TicketMaster must be stopped!

 
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TicketMaster aka "TicketBastard", aka “TicketMonopoly” aka “The Evil TicketMaster” is not really evil. At least not like in the way Monsanto wants to forever alter the worlds seed supply while pumping the planet with the ever stronger poisons required, that they just also happen to sell. Or evil like the way Skynet built the “Terminator”. But most mind-boggling is the fact that, according to the U.S. Justice Department, they are also not a monopoly?!

They only gobbled up “ReserveAmerica”, “Ticketron” and other smaller independent sellers and recently merged with “Live Nation” who owns or runs 135 major concert venues around the world, including most of the outdoor amphitheaters in the U.S., plus London's Wembley Arena, the House of Blues nightclub chain, and the Fillmore Theaters in San Francisco and New York. In the 1990s its corporate predecessors bought up many of the biggest regional concert promoters around the country, including San Francisco's Bill Graham Presents and Philadelphia's Electric Factory.

Ticketmaster started in 1976, which sold its first tickets the following year for an event at the University of New Mexico. In 1981, the company opened its first overseas operations and in 1982. And has had a few high profile dissenters, like Pearl Jam’s failed attempt to protect their fans from this beast. 

Anyone can just complain and may feel cheated, but let’s get some legal background out of the way -

Definition of 'Racketeering:

“Racketeering refers to criminal activity that is performed to benefit an organization such as a crime syndicate. Examples of racketeering activity include extortion, money laundering, loan sharking, obstruction of justice and bribery. - The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act became U.S. law in 1970, permitting law enforcement to charge individuals or groups with racketeering”.

West's Encyclopedia of American Law defines ANTITRUST LAW:

As “Legislation enacted by the federal and various state governments to regulate trade and commerce by preventing unlawful restraints, price-fixing, and monopolies, to promote competition, and to encourage the production of quality goods and services at the lowest prices, with the primary goal of safeguarding public welfare by ensuring that consumer demands will be met by the manufacture and sale of goods at reasonable prices”. 

Antitrust law seeks to make businesses compete fairly. It has had a serious effect on business practices and the organization of U.S. industry. Premised on the belief that free trade benefits the economy, businesses, and consumers alike, the law forbids several types of restraint of trade and monopolization. These fall into four main areas: agreements between competitors, contractual arrangements between sellers and buyers, the pursuit or maintenance of monopoly power, and mergers”.

 

Enforcement of antitrust law depends largely on two agencies, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which may issue cease and desist orders to violators, and the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division. And they have plenty of precedents. - The Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890, the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Celler-Kefauver Antimerger Act, the Robinson-Patman Act and many more.

Antitrust laws "were enacted for the `protection of competition, not competitors.' " The irony was addressed to private antitrust litigants. If they wanted to sue, the Court said, they would have to prove "antitrust injury."

U.S. government in the 1940s blocked Paramount Pictures from owning movie theaters. In the 1970s the government ruled that MCA Inc. could not own both record label and a talent agency that represented recording artists.

In 1992 Supreme Court case Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Technical Services. The early 1980s saw the dramatic conclusion of a historic monopoly case against the telephone giant American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) (United States v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co)

Throughout the 1980s, political conservatism in federal enforcement complemented the Supreme Court's doctrine of nonintervention. The administration of President Ronald Reagan reduced the budgets of the FTC and the Department of Justice, leaving them with limited resources for enforcement. Mergers of companies into conglomerates, on the other hand, were looked on favorably, and the years 1984 and 1985 produced the greatest increase in corporate acquisitions in the nation's history.

1980s and early 1990s brought more changes in enforcement, economic analysis, and court doctrine. At the state level in the late 1980s, governments attacked mergers. The Supreme Court gave these efforts support in California v. American Stores Co., (1990), upholding the ability of state governments to break up illegal mergers. The Antitrust Division filed thirty-three civil suits in 1994, roughly three times the annual number brought under Reagan and Bush Sr. In mid-1994, under threat of a federal lawsuit, Microsoft entered a consent decree designed to increase competitors' access to the market. But in early 1995, a federal judge rejected the agreement, citing evidence of other monopolistic practices by Microsoft.

All that boring legal history simply illustrates that we do have a mechanisms in place to protect consumers from TicketMaster.

But TicketMaster got a pass. Due in part to their felonious argument that the public still had other options. I can only assume the squares in the Justice Department never go to a Concert or Sporting event unless a Lobbyist, or the like, pays for and arranges it? They certainly did not go to the Robert Plant concert last month at the Shrine Auditorium. The Shrine’s box office is only open on days of the show. Long after the entire venue, or at least, any good seats are sold out. So we get hit with a $25 fee PER Ticket! And there were more fees/service charges on top of that! The Lawn Section for Irion Maiden had fees over 65% of the ticket price. We also got to pay a fee to print our own tickets for a NHL game. 

