10.27.2005

A Bitter Bitter Man

I've been meaning to get down to the Orpheum ticket office to pick up tickets for Atmosphere. but, seeing that we now live outside of town: it just hasn't been convenient.

So, tonight I finally broke down and went out to Ticketmaster to pay their charges so that I wouldn't have to go downtown. I will be the first to tell you: Buying them online would be much more convenient for me. The question is: How much more convenient?

Well, let's see. Ticket prices for the show are a (very) reasonable $18. Again, I will be the first to tell you: this show is worth much more than $18. The second question is: How much more than $18?

So, $1 for the theatre... alright. $5.75/ticket for "convenience"! Oh man, is it worth $11 for me not to drive downtown... well... probably, I guess. If this were a $200 purchase: yes, it would definitely be worth it. but paying 1/3 of the ticket cost for convenience? Oh, and thanks for all those choices on how I am going to receive the tickets. I had no idea that it costs $25 to mail something... I guess there are going to be two tickets in the envelope though, so it probably weighs quite a bit.

Alright, so I reluctantly click proceed.

Oh, come on now! $4 more for processing? What is happening behind the scenes that is costing them $4 to process?!? They really need to put some effort into streamlining their business if they're handling millions of transactions over there and each is costing $4!

So, Nate. As the recipient of the other ticket that I am going to purchase: I swear that I am going to try really hard to get down to the ticket office and get this taken care of, but I just can't pull the trigger on this! $36 of tickets for $53. How can these guys not have competition that can beat this?

Grrrrrr...

6 comments:

Sheila said...

I hate Ticketmaster. $4 for 'convenience'? Bah! Over the summer I was checking out various events at Summer Fest and the Wisconsin State Fair and ran across the same thing you did. The ticket cost was $10, but there were $10 per ticket in extra charges. Ticketmaster was the only way to get tickets online, so we ended up not going because we just didn't get down to the actual show to buy tickets.

Sounds like you may have a business idea, Jim.

Leslie Fedorchuk said...

Can't you call the box office and purchase them over the phone - and then have them held there for you?

What a racket....

Anonymous said...

I, personally, have never had a problem with ticketmaster (notice lower case letters in THEIR name to deliberately lower their status in this blog note) because I just keep hitting proceed and hope I get tickets in the end. Do you mean to tell me they've been adding charges all this time? I shall remain oblivious (but still continue using lower case letters in their name)until Jimmer fixes this.

jimhalberg said...

Yeah, definitely outrageous. I have to actually visit the box office to get the tickets... not sure if that's the Orpheum's policy (which would be weird) or (more likely?) that it's in their contract with Ticketmaster.

It would be interesting to see what kind of contract that is... like, could the Orpheum also sell tickets online?

Whitney said...

I think it's Ticketmaster's fault. Every event that we've purchased ticks for includes those silly convenience fees! Obviously, I'm sure the venues are benefitting though...

Joan McNeil said...

This is going to be a great show..Worth a drive downtown...but I agree Jim. Why should ticketmaster make 5,000 6,000 grand off of this show for printing a bunch of pieces of paper. No is the band getting a piece of that.