Ticketmaster will finally just tell you how much tickets cost, nixing “junk fees”
Ahead of a meeting with President Joe Biden, Live Nation and SeatGeek have committed to "all-in" ticket pricing
Aux News ticketmaster
The war may not quite be over, but fans have won one battle against Ticketmaster. Facing pressure from President Joe Biden, the federal government, and—worst of all—Swifties, both Ticketmaster and SeatGeek have committed to “all-in” pricing, meaning customers will see the full price up front rather than getting hit with a slew of hidden “junk fees” upon check out.
The news comes ahead of a planned meeting on Thursday with Biden and several private companies, including Ticketmaster parent company Live Nation, SeatGeek, xBk, Airbnb, the Pablo Center at the Confluence, TickPick, DICE, and the Newport Festivals Foundation (per CNN).
In a statement regarding the news, the White House said, “Today, Live Nation is committing to roll out an upfront all-in pricing experience in September showing just one clear, total price for more than 30 million fans who attend shows at the more than 200 Live Nation-owned venues and festivals across the country. Ticketmaster will also add a feature to give consumers the option to receive all-in upfront pricing for all other tickets sold on the platform.”
In February, Biden proposed legislation termed the Junk Fee Protection Act that targeted excessive fees across multiple industries. “Today’s voluntary actions demonstrate that companies both big and small recognize the importance of providing consumers with honest, up-front all-in pricing, rather than tricking them with surprise fees at the end of checkout,” the White House said in its statement. “It is also just a first step towards addressing junk fees in the economy. The President continues to call on Congress to pass legislation that mandates up-front all-in pricing for all ticket sellers, bans surprise ‘resort fees,’ eliminates early termination fees charged by cable, internet, and cellphone companies, and bans family seating fees.”
“Live Nation is proud to provide fans with a better ticketing buying experience,” said Tom See, president of Live Nation Venues, in his own statement. “We have thousands of crew working behind the scenes every day to help artists share their music live with fans, and we’ll continue advocating for innovations and reforms that protect that amazing connection.”
Of course, the all-in pricing model doesn’t eliminate fees altogether, it just makes things more transparent for the consumer. This move also doesn’t address many of the issues raised by Swifties and other concerned parties, the most notable criticism being that Live Nation has monopolized the ticketing industry. But a little bit of accountability is a start, right?
65 Comments
This doesn’t in any way prevent them from charging the same fees and continuing to lie about what they’re for. They got busted lying about the fees ~10 years ago and went right back to doing it all while doing the least amount possible to pay back the people they scammed. They’re still selling blocks of tickets to resellers that they own and then reselling those resold tickets through their website at jacked up prices.
This does absolutely nothing to stop the scam that TM perpetuates. You think they’d volunteer to stop scamming people, or do you think they’d volunteer to do something that looked good but didn’t actually change anything?Edit: Just as reminder of the time they were actually busted for doing the thing they went right back to doing:https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/music-news/ticketmaster-agrees-400-million-settlement-709148/“Live Nation has never publicly admitted wrongdoing in the case”They actually got busted for it and never admitted they did anything wrong, why would anyone think they’d admit to lying about it when they’re not in court?
sounds like this might be the best way to handle TM and LiveNation
I’m behind that 100%.
This looks like a joke, but it really is the best option. Shanty towns of fans camped out overnight in front of venues waiting to buy tickets at the box office was a world better of an option.
Yeah, including the fees almost feels like minimizing their presence; people will just get used to high prices instead of seeing the fee and knowing they’re getting the shaft.
Yeah at least before you could get to the place where they’re tacking on $20/ticket and just cancel your order, if they roll it in with the ticket price you never get that opportunity.
Right? What this fuck is this claiming to help?
I don’t even care so much about the lying about what the fees are for. Just bottom line it for me from the get-go: what is it going to cost me for me & the missus to watch Motley Crue bicker with each other while a back-track plays?
Rolling the hidden bullshit fees into the ticket price is a step backwards, not forwards. It’s the same ripoff with fewer clicks.
I disagree. I don’t care how my price is divied up. I just want to know what attending is going to cost me. I’m going to balk whether it’s a $200 ticket or a $120 ticket with $80 in additional fees, but I’ll be more pissed if you get me thinking “$120, yeah, that’s worth it” and then tack on more.
