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Comment by schaefer | Hacker News Reader

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schaefer

I'm local, and curious.

If I go to the official website[1] to view all shows, they redirect me to the hellscape that is ticketmaster.

That is literally only friction it takes before I'm out. The scalpers are squatting your 2 billion dollar venue.

[1]: https://www.thespherevegas.com/shows

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From what I understand you can't scalp, they scan ID. There are many tik toks of people buying tickets from either 3rd parties online or just scalpers and they are rejected at check in.

Still, the involvement of ticketmaster will scare off a lot of potential customers - that company is more toxic than saying "Brought to you by Comcast and Bank of America".

Taylor swift used ticketmaster and I'd say her eras tour was quite successful despite it. So I wouldn't blame that as the factor for the Sphere's success or failure even if I dislike the choice.

If Taylor Swift had required fans to register in person at a DMV in a series of three different appointments two weeks apart she still would have sold out - when the demand is that high it becomes a bad data point for comparison.

As someone who doesn't follow Taylor Swift at all, the two stories that filtered through to me were * Lots of people were pissed at Ticketmaster * The tour was a big success

It seems like it was a success despite ticketmaster.

You can't book an event of any decent size in the USA without it being a required Ticketmaster venue, so unfortunately if you want to see any reasonably popular artist or a show at a big venue they are your only option.

That's quite true aye - we really need an anti-trust lawsuit against them.

Ticketmaster runs their own scalping business (sorry, I meant "Verified Reseller")

I'm from (and live in) Norway. Ticketmaster is used for a lot of shows here too, especially the larger venues.

While I wouldn't call them the best thing since sliced bread, overall my experience over the years is that they take my money and give me my tickets.

Today I bought some tickets. I vent to the venue, saw there was a show, clicked on Buy tickets, took me to Ticketmaster, logged on, found ticket, paid via local payment provider[1] (verified on phone, super simple), and I got my tickets on email. All was just a few clicks and over in a couple of minutes.

This is my typical experience. Is US Ticketmaster particularly worse, or am I living in an alternate reality?

Or are there some other aspects that I'm missing?

[1]: https://www.vipps.no/

Can you describe the fees of those tickets?

Stupid invented fees are what flipped the "never again" switch for me. Every step of the buying process, there'd be a new fee tacked on. You'd get things like "order processing fee, $20, facility fee, $10, service fee, $23, digital copies fee, $10, fee to see what all the fees add up to, $20".

You'd end up spending $120 on a pair of tickets, and $500 on invented fees that any sane person would have a very difficult time justifying.

I just bought a couple of tickets to a small venue, tickets were $26 each (NOK is weak these days) including a fee of $2.25 each, so grand total $52 of which $4.50 total in fees. Checking my card, this is indeed what my card was charged, so no additional hidden fees.

I bought some tickets earlier this year for a mid-sized venue, $44 per ticket including $3.50 in fees each.

I did not select the optional "services" like physical ticket (just eTicket which is e-mail with PDF) or the ticket insurance.

Checking my ticket history (~10 concerts through Ticketmaster last couple of years) it's always been around this 10% in fees. It's comparable to the other ticket vendors other venues use that I've bought from like TicketCo and Tikkio.

edit: I checked Bryan Adams, he's coming to a larger venue next year which also uses Ticketmaster. Only tickets left were the least expensive ones (standing) at $75 per ticket, including a $5 fee.

edit2: Besides Ticketmaster not owning venues as mentioned by sibling reply, I guess a big factor is that, AFAIK, any non-optional fees must be included in the "sticker price" here in Norway. So they can't tack those on later.

I think it's likely that Ticketmaster operates differently in Norway. What you describe sounds reasonable, but what Ticketmaster does in the United States is simply ridiculous.

Ticketmaster is a vertical monopoly in the US. They control all major venues in the country, all ticketing, and resale of that ticjeting. They are awful. I assume they have yet to achieve total market dominance in norway.

Ah yes, they don't own any of the venues I frequent, or any at all that I know of.

I can certainly see them being able to get away with more shenanigans in that case.

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