Ah, that's better

You may recall my rant about Ticketmaster a while back. If I'm going to point out how unpleasant that experience was I should also point out how pleasant my ticket-ordering experience was last night.

I ordered tickets from tickets.com last night. The process was quite convenient yet lacked the massive charges. The tickets were a (fairly) agreeable $29.50 and it was even a presale, so I couldn't get them from the Ticketmaster yet even if I wanted to. All told I bought 8 tickets coming to a total of 298.68. The convenience charge on said tickets: $3. No, not $3 * 8, even... $3 total.

The last time I went through this it was a $10 charge for an $18 ticket. So, let's assume that even though these are more expensive tickets that (out of the kindness of their hearts) they didn't bump up the fee (unlikely). Even then we'd be looking at an extra charge of $77.

tickets.com has somehow managed to not only streamline the process used by ticketmaster.com, but they've actually managed to do $80 of work for only $3! Incredible!

Anyway, I'm very much looking forward to the David Gray show. The last time we saw him in Milwaukee was one of the top-5 shows that I've been to. I don't think this one will be able to compete with the open air/perfect climate combo the last one had... but I have high hopes anyway.

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...