I’m glad to hear the increased normalization of pointless fees is worth not having to click a mouse. Personally, taxes/shipping/fees are always added on as part of the checkout process in most online purchases so I can hold the thought in my head of “I won’t see the final price until it’s time to process payment.” They need to do something about the fees, not how they’re presented.
It’s not about a mouse click. It’s about how much it’s going to cost me. Fees are just a way of hiding the real price and price increases. Don’t charge me $8 more and tell me it’s a “convenience fee”, that’s utter BS. Just make the ticket $8 more.
That’s the thing: The ticket itself isn’t actually $8 more expensive, TM is charging you that extra $8 and simply pocketing it. They’re also selling blocks of tickets to resellers that they own, then relisting them on their site for more money.
It’s real “$6 is too much, but $5.99 is a steal” thinking
Well informed consumers are not the kind of customers that big corporations generally court.
Not at all. It’s “$6 is too much, whether it’s $6 or $5.99 plus a one cent fee”.
It must really shake you when they add sales tax at the register.
I can anticipate that. I know exactly what it’s going to be when I select the item.
so you can anticipate a ticket fee. lol you’re going in a circle my man.Being upfront about the price-gouging, we-charge-it-because-we-can ticket fee would only be useful to a consumer if they had other choices and could actually shop around.
I don’t know what the fees are until it’s time to check out. That’s different than the known mental math of sales tax.I’d just as soon say “$200? Nope too much” than say “$120? I’ll take it. Oh wait, it’s really $120 plus $80? Never mind”. We arrive at the same place.But I have a solution: give the all-in price up front, then still give the breakdown at checkout time. Then you can back out if you don’t like where that $80 is going.
Or quit running in place about when the price gouging occurs and just abolish price gouging. Criminy.
I never disagreed with that. I just don’t see the difference between gouging me versus gouging me and calling it a fee. The price point where I feel gouged is the same. One doesn’t waste my time and effort.
We should consider ways to save time and effort, say the two randos bickering over “this doesn’t solve the actual problem, and it might be a little worse” vs. “this doesn’t solve the actual problem, and it might be a little better.” This is just as much a dig at myself; it takes two.
Fair. May neither of us ever be gouged again.
Well, think of it as one of them is they put a little chunk of Vaseline on the tip before they make you sing Moon River.
If I can’t have the ticket without paying the $8, then the ticket does cost $8 more. It’s a markup, like anything else you don’t buy direct from the manufacturer. But TM’s markup is gouging, and it should be handled like any other gouging.The problem isn’t the fees, it’s the monopoly.
That’s definitely not true, the price of the ticket is not $8 more, the $8 is unnecessary middle man markup. Though if we agree that the price gouging and monopolistic practices are a problem I don’t think we really have to debate it anymore.
I think his logic would pan out if Ticketmaster wasn’t the only place you could get the tickets; the idea being you’d look at the ticketmaster price of $28 and then see elsewhere that it’s $20 and buy the $20 ticket. TM has us by the balls, and it doesn’t matter when in the purchasing process they introduce the fee; it’s unnecessary gouging that they engage in simply because they can.
Yeah that’s why I said the price of the ticket is definitely not $8 more, but arguing about specifics isn’t super productive when we all agree it’s bullshit in general.
It is both. The fees are a deceptive practice, which leverages human psychology, despite the fees being listed at point of sale. This is why they’ve been pressured to make the move by dint of increased scrutiny.Eliminating their fees practice and fixing their abuse of market positioning are not mutually exclusive concerns, nor do I think is there any real suggestion that they’re of equal import. (Of course TM and Biden will both talk up how great it is to eliminate the point of sale fees, and why wouldn’t they? Biden rightly sees the political gain from the “win” and it’s in TM’s interest to spin it as a benevolent consumer friendly move they’re making voluntarily. Optics are important, and I don’t think it’s cynical to acknowledge that.)
“I’m all right with being screwed, as long as you’re upfront about it.”The fact that you’re fine with pointless fees as long as they’re rolled into the price is exactly my point: this just further normalizes the gouging.
