Service charges a little high?

Look, I agree to a certain extent that it would be nice if Ticketmaster, TicketFly or any of those sites published the full rates before you bought.  Seem ticket price + convenience fee + shipping + etc. would be a nice feature up-front.  But it's not like you're FORCED into those fees once you say OK…you do have the option of not purchasing once you see the total.  Plus, do you people bitch when buying items at the store or online that they don't tell you taxes or shipping upfront?  You lot act like once you add the ticket to your cart that you're stuck with hundreds of dollars of fees and no way to back out of it.

Seth wrote:
if we made it all one price, and didn't break out service charges, wouldn't that make it LESS transparent?

wags627 wrote:

Seth wrote:
if we made it all one price, and didn't break out service charges, wouldn't that make it LESS transparent?

Yes I am glad I get to see the large dick approaching from behind before taking it deep.

lol

But if they were to add the cost of the fees into the base price, people would then complain that concert tickets in DC are higher than the rest of the country.  Because LiveNation has never meet a service they didn't like.

And is the club going to have to sell tickets at the boxoffice at a discount,  since you know  that would be the next complaint. 

everything that the 930 club does wrong, the black cat does right.  

they have reasonable service charges and they sell drinks that normal people can afford.  they have the best nachos on earth.  AND they switched tickets to a company with really low service charges.  

ticketfly has shiny holograms on their printed tickets though.  i like shiny things.

Driveway reminded me of something…  If it's been awhile since someone was at the club,  be prepared not to find any bargins on beers :D. talk about killer service charges

Beer bargains are across the street, at Duffy's.

Driveway wrote:
everything that the 930 club does wrong, the black cat does right.  

they have reasonable service charges and they sell drinks that normal people can afford.  they have the best nachos on earth.  AND they switched tickets to a company with really low service charges.  

ticketfly has shiny holograms on their printed tickets though.  i like shiny things.

Right, but a lot of things BC does wrong, 9:30 does right - like having an amazing sound system and staff who are not complete jerks (unless you're a Disco Biscuits fan apparently ;) ).  But I still choose the crappier venues most of the time because I can see a lot more shows at their more reasonable prices.

Oh, and TicketAlternative has shiny things on the back of their tickets, too but you have to go get your tix in advance of the show at the club (not online) if you want the shiny things  ;D

Oh, and p.s. mr_goodbomb - just ignore Julian.  At least that's what the rest of us do….

mr_goodbomb wrote:

Julian, wrote:
Look kid. Don't get snippy with me. You're the one coming here and rehashing an argument for the five hundredth time with the same logical fallacies and inaccuracies. I love how every one of you who bitch about ticket charges think you're the first one to do it. No way, in your mind, could this have been discussed ad naseum, no… you're the one who's going to bring it to people's attention and get changes made.

Fact remains, Seth has heard this a trillion times and has said he does not care. He just changed ticketing agents (effective January 2010) and said reducing ticketing fees was not his motivation at all. You will not get them changed. Period, end debate.

And the fact remains, for you (and for most people) buying online for that convenience fee is your cheapest option. In the old pre-internet days, it would have cost you markedly more time and money in gas driving to the venue to purchase tickets ahead of the concert date. Then ticketing agents come along and save you, possibly, hundreds of dollars when you factor in the cost of your time in driving to the venue and pass along a convenience fee of maybe 15% of WHAT IT WOULD COST YOU OTHERWISE TO GET TO THE BOX OFFICE AND BUY TICKETS and you complain about the fee. Ticketing fees are too high? In relation to what? They're pennies on the dollar in comparison to your only other option.

I also love your intelligent, erudite claim that printing and mailing tickets cost the ticketing agent "nothing… to perform such a service." O RLY? You're absolutely right that servers and software to handle credit card transactions, credit card fees, customer service, custom printers with the ability to print holograms, watermarks, and other things making counterfeiting harder and mailing out tickets cost nothing. NOTHING. Pure, 100% profit.

Lets just hope your post count never climbs above 2 because your comments are clearly never going to rise above the level of the useless and nonsensical ones presented here.

Hmm, maybe it's been discussed so much because it's a valid issue? It seems the only person so far who's fighting to the teeth for its practice is you. Do you somehow profit from it, friend?

