A few days back, The Boss, Bruce Springsteen, went public with his anger and frustration over Ticketmaster conducting what he called ripping off his fans and ‘a conflict of interest’. (read his letter HERE )
For those not in the know – many fans are left out in the cold when it comes to getting tickets for their favorite bands -even when they have a presale code and are supposed to be able to get tickets days before they come on sale to the general public. Some bands charge people to join the fan club, with presale codes for shows being one of the paid for perks. Fans go online only to find that tickets are already sold out – or that they’re stuck up in the nose bleeds. How can thousands of tickets be gone already, 30 seconds after Ticketmaster ‘opens’? This has happened to many of my friends, as well as myself over the years.
How indeed? Often, the consumer is redirected to a brokerage firm called Tickets Now or Ticketfast – which have choice tickets on sale for hundreds of dollars above face value – days before they’re on sale to the public. Any hard core concert goer has found out through word of mouth or a little digging, that these brokerage firms are a subsidiary of Ticketmaster. As The Boss said – conflict of interest. My friends frequently refer to it as ‘Ticketbastard’.
Well, with Springsteen speaking out about this publically, its finally been brought to the attention of people higher up the chain than just us ‘fans’. Its been in the news, on tv and in newspapers for the last week or so and someone is finally doing something about it! There is an Ontario law firm who has put together a class action suit against Ticketmaster. You can read about it at the Windsor Star HERE.
Because of Springsteen, a New Jersey congressman has called for a federal anti-trust investigation into Ticketmasters sales practices.
I just hope that this continues to snowball. I remember hearing years ago that Eddie Veddar and Pearl Jam were ticked off about much the same thing with Ticketmaster, and started selling tickets to the shows on their own website, bypassing Ticketmaster entirely. Problem is that Ticketmaster, and now Live Nation (who apparently is buying out TIcketmaster) now own many of the venues as well! Which would have serious impact on any smaller band standing up for themselves or their fans – basically a case of ‘ so you want to sell tickets on your own site, want to bypass us? Fine, then you can’t have the larger, better venues.’ And from what I remember at that time, Pearl Jam suffered because of standing up for the fan’s rights. Any company that is a monoply becomes too powerful and I see this headed in that direction unless more big name people step up and say something about it.
I for one hope this class action suit goes far – they most likely won’t win – but it will bring this issue to light all over the country. In many States, scalping is illegal. If the guy on the street isn’t allowed to sell his tickets while he stands out in the cold, then the Ticket company should also not be allowed to scalp tickets by diverting them online to their sister company.
I’m keeping my eye on this one!
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