I’m not alright with being screwed. I’m alright with deciding “This price for this ticket is fair, I’ll pay it”. Calling a price hike a “fee” is just a bad attempt at justifying the hike. I can see the price without the itemization.
“I’m alright with deciding ‘This price for this ticket is fair, I’ll pay it’”But you’ve always had that option. Before you click “purchase” you see the ticket price with all the fees, and at least that way you know exactly what you’re paying for. If they’re all rolled in you don’t know whether the price is fair or not because you don’t know what amount is for the ticket and what amount is some bullshit upcharges. This makes you *less* able to know what’s fair.
But that’s after calling up friends, seeing who else wants to go, checking your calendar, selecting your seats (this is a significant step — it can change what your price is, and charges tacked on later in the process can mess up your budget), sitting online and refreshing, hoping they don’t sell out in seconds, and only THEN finding out you’re in for 80% more than you thought. So are there cheaper seats? Let me start the whole shit over and hope they actually removed those first tickets from my basket, call everyone back and tell them the price isn’t what I told them……”On the other hand: “Tickets are $200? Forget it”I have no other way to get a ticket (well, okay, scalpers). The cost with fees is the only cost available to me. It’s that or no ticket. It’s not like I can opt out of the fees and still go to the show.
Idk, I’d rather have to do all that than be soaked by fees and not knowing what I’m paying for, especially since you already know there will be a bunch of extra fees so it’s easy to go ahead nd add $50-$80 to the price they quote you before you even go through all that.Long story short, as a general consumer protection matter, more transparency is *always* better than less transparency. The cost with fees would not be the only cost available to us if our legislators did something useful. But now, if everyone gets used to the fees just being folded in, people will forget they exist and stop making a fuss and now no one will do anything about it.
Thing is, I’m reading about this on better sites, and it sounds like, ostensibly anyway, it’s not HIDING the fees, it’s just not waiting until the end to tell you what they are. I.e. the breakdown is still there. If that’s the case and they follow through — it’s fair to be cynical about that — that’s good, right?
Well that’s a horse of a different color. As long as the fees are clearly identified, I have no problem with this, though I still don’t think it should be touted as some sort of sacrifice for Ticketmaster, or some sort of victory for the consumer. We’re still getting gouged.
Sure. I think this is intended as a first step by the administration.
Ok, now that’s where you’ve gone wrong. Seriously, I read through the entire thread, and I was pretty much on your side (if you know you’re going to get screwed, it’d be nice to know how badly before you start the whole process to decide if it’s worth it). But if you think this goes any further, you’re crazy. The government hasn’t done any kind of serious antitrust/corporate reining in for literally decades, and Biden isn’t about to start with Ticketmaster.
I said it’s what’s intended. I’m skeptical too.
Yeah…we’ll see about that. lol
But that’s after calling up friends, seeing who else wants to go, checking your calendar, selecting your seats (this is a significant step — it can change what your price is, and charges tacked on later in the process can mess up your budget), sitting online and refreshing, hoping they don’t sell out in seconds, and only THEN finding out you’re in for 80% more than you thought.This is exactly why they do it. What they want is for you to commit yourself emotionally, with a “low ticket price” being part of the lure, and then go OH FINE at the end when you see the real price and buy it anyway because you already told yourself that you’re going to go. Even though you made that emotional choice under a certain amount of false pretenses (i.e. the ticket costs way more than you thought it did).Online platforms run literally thousands of A/B tests to see which methodologies lead to the most number of goods purchased at the highest price. It’s easy because changing the definitions only requires a few clicks. Facebook does it, Ticketmaster does it, hell my little company does it. If this was the way TM was doing it, you can be sure it was because they had proven to themselves (extremely rigorously) that it was the best way of extracting the most money from their customers.
If they present me with a single number that doesn’t change at checkout (aside from actual taxes, perhaps), that is the “cost,” and I could care less how they justify it. It’s either too pricey, or it ain’t. Now the monopoly that allows them to set these exorbitant prices without fear of competition? That’s a whole different ball of wax.
I think you might be missing the point being made. It’s a well established sales technique “get your foot in the door.” Basically you say somethinig is $100, get them to engage their sunk cost fallacy and then add a whole bunch of fees while their wallet is open. This is a step in the right direction, eliminating the shady business practices and exposing them. It is not the full journey as there is still a ton to do.