If the manager doesn't have an interest or concern with this issue, he should know that he is losing business. Maybe when the venue is in decline, and people stop traveling for shows because of the added costs ON TOP of the already taxing price of travel and leisure events in this economy, he'll be concerned.

Maybe you have a reading comprehension issue, and judging by your childish and petty presentation of your argument, it wouldn't surprise me if you did based on your clearly low level of intellect, but your "15%" and "pennies on the dollar" is an extremely incorrect statement. The $17 surcharge compared to the cost of the other three items makes it a 34% markup.

No, in the "pre-internet days," people would get to the show earlier to purchase them, because generally, those from any distance wouldn't travel to get tickets early and there would still be limited access available the day of. Now, because of people who DON'T say anything about the issue of markup and excessive service fees, tickets WILL sell out, and they may not be available at the door by simply arriving early. For all your claims of "logical fallacies," you certainly seem less than capable of logic.

This isn't a debate on ticket prices. a $20 tickets is perfectly reasonable. A surcharge costly 34% of that isn't.

As for the costs of ticketing, WillCall doesn't ship. Shipping tickets is unnessicary. If someone will be attending the event, then they can pick them up, and that in itself costs the ticket distributor nothing. The computers, the ATM processing, ticket creation, those devices are there already. How do you think this website, or the business as a whole, is managed, presale processes aside? How do you think things are sold and monetary transactions are made AT the venue when physical cash isn't exchanged? No services charges of debit card fees for the customer there. Tickets EXIST and are sold without service charges in person, so how does printing tickets for WillCall cost ANY extra? It doesn't, you say? You're goddamn right it doesn't. And the ticket seller has very little "customer service" to speak of, believe me, I've tried.

It seems post count and intellect have little to do with eachother. Look at yours. I'm sure it's so high because the less time you spend thinking or deducing rational thought, the more you have for typing.

If some of us spent less time typing out long diatribes on internet message boards and more time on actually doing work while at work, we'd probably make more money, and high ticket fees wouldn't matter as much.

MyraEllen wrote:

Driveway wrote:
everything that the 930 club does wrong, the black cat does right.  

they have reasonable service charges and they sell drinks that normal people can afford.  they have the best nachos on earth.  AND they switched tickets to a company with really low service charges.  

ticketfly has shiny holograms on their printed tickets though.  i like shiny things.

Right, but a lot of things BC does wrong, 9:30 does right - like having an amazing sound system and staff who are not complete jerks (unless you're a Disco Biscuits fan apparently ;) ).  But I still choose the crappier venues most of the time because I can see a lot more shows at their more reasonable prices.

I like most of the BC staff.

James wrote:
If some of us spent less time typing out long diatribes on internet message boards and more time on actually doing work while at work, we'd probably make more money, and high ticket fees wouldn't matter as much.

Yes. This.

I would've said this to begin with but the entire thread would've gotta yanked if it came from me.

sometimes, when i see that a patron is about to do something stupid that will result in them being politely asked to leave the club, i'll pull them aside and give them a friendly warning.  some take the information i provide and make a better decision.  those people get to enjoy the show they came to see.  some get all worked up about it and end up making poor decisions.  they end up out on the sidewalk, wishing they had chosen differently. 

i recommend the first option.

just sayin'.

have you ever had to put people in headlocks to get them out  ;D

Absolutely not Seth.

The cost of attending a show- of the ticket- is the TOTAL cost. What you, ticketfly, the artist decide to do with allocating the charges is of no interest to the patron. By the way there is no transparency in having a bunch of charges which we know not for what they go although we are not dumb enough to think they go for the cost of printing and delivering a ticket via first class mail. We are told they are "convenience charge" or something like that but how is that transparent when some of that goes back to the venue etc and no mention of this is even made?

Bottom line is the venues, the ticketmasters of the world exploit the fan who has nobody representing him.. its the law of the west..

But at some point the consumers may organize. that is only the way forward  because if we're going to depend on the kindness and charity or good sense of the club owner's of the world we ain't going to go far.

Aren't you too busy organizing boycotts of non-DC venues to organize a boycott of ticketing agents?

thirsty wrote:
If you don't want to go to the show because of the price, don't. Seth's just trying to keep his club awesome and have great bands continue to play there.

When Seth has no audience because of practices like this, or at least no audience outside of those right in the heart of DC, then he won't be able to "keep his club awesome," because he'll be broke.

