Nevermind The Posers

***Vans Warped Tour coverage coming soon!***

What do you think Ticketmaster’s (among other ticketing places) service and handling fees are specifically for?

TNT

Well, let’s break it down.  There are typically four charges: service charges, building facility charges, processing charges, shipping & handling/e-ticket convenience charge/will call charge.  Service charge =  the fee you pay for using Ticketmaster, aka the way the company makes a pretty penny.  Building facility charges = usually a small fee, but determined by the venue not the Ticketmaster.  I have noticed that venues with a Ticketmaster will call window usually charge this fee.  Processing charges = another clever way for Ticketmaster to make money from your order.  It’s basically a second service charge.  Last but not least, S&H/e-ticket convenience/will call charge = the price you pay to get the ticket in your hand to gain entrance into the show.  Don’t think you can avoid the S&H fee by picking it up at will call or printing the tickets at home, Ticketmaster has covered all angles.  So, 3 out of the 4 charges profit the company.   Now there’s a business plan. 

Oz

I truly don’ t believe we will ever know what the fees mysteriously added to ticket sales by Ticketmaster are actually for.  However, my guess is that they are used to pay for the website maintenance, as well as their aggressive marketing providers.  They fail to justify the high costs, explains why they got sewed several times.

Daniel-Edward
I’m sure they have some explanation if pressed, but it’s just to rape the wallets of their customers.

Mark
Honestly, I still have no idea.  I have genuinely tried to think of what these bullshit added charges are for, as I have scoured for already overpriced seats on the monopoly that is Ticketmaster’s tickethub.  Recently, a plethora of pages have popped up on the internet with descriptions of what the processing fees for are and where they actually go, and yet, when you read them it still FAILS to make any sense.  According to Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard, “We get it — you don’t like service fees. You don’t like them mostly because you don’t understand what the heck they are for.”  NO SHIT.  But we don’t just dislike them because we don’t know what they are for, we dislike them because they add $15 – $20 or extra money that we don’t have or don’t want to spend on a ticket that is supposed to be $30.  And until recently they never bothered to tell us about these charges until we were close to check-out.  Dick move.  Another exec stated, “Like any business, we have every right to seek a fair return on our investment and efforts”.  Actually, no you don’t.  Not when no one asked them to create the service, no one told them to take these financial risks by investing in these events and Ad space, and no one appreciates their effort but the lousy shareholders.  And there is no fairness involved.  Slamming people over the head with hidden charges and supposed convenience fees is not fair.  They want to know what fair is?  Paying $30 only for a $30 ticket.  Hopefully, Ticketmaster will make like the record industry, and render itself obsolete by overspending, under promoting and fucking everyone out of whatever they can get.

Orin
Likely, people are unhappy about the service/handling fees ticket vendors tack on to the already exorbitant price of shows; yet, these average citizens are simply misinformed.  I blame this on faulty advertising.  For example, how many people really know that nearly all the money Ticketmaster takes in is given directly to a series of high-class cocaine and Mercedes dealers in Hollywood?  If we cut these fees, just think of the devastating chain reaction…like the proverbial pebble tossed in the ocean here creating waves in China, cut those fees and we’ll all quickly be drowned by the ensuing tsunami.  Makes perfect logical sense, and why shouldn’t it?  I love Ticketmaster, and suggest others follow suit as I bow down to our new overlord, who certainly always knows what is best for us.  I know it doesn’t matter what I say or do…charge me whatever you want — you own me, master.  All hail Ticketmaster!

Angela
I hate these fees.  As far as I’m concerned these fees line the pockets of those dedicated to funding Satan’s campaign for the 2012 election.  Mostly I feel as though these extra fees pay for things like royalties, vendor fees; people have to get paid somehow.  Some of them are a little over the top and leave one angrily shaking fists shouting, “Really?!” but for the most part, they pay for all that extra shit you deal with at a concert.

Hoverbee
Providing tickets is a business and most people are in business to make money.  Ticket services like Live Nation and Ticketmaster are playing middleman with the artist and the fans so they expect to get a cut of the dough.  However, big ticketing services like these charge way too much for just playing the go-between.  Hopefully, more artists will opt to use ticketing services with lower fees or get the hint and decide to sell concert tickets direct to fans cutting out the middleman entirely.