Tickets and who sells them discussion.

jazzy cian

Seeing as there is quite an interesting debate going on about who sells tickets and how they do it, i'll leave this open. Keep in mind if it goes back to complaining about prices it will be locked. - Lg



I just heard that tickets for the stone roses in phoenix park are 70 euro and nearly 80 with booking charge. I think its an 8 euro booking charge. I hope I have this wrong. But if I don't then someone is making 8 euro on every ticket. And what do they do for it? Very little I would imagine.-

Fighting Irish

If people will pay it then people will charge it

EyesClosed

jazzy cian wrote: »

I just heard that tickets for the stone roses in phoenix park are 70 euro and nearly 80 with booking charge. I think its an 8 euro booking charge. I hope I have this wrong. But if I don't then someone is making 8 euro on every ticket. And what do they do for it? Very little I would imagine.

€71.60 (€65.50 Ticket + €6.10 Fees)

check ticketmaster thats where I got this

ghostdancer

ticketmaster have IT systems to run/maintain, outlet space to rent and people to pay. I'm sure most of the cost of additional charges is just profit, same as pretty much every shop/service/retail business in the western world.

wilkie2006

It is a lot but f*** it, I'll pay it.

I wish they'd announced more European gigs before this one. It's gonna be so hard to get tickets, with competition from UK fans too; I would have traveled to Manchester had I got tickets so I don't see why Londoners etc wouldn't visited Dublin

Toast

Ticketmaster are an international entity who created a massive operation that promoters use as (a.) they are considered by a large amount of people as the only place to get tickets (b.) they've an infrastructure to reliably sell and distribute said tickets.

On an individual basis each ticket charge doesn't reflect what is done to provide you with that one ticket it is a reflection of their status in the market place based on past investment and continued investment as well as providing a return on that investment to shareholders.

I'm certainly not a fan of this but I think it is important to know the why of it. The only way it is going to change is if people refuse to buy tickets for shows via Ticketmaster. If promoters can't sell their tickets via Ticketmaster they maybe open to using smaller independent ticket companies such as tickets.ie.

wilkie2006

Toast wrote: »

Ticketmaster are an international entity who created a massive operation that promoters use as (a.) they are considered by a large amount of people as the only place to get tickets (b.) they've an infrastructure to reliably sell and distribute said tickets.

On an individual basis each ticket charge doesn't reflect what is done to provide you with that one ticket it is a reflection of their status in the market place based on past investment and continued investment as well as providing a return on that investment to shareholders.

I'm certainly not a fan of this but I think it is important to know the why of it. The only way it is going to change is if people refuse to buy tickets for shows via Ticketmaster. If promoters can't sell their tickets via Ticketmaster they maybe open to using smaller independent ticket companies such as tickets.ie.

Although I completely agree with you, I think Ticketmaster's appeal is also that tickets are guaranteed to be genuine. I've had mates who bought tickets via other online sources and were burned; the tickets seemed genuine but they turned out to be fake at the door. Losing money aside, how devastated would you be if that happened with a gig you were looking to for 6 months?

Toast

Well I'm not recommending getting the tickets from an unofficial vendor in favour of Ticketmaster. Unfortunately I'm recommending a complete boycott of events which do not have an alternative official vendor.

People need to be aware that there are other official vendors who would provide the service and for cheaper but it is up to the promoters to employ them as a vendor for their events.

maps and atlas

darryn wrote: »

€71.60 (€65.50 Ticket + €6.10 Fees)

Don't forget that there's another €5 or €6 already included in the ticket price as a 'booking fee'.

maps and atlas

Toast wrote: »

If promoters can't sell their tickets via Ticketmaster they maybe open to using smaller independent ticket companies such as tickets.ie.

Ticketmaster is owed by Live Nation and MCD, the promoter of the event, has a very close relationship (if not part-owned by Live Nation - there were numerous reports of a takeover in the press about a year ago). LN also own the O2 and the Grand Canal, so tickets for these kind of shows will normally only go to Ticketmaster.