Doctor wrote:
On one hand, yes service charges are a ripoff because surely it costs LESS to sell tickets over the Internet than it does to have a paid staff person sitting in a booth all day collecting money and handing them out.

On the other hand, prices throughout the economy are set according to what the market will bear.  People may bitch and moan, but they pay the fees, and that's the only thing that matters from an economic perspective.  For that reason, service charges will always be with us.

How many of those "bitching and moaning" do you think went ahead and paid for the tickets anyway? Here's a little insight: I didn't. Nor did any of my friends who wanted to see this show.

nkotb wrote:
I think this hits to the root of the issue.  Did you buy the tickets with the charges?  Or did you opt to speak with your wallet and not purchase them?

I didn't purchase them, no. But if I had said nothing, then no one would have known that a ticket, or two tickets, or 1000 tickets, weren't sold for a specific reason.

nkotb wrote: Plus, do you people bitch when buying items at the store or online that they don't tell you taxes or shipping upfront?  You lot act like once you add the ticket to your cart that you're stuck with hundreds of dollars of fees and no way to back out of it.

No, I understand that shipping and (rarely, because there's a very small chance the place you're purchasing from will be in your state) taxes are part of the total, that total being the TOTAL AMOUNT I'll have to pay, not the total amount the seller claims they'll be making. I also know damn well that, if a seller ships me something that costs 10 dollars, and it costs them 2 dollars to ship it, but they charged me $22, they're not just making $10. They're making the entire sum that I paid minus the ACTUAL cost of shipping, so they've made $30 dollars but claimed it was a bargain because the "item's price" was only $10. Anyone can see through this sort of scheme, and I think very few people who shop online will pay excessive shipping anymore. They'll go someplace where the TOTAL THEY PAY, even if the item costs more but the shipping costs less, is lower. It's as simple as that.

James wrote:
If some of us spent less time typing out long diatribes on internet message boards and more time on actually doing work while at work, we'd probably make more money, and high ticket fees wouldn't matter as much.

I'm not sure who you're out to make a snide remark against here, but while my business is none of yours, I'm not missing out on any money by posting here. However, I would be if decided to quietly pay excessive surcharges.

You've yet to mention who you're wanting to see.  Perhaps that would change the entire argument.

mr_goodbomb wrote:
When Seth has no audience because of practices like this, or at least no audience outside of those right in the heart of DC, then he won't be able to "keep his club awesome," because he'll be broke.

So you didn't buy the tickets right?

MyraEllen wrote:

Driveway wrote:
everything that the 930 club does wrong, the black cat does right.  

they have reasonable service charges and they sell drinks that normal people can afford.  they have the best nachos on earth.  AND they switched tickets to a company with really low service charges.  

ticketfly has shiny holograms on their printed tickets though.  i like shiny things.

Right, but a lot of things BC does wrong, 9:30 does right - like having an amazing sound system and staff who are not complete jerks (unless you're a Disco Biscuits fan apparently ;) ).  But I still choose the crappier venues most of the time because I can see a lot more shows at their more reasonable prices.

I don't know what you're talking about, BC has fine staff compared to 9:30.

Heres my take on service charges (and yeah, its probably been stated many times before): I dont mind paying $30 for a ticket thats advertised to be $30. I wish that the fees and charges were just included in the advertised price, so it wouldn't be $20 + $10 = 30. Seeing the charges added on like that is what hurts.

I understand its probably a better business move (I'm sure that 20 + 10 mentally looks smaller than 30, and that most people once they've started their checkout will just brush the small fees aside and deal with it), but if it was up to me, I'd rather have the fees included in the advertised price.

Point #1:   for every occasional person who is actually deterred from buying a ticket because of a service fee, there are probably 10 other people who'll buy that ticket.

In fact, the continued prevalence and succsess for scalping shows that the overall price point for tickets is still pretty low relative to what the market might bear, at least for the most in-demand shows.  For shows that sell out quickly you could probably charge a couple of hundred bucks and still sell out (although it would mean an audience of exclusively douchebags).

Point #2:  Just because you like the 930 is no reason to talk smack about the Black Cat staff.   The ones I've met are all good people.   The Cat's gotten a lot stricter over the years but with the number of kids that come out, combined with the increasingly fussy neighborhood that's no doubt eager to shut them down and install another high-end furniture boutique, they kinda have to be.