I thought they hit bottom when they tried to sell me a concert shirt… over the phone! Really? $30 bucks for a shirt I can’t see? From a company I already know wants to rip me off? Well now they are also Scalpers! Through their site “TicketsNow” they have somehow "legalized ticket scalping"? Their quote:  “...our clients will be able to retain economic value that is normally siphoned off by the secondary market, and to sell more of their tickets that go unsold today.” Blah, blah, blah. It’s all simple and transparent greed. A direct result of what happens when a company is left to “self regulate” and has been allowed remain a monopoly.  I guess that’s true Capitalism? Profit is God and we are just the Heathens. So if they rape and slaughter us (our bank accounts), it’s all good. It’s the oldest excuse for dishonorable “conquest” in history.

But that is not all. Not even close. They are now threatening to completely eliminate ownership of the tickets we buy. By issuing “restrictive paperless tickets” that are non-transferable, and can only be used by the original ticket purchaser, similar to an airline ticket. What if you get sick or end up having a conflict for a concert or game? Too bad, you would lose the ticket under Ticketmaster’s new policy for some events.

Scalping, charging you to use your own printer and limiting your ability to give away your own tickets is still not the bottom. Like an oil company finding new ways to dig deeper and dirtier, they are still reaching new lows. Now they have teamed up with aging rockers who seem now more interested in cash than sexual favors in exchange for a backstage experience. For $600 - $1000 per person; the average fans need not apply.

“The Global Warming Tour featuring Aerosmith and Cheap Trick: VIP Packages Now Available -WHEELS UP PACKAGE: STEVEN TYLER/JOE PERRY MEET & GREET

- Ticket in first 10 rows - Meet & Greet photo op with Steven Tyler and Joe Perry - Limited Edition Lithograph - The Amazing Joey Kramer Experience: revealing Q&A, up close & personal with JK on the drums just for you! - Brad Whitford Q&A: playing and sharing intimate details of what makes the music happen - Pre-Show Experience with Tom Hamilton like never before - Special collectible Limited Edition merchandise item - Limited Edition Laminate and Lanyard - Early Entry and Early Crowd Free Access to Merchandise Booth”

While I did not participate in any paid “Back Stage Experiences” I did pay hundreds of dollars in fees to TicketMaster this summer. So that landed me on the “Bizrate” mailing list where I was asked my opinion. So they got it – 

“I remain amazed at how you get away with being a Monopoly?! The fees are outrageous and the consumer has NO alternatives. TM has even jumped into SCALPING! As your site refers buyers to a scalping site where prices are so far above any legal "face value" ($650 + FEES for a single seat!) and TM gets a cut, of course. Now TM and Live Nation even make consumers type in a COMMERCIAL "Captcha" online before getting to the real "Captcha" - Your continued rape of the consumer at every turn hurts the concert/sport going experience and disfranchises a generation of Americans who cant afford your insane fees. It will be a Joyful day in America when TicketMaster gets what it deserves and is dismantled as is required by law of Any MONOPOLY! When it comes to GREEDY Scum Bags, TM is at the top of the list!”

I suspected my venting frustrations would fall on deaf ears even though I have never met a single person who is happy with, or ambivalent about, TicketMaster. I guess that’s an example of “anecdotal evidence” if Bizrate’s truly shocking stats are to be believed. Directly from my survey page, their site reads:

“Ticketmaster is the world's leading ticketing service; selling 83 million tickets to thousands of live events each year for everything from concerts to sporting events to family and arts shows. Ticketmaster operates worldwide in countries such as the United States, England, Mexico, Ireland, Canada and Australia”.

Ticketmaster Store Ratings are for the past 90 days only.

Overall Satisfaction:

8.4 out of 10

Would Shop Here Again:

8.5 out of 10

Likelihood to Recommend:

8.3 out of 10

Customer Support:

8.1 out of 10

On Time Delivery:

9.1 out of 10

Order Tracking:

8.9 out of 10

Product Met Expectations:

8.9 out of 10

Overall Satisfaction	Past 3 Months	Past Month
Positive	85%	83%
Neutral	6%	6%
Negative	9%	11%

I’m most curious about the 85% of people who say they are "satisfied". Really? Satisfied to have additional fees disclosed at the last step of checking out? Satisfied to be charged a fee to print your own tickets… from your own printer? Maybe it’s like the 10 % of people who say they think Congress is “Doing a good job” or maybe it’s more like the 90% of people who say they hate Congress and then continue to vote the same people back year after year? Maybe people who know they were burned wont take the time to respond to Bizrate. And prefer to leave that bad experience behind. Until the next time they are left with no alternative but to purchase from this monopoly? “8.4 out of 10 would shop there again” is the only part that makes sense, as there is often no alternative. I guess the other 1.6 will just stay home?

Google reveals 712,000 results for “TicketMaster” but 898,000 results for “Evil Ticketmaster” 

Politicians are always looking for ways to appear as if they are looking out for the common guy by doing little things as they screw us (and the Planet) with the big things. So reigning in TicketMaster just seems like one of those easy fixes that they would want to do. Or maybe they are getting bribed with those “Backstage Experiences” exclusive box sections and floorside seats? All cash no sex. Especially not for us concert and sport fans. We get screwed, our savings get blown, TicketMaster gets the orgasms.