Live Nation also own 51% of Festival Republic (http://www.festivalrepublic.com) which among many other festivals are the majority owner of the Electric Picnic. An MCD related company is a minority share holder in FR.

wilkie2006

Toast wrote: »

Well I'm not recommending getting the tickets from an unofficial vendor in favour of Ticketmaster. Unfortunately I'm recommending a complete boycott of events which do not have an alternative official vendor.

People need to be aware that there are other official vendors who would provide the service and for cheaper but it is up to the promoters to employ them as a vendor for their events.

Oh no, I totally agree with you. I'm just saying that as someone who isn't familiar enough with alternative vendors (one of thousands, I'm sure), Ticketmaster is the only one that I'm certain is legit. Because of this, I'm willing to pay out more money to them rather than see myself being ripped off. I appreciate that other official vendors might be very well known but not to me and I just think that they could do with better marketing.

Toast

maps and atlas wrote: »

Ticketmaster is owed by Live Nation...

Yeah I'm aware of the various connections that are involved there but it wouldn't be immune to some sort of orchestrated movement. In fact if there was a strong support behind an alternative and they refused to use it it could be seen as anti-competitive behavior.

Anyway I'm not actually calling or about to organise such a boycott just stating that there are alternatives and while there are effective monopolies we won't see drops in these charges.

BrianD

Toast wrote: »

Ticketmaster are an international entity who created a massive operation that promoters use as (a.) they are considered by a large amount of people as the only place to get tickets (b.) they've an infrastructure to reliably sell and distribute said tickets.

On an individual basis each ticket charge doesn't reflect what is done to provide you with that one ticket it is a reflection of their status in the market place based on past investment and continued investment as well as providing a return on that investment to shareholders.

I'm certainly not a fan of this but I think it is important to know the why of it. The only way it is going to change is if people refuse to buy tickets for shows via Ticketmaster. If promoters can't sell their tickets via Ticketmaster they maybe open to using smaller independent ticket companies such as tickets.ie.

I would agree. TM as a company do a great job and provide an excellent service. You rarely here people complain about their service (I'm sure there's some occasions where it has gone wrong) but you do here constant complaints about pricing. TM do their job so well that why would a promoter go elsewhere?

Personally, I think the solution to competition is to require promoters to make their tickets available through more than one agency. These agencies would have to be approved and bonded to protect the promoter and the punter.

Then you could have competition on the service/booking fees.

The competition authority has been across the ticket selling market in Ireland and says no problem.

hidinginthebush

BrianD wrote: »

I would agree. TM as a company do a great job and provide an excellent service. You rarely here people complain about their service (I'm sure there's some occasions where it has gone wrong) but you do here constant complaints about pricing. TM do their job so well that why would a promoter go elsewhere?

Personally, I think the solution to competition is to require promoters to make their tickets available through more than one agency. These agencies would have to be approved and bonded to protect the promoter and the punter.

Then you could have competition on the service/booking fees.

The competition authority has been across the ticket selling market in Ireland and says no problem.

Pearl Jam tried to boycott ticketmaster back in '96, I think, finding their prices too high, and even went as far as going before the Dept of Justice about it. They found, though, that many venues / stadia etc. have exclusice contracts with TM, so it was nigh on impossible to tour without bowing out to TM. And the Dept. of Justice said that TM's strategy weren't anti-competition, even though they hold what can only be described as a monopoly. Just the way of the world I suppose.

maps and atlas

BrianD wrote: »

The competition authority has been across the ticket selling market in Ireland and says no problem.

That was 2005 / 2006, the market has changed quite a bit since then and the terms of reference of that report are no longer valid. Ticketmaster have real competition now - tickets.ie took over the GAA from them so they have probably lost 30% of their market share in Ireland over the last couple of years. I base this on the following numbers

GAA around 1.5 million tickets per year
MCD around 1 million (saw an interview with Denis Desmond)
Aiken around .5 / .6 million (based on my perception of their size relative to MCD)
IRFU around .3 / .4 million
FAI around .25 million
Other Ticketmaster customers ???

maps and atlas

BrianD wrote: »

Personally, I think the solution to competition is to require promoters to make their tickets available through more than one agency. These agencies would have to be approved and bonded to protect the promoter and the punter.

I think that is a very good point. Ticket agencies are not regulated in Ireland, so anyone can set one up. So there would need to be some form of regulation first.