soon. Ticketmaster is the same as the every were, and the fans are still left holding the bag.
Setting up ahead of time on the morning the tickets went on sale, I logged into the dreaded ticketmaster site and checked a few things. I wanted to know the price ($80 before all the tack on bastard fees). I wanted to know the ticket limit (4 per person). And I wanted to know the on sale time (10:00 AM sharp).
At 9:58 AM I refreshed the page and sat waiting for the clock to strike 10:00 AM and to see that tickets were on sale. At 10:00 AM, once the button showed that tickets were on sale, I clicked in to make my selection. The first thing that I immediately noticed was that although my limit was supposed to be 4, I could not select more than 2 tickets. What? What was going on?
I must have wasted a precious 60 seconds trying to figure out how to select more than 2 tickets. Once panic set in, I decided to just select 2 tickets and see what happened. It was 10:02 AM by the time I hit the “find” button and then the horrifying “wait time” screen came up. My wait time was over 15 minutes. I pretty much knew at that time I was screwed.
I decided to log onto Stub Hub as well as some other scalper sites that I know of to see what tickets they had available while I waited for my transaction to process. Much to my non-surprise, there were a plethora of tickets available for mostly exceptional seats (floor section, 100s, and 200s) all for a premium price. The price ranged between $125 - $3000. All while I was still waiting to purchase my tickets from Ticketmaster.
Needless to say, by the time my wait was over, there were no tickets available. As usual, nothing has changed with Ticketmaster. They still don’t care about concert fans. They still claim that people “stealing” music is the reason ticket prices are so high. And they still refuse to acknowledge that their fees are crooked. Unfortunately, there seems to be no fix to this broken system anytime soon. Ticketmaster is the same as the every were, and the fans are still left holding the bag.
1 comment:
You know what's even worse? The little item they added that breaks down the real price of the ticket combined with the price with of the ridiculous fees! That makes it even worse because you're blatantly seeing how much all these mystery fees are soaking you as if the ticket prices weren't high enough. Awful. F-ck Ticketmaster!!!
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