Whenever I buy from TM those fees are a good reminder of why I only buy through TM when I have no other choice. I just bought tickets for String Cheese Incident’s fall tour from the box office of the venue my friends and I are seeing them at, fee was $3 per.Don’t give your money to TM if you can possibly avoid it.
It used to be that you could go to the box office and buy your tickets without fees. My uncle would drive an hour to a venue to buy tickets. About 10 years ago, I happened to be near a venue I wanted to see a show at. I figured I’d swing by after work and grab tickets without the $8 per ticket fee. Nope. They still charged the fees. It was a Live Nation venue.
Exactly this. Ticketmaster having to show the entire price is a win in this scenario. People are arguing with you about the high cost of fees which is an entirely different bag of problems and not what this is about.
Worth noting that Airbnb also folded and now gives you the option to see the total cost of a room now instead of obfuscating the price.
To be fair, I did kind of suggest I never want to know what the fees are. If the choice is getting the complete price up front but with no breakdown versus the way it is now with fees added later, I stand by preferring the up front price. But of course getting the whole price up front AND seeing the breakdown is preferable all around.
Pretty much where I’m at.
Tangentially related, there’s a place near me that does a wide variety of outdoor events, plus murder mystery dinners and other such things. They list a ticket price, then they’ll mention that parking is $5. What they fail to mention is that everyone gets charged that five bucks, regardless of how many cars they came in, including zero cars (I could reasonably walk to the place). I hate fees. Just tell me what comes out of my pocket and I’ll decide if the item/event is worth that.
Now I’m waiting for Faux News to let us know how not being ripped off by hidden fees is TYRANNY and OPPRESSION by DEMOCRATS.
Making it easier for a big company to hide its grift is communism, dontcha know?
Here’s a crazy idea: what if we apply this model to everything? Include taxes, fees, and tips into the prices so we actually know what we’re going to pay upfront.
Miao Yin and I had tickets to a concert in Seattle earlier this year, and about 4 months ahead the tour was cancelled. The best part is that the fees – which I could in no way avoid having to pay up front – were not refundable because TM “has provided a service that must be paid for.”Near as I can figure, they provided me no services at all, they provided a service to the tour and the venue. Their “fees” should be a fully refundable 10% *max* on any ticket face value. They’re yet another company whose only purpose is to fulfill the insatiable greed of assholes.
I like what you’ve got going here.
I mean okay but this doesn’t stop them from charging the fees? So what good is that? You could always see the fees before you clicked “purchase.” The problem is that they charge the junk fees at all, dummies.
So, buyers will find out about how screwed they are sooner.
Yayyy. Progress.
I’m all for clarity in what people are paying, I guess, but it is bewildering that it takes the PotUS and Congress to get any traction. Live Nation isn’t doing anything illegal, just being corporate dicks.
I wonder if there might be a bunch of artists that are kind of worried about this? Because now if you go to buy a ticket and it is $250 up front with no breakdown of who gets what, a lot of people are going to blame the artists for price gouging.
People always ask this, and I’m always baffled.
Who are these people who fork over hundreds of dollars for tickets already, who are suddenly going to clutch pearls because the final price appears up front? Like, someone sees the $250 pre-fee price for nosebleed Swift seats when they buy them now, but having that number be $300 up front is going to make them wave off? The same tickets they’d probably pay twice that for anyways from a scalper? Doesn’t make sense to me.
It’s more like all those people who used to complain about Ticketmaster and those $50 service fees are now going to complain about the artist who charges $300. I think a lot of artists probably liked that TM was the villain that people hated instead of them. Because if people hate you, you lose fans.
But they weren’t complaining about the artists and their $250 tickets in the first place? That’s the thing that doesn’t track. People won’t blame the artists- there’s too much motivated reasoning to love them.
Joe Biden/Robert Smith 2024
Goddammit, now that Sleepy Joe has came down in favor of this the Freedom Caucus will be opposed to it. One of the most baldly usurious instances in modern times and it will likely become a partisan issue…
It was nice when Robert Smith of The Cure got Ticketmaster to back down on the ridiculous overcharge on his $20 tickets that he was selling.