Ticket ripoff!

How on Earth does Tickets.com/9:30 Club justify its outrageous ticket fees? The last time I checked, a stamp cost 37 cents. But Tickets.com charges $3.25 to mail tickets – or will call. And that's on top of another $4. That's a 50% markup if you're going to a $15 show. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves.

who wants to take this one? and behave ok
:D

Buy tickets at the box office. It costs $1.

What you pay at tickets.com or ticketmaster is a convenience fee. For 930 and Blackcat you do not have to pay it, but you have to go to the venue to get tickets.

Originally posted by BoomBoom:
How on Earth does Tickets.com/9:30 Club justify its outrageous ticket fees? The last time I checked, a stamp cost 37 cents. But Tickets.com charges $3.25 to mail tickets – or will call. And that's on top of another $4. That's a 50% markup if you're going to a $15 show. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves.

Do you like having that box office staffed and open during business hours? They have to pay those employees somehow.

Do you like not having to drive to the venue to get your ticket? Do you like not having to wait in line overnight for shows that will sell out immediately at venue box offices? Internet makes things awfully convenient, doesn't it? Hence you pay for the convenience. No one forces you to buy through tickets.com, as someone said you can go to the venue and pay no fees. You CHOOSE not to. Sort of like, you don't have to eat at a restaurant, but when you CHOOSE to, you can expect them to not sell you food at the price it cost them because you get the convenience of not cooking.

Originally posted by MTB-Markie:
Buy tickets at the box office. It costs $1.

do they still charge the $1 at the box office? for some reason I have not noticed it the last couple of times I've bought tix

<img src="http://www.dimpleandasmirk.com/forum/inconceivable.jpg" alt=" - " />

Well done gold stars for each of you…

<img src="http://www.motosantigas.com.br/bsa/gold%20star%20dbd34%201956.jpg" alt=" - " />

I don't mind paying a reasonable fee for ordering tickets online or over the phone. But more than $7 on a $15 ticket is NOT a reasonable fee. TicketMaster and Tickets.com are basically monopolies – they don't compete to sell tickets for the same venues, shows. So they basically charge whatever they want. How much do you think it costs them to set up and maintain an automated Web site? Not much. And they get a huge break on bulk mail. Yet they charge you $3.25 to mail your ticket or hold it at will call. It's indefensible.

Second Team take your places

Originally posted by BoomBoom:
But more than $7 on a $15 ticket is NOT a reasonable fee.

"Actions speak louder then words."

If it was "unreasonable" then you wouldn't have paid it - you would've gone to the venue and bought them without charges. What's that? Too far away? Don't have the time? Guess it was reasonable then, huh?

I didn't pay it. How can you defend this? What is your rationale? Please explain how you find their fees reasonable.

Because they are morons.

Originally posted by BoomBoom:
I didn't pay it. How can you defend this?

Nobody is defending them, the fees are what they are… If they are too high for the convience then find some other way to get the tickets.

And frankly, tickets.com is a business, they need to play their employees just like any other business, as well as benefits. This is a fact of life, either deal with it, or go to the box office.

Is that why they charge me a 50% markup on my groceries at Giant when I go through the line with a cashier rather than the self checkout line?

Originally posted by [username edited by p.c. moderator]:
[/qb]

Do you like having that box office staffed and open during business hours? They have to pay those employees somehow.

[/QB]

So the bottom line is you're just apathetic; you don't mind being ripped off. I do. And I know a lot of other people who are really put off by this and have just not been going to shows any more or being very selective about the ones they do go to. And, yes, since D.C. is a sprawling metro area, some people (myself not included, fortunately) can't go down to the club during its very limited box office hours and buy tickets.

Originally posted by Xavier Bush, Power Forward:
Is that why they charge me a 50% markup on my groceries at Giant when I go through the line with a cashier rather than the self checkout line?

Originally posted by [username edited by p.c. moderator]:

Do you like having that box office staffed and open during business hours? They have to pay those employees somehow.

[/QB]

[/QB]

not even a good analogy…

Originally posted by BoomBoom:
How can you defend this? What is your rationale? Please explain how you find their fees reasonable.

I defend it in this way: the tickets.com fee on a ticket is what $7? What is it going to cost me in gas to go to the venue to avoid the fee? How much time is it going to take out of my life?

If I have to ride the metro for 45 minutes each way to buy the ticket, I'm out probably $2 for the metro plus 1.5 hours of my life. 1.5 multiplied by what I make in an hour comes out far more then $7. Certainly if I was going to the 9:30 Club in the near future for another reason, I'd buy my tickets then if it wasn't going to sell out. But to make a special trip to avoid $7? Foolish. (Particularly for those of us - gasp! - who don't live in DC and it would be 2 hours each way plus gas! Think how much less our costs are compared to a tank of gas and 4 hours of our life times whatever quantifiable value you wish to attribute to our time).

Or, alternately, what if the show was a "sure sell out," the type that sells out in minutes? I would have to log my way to DC, get to the venue at 10am, if not sooner, and miss work, take a vacation day, possibly even camp overnight in DC in some cases to make sure I get a ticket. Or, I can pay $7. How can I justify not?

The tickets.com (or ticketmaster) convenience fee is not supposed to match up to what it costs tickets.com to sell you the ticket; it's supposed to match up to the massive inconvenience you'd face sans online ticket companies.

And, yes, since D.C. is a sprawling metro area, some people (myself not included, fortunately) can't go down to the club during its very limited box office hours

the box office is open from noon till 11pm almost every day - doesn't strike me as limited at all

Man, I would have thought their would have been fewer rah-rah capitalists in a rock club forum. What is the world coming to? Must be because it's D.C. – conformist, conservative and comfortably smug. I'm sure that Tickets.com is lavishing huge salaries on its employees and paying them Cadillac benefits. C'mon – these fees are lining the pockets of the execs and the club owners. Bottom line: they are not reasonable fees. They are a ripoff.