Well done ticketmaster...

the fnj

...they've found a way to screw us even further!

http://www.ticketmaster.ie/auction/180040B7A88029E1/1/?tm_link=tm_home_f7

Ticketmaster are having an auction for Tom Waits tickets. In effect they've kept some seats in reserve after the initial sale and are now selling them to the highest bidder.

I’m not surprised when you consider the services charges they feel it’s fair to charge but surely the consumer must have some protection from this practice? What they are doing is morally reprehensible and tantamount to touting.

The Irish concert going public is being further exploited and it’s an absolute disgrace. Are we eventually going to see a situation where every concert seat is auction only?

catch--22

It's a charity auction. Waits is doing it for all of his European dates this summer.

luketitz

Bloody ridiculous alright. I try to avoid using them whenever possible, i.e. just bought tickets for V Festival in Toronto direct from the organisaers, saving myself €21 on the TM prices!

luketitz

catch--22 wrote: »

It's a charity auction. Waits is doing it for all of his European dates this summer.

Ok, then its kinda forgiveable! But TM are still ****!!

the fnj

catch--22 wrote: »

It's a charity auction. Waits is doing it for all of his European dates this summer.

When I first saw there was an auction I was wondering was it for charity but couldn't find any reference on their website. If that's the case fair enough but why wouldn't they mention it on the auction page? Surely people would bid more if they knew it was going to a good cause?

blastman

See here:

http://www.ticketmaster.ie/tomwaits

Now you've made me defend Ticketbastard!!

the fnj

Turns out I was wrong, you win this round ticketmaster...

rubadub

the fnj wrote: »

Turns out I was wrong, you win this round ticketmaster...

Total Bid Amount: €
€0.00*

* Does not include delivery and processing fees.

Round 2! still a bunch of kunts.

97i9y3941

i think TM should be broken up anyway,i mean,you know the way the e.u is so competition concious there doesnt seem to be anyway any much competition for selling the tickets,let alone they make a fortune from online buying,probably explains the reasons how some crappy record shops are still going,the TM charge is keeping them afloat

BrianD

TM has been investigated extensively by the competition authority and there were no competitive or consumer issues. The fact of the matter is that TM are pretty good at what they do and charge for it.

Toast

There is very big competition on the horizon for ticketmaster. Id say more except there is connections with subjects banned from discussion here.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Auctioning all tickets would be one sure way to get rid of touts.

Bluetonic

Sean_K wrote: »

Auctioning all tickets would be one sure way to get rid of touts.

There would always still be tout demand, albeit a smaller one.

Toast

Sean_K wrote: »

Auctioning all tickets would be one sure way to get rid of touts.

Im not sure how such a system would work unless you had a model such as the airlines use... as in the first few hundred tickets were extremely cheap and then the others went up as supply became limited. I think that would be disastrous to be honest. People would buy the cheap ones with the intention to tout unless you used a strict no resale policy as well.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Toast wrote: »

Im not sure how such a system would work unless you had a model such as the airlines use... as in the first few hundred tickets were extremely cheap and then the others went up as supply became limited. I think that would be disastrous to be honest. People would buy the cheap ones with the intention to tout unless you used a strict no resale policy as well.

Everyone who's interested makes offers, highest offers get the tickets.

AnonoBoy

Sean_K wrote: »

Everyone who's interested makes offers, highest offers get the tickets.

Ah yeah good idea - so tickets are essentially reserved for those with more money. Good idea - that'll keep students and minimum wage workers where they belong - away from gigs! :rolleyes:

97i9y3941

sure havent they recently gone into practise now if just releaseing more tickets to flood the market now to combat the touts?

Thomas_S_Hunterson

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Ah yeah good idea - so tickets are essentially reserved for those with more money. Good idea - that'll keep students and minimum wage workers where they belong - away from gigs! :rolleyes:

It's an economically sound idea and will completely remove tout's profit margin and result in fair prices for tickets, i.e. at a price where supply meets demand.

I'm not saying it's the right thing to do however.

Although it works very well on securities markets.

97i9y3941

dont think the higher offer thing will work,i remember at time,the munster final tickets were going for €1000 on some sites :S

BrianD

Sean_K wrote: »

It's an economically sound idea and will completely remove tout's profit margin and result in fair prices for tickets, i.e. at a price where supply meets demand.

I'm not saying it's the right thing to do however.

Although it works very well on securities markets.

Interesting point that you raise here. How should a ticket that you purchase be treated as?

At the moment it is a non-transferable fixed price admission that can't be resold. However, we know that in reality there is a grey market where this is simply not the case.

So should a ticket be treated like a share in a company where the price can increase and decrease acording to market demand. Would this be feasible means? Obviously there are alot of other factors that feed into the hosting and promoting of a gig but it's food for thought me thinks. Imagine if tickets on sale at 9am on Friday is just one huge online auction ...

97i9y3941

take the G.A.A approch when comes to the all ireland tickets,just raffle them?

Thomas_S_Hunterson

BrianD wrote: »

Interesting point that you raise here. How should a ticket that you purchase be treated as?

At the moment it is a non-transferable fixed price admission that can't be resold. However, we know that in reality there is a grey market where this is simply not the case.

So should a ticket be treated like a share in a company where the price can increase and decrease acording to market demand. Would this be feasible means? Obviously there are alot of other factors that feed into the hosting and promoting of a gig but it's food for thought me thinks. Imagine if tickets on sale at 9am on Friday is just one huge online auction ...

Well I have to say I'd be very curious to see a full blown liquid ticket market in action.

Certainly it would get rid of opportunistic touts as any certainty about profit would be removed.

Ticketmaster et al might hold positions as market makers and offer buy and sell prices. They will be forced by competition in the market to adopt the fair price. If their price is too high, the tickets don't sell. If their price is too low, there'd be huge opportunity for arbitrage. However, in a liquid market, the arbitrage opportunity would close extremely quickly because everyone would be hopping on the same bandwagon.

/edit: The tickets needn't even exist until say 2 weeks before the event, trade could cease to facilitate delivery, whereby all outstanding 'buys' take delivery of a ticket. So it would operate a bit like a futures market. People trying to close large long positions would suffer as dumping the tickets on the market will drive their prices down, so there is an incentive there to only buy tickets if you want to take delivery.

Toast

Any such system couldnt reduce the average price of a ticket (costs still have to be met) and only increase it so I cant see this being something that favours the consumer.