I can across an article about frustrated fans presented with the opportunity to buy tickets for the Hampton Phish shows at a serious premium after getting shut out by Ticketmaster. In fact, it linked them to a site owned by Ticketmaster, called TicketsNow.
A couple fans were so pissed off about this, they left a couple comments on the TicketsNow blog. In response to those comments, Cheryl Rosner, the CEO of TicketsNow, posted a response. Her response was your everyday CEO spin on their sleazy business of basically being a ticket broker, aka legalized scalper. Her claim, unsubstantiated of course, is that the tickets sold on TicketsNow were not diverted from the pool of tickets sold by Ticketmaster. That simply means that non-fans, assholes looking to make a few bucks, quickly bought tickets through Ticketmaster and quickly turned around and posted them for sale on TicketsNow. Her response truly pissed me off to no end. I left a comment on it. I would not be surprised if it does not get approved. So here are the contents of my comment, word-for-word:
I don’t think you are understanding this. Where does your supply of tickets come from? No matter how you try to spin it (because that’s what CEOs, like you, do, spin things to make yourselves look good), those tickets came from a pool of tickets that should be sold for face value. They may have been purchased by people other than Ticketmaster (though I would love to audit exactly who is buying tickets for high demand events, as I have my own thoughts on Ticketmaster’s cronies), but they were purchased by people who had no intention of attending the show. They were purchased by people who want nothing more than to make a profit off the backs of the band. In fact, you are making a profit off the backs of the band by allowing this, as I’m sure you charge a fee for your “service”. What Ticketmaster is doing is exactly what the Phish organization went out of their way to prevent during their pre-sale. Jack and VTPhishFan were correct in calling you scum. I will take it one step farther and call you worse than scum. There’s a place in the inner circle of hell for people like you and your organization (your parent company falls just outside that inner circle, but close by).
As a business, you are scalpers. You just happen to be owned by a near-monopoly on ticket sales. You can spin it however you want, but you are no better than the sleazy jerks in the parking lots selling tickets for 8 times face value.
If tickets are selling out in a matter of minutes, then ALL the tickets should be in that pool. I understand how capitalism works, but when tickets are advertised for a certain price, they ALL damn well better be on sale for that price.
The only fair resale price of tickets is that price for which they were originally purchased. Considering you didn’t pay anything for your pool of tickets, you should be giving them away.
In addition to the BS you just spewed in this post, you are violating the wishes of the band by allowing re-sale of their tickets. They’re the ones who pay your bills (or rather the bills of your parent company, Ticketmaster), at the very least, you can respect their wishes. I guess that shows just what type of people work for TicketsNow and Ticketmaster.
And don’t patronize us by telling us you buy tickets through your own company. You know damn well you get them comped or just pull them from the general pool of tickets available at Ticketmaster.
If you care about attending concerts and not paying a premium to sleazy assholic scum (I think I made up a new word), you should leave a comment on her response. Currently, Phish tickets for every show are priced anywhere from $273 to $1654 on TicketsNow. Supposedly, the expensive ones are tickets to each of the 3 shows. Incredibly enough, all the tickets on TicketsNow seem to be floor seats. I wonder how all these random people managed to get first in line and get floor seats. Something tells me that these people are just Ticketmaster cronies who are able to purchase tickets ahead of the real on-sale time. I assume, as one would easily assume in this case, that TicketsNow has no way of verifying that the tickets being sold through their site are legitimate. In face, I would be more than willing to bet that some of these tickets are being illegally resold after being purchased from the Phish pre-sale lottery, which explicitly banned the re-sale. If Phish was thinking, they would have required the concert-goers to present the credit card used to purchase the tickets. That’s how the Mighty Mighty Bosstones are running their New Year’s Eve show here in Providence. There’s a reason I will never pay more than face value (plus the rip-off “service” and shipping fees) for concert tickets, no matter how much I want to go.
Update: As of right now (10/30/08 @ 10:26 PM EDT), my comment is still awaiting moderation. I took the liberty last night to comment on a few of the other posts on that blog. It’s truly amazing what pigs ticket brokers are, yet they think they’re doing a great service to the concert industry.