You're going to a $15 concert. No, it's actually $23.75. Wait, what? Oh, those Ticketmaster fees.
If you're one of those people that writes the event service fees off as an unavoidable occurrence that just floats over your head. It’s time to start getting curious.
Ticket Service Fees 101
When you purchase an event ticket from Ticketmaster, the entire advertised price of the ticket goes directly to the venue, not Ticketmaster. So, how does Ticketmaster make money? They slap on a service fee as their primary revenue generator.
OK, we get it Ticketmaster et al. Ya’ll have to make money somehow to pay for employees, ticket processing, convenience charge, shipping, air conditioning for your office, et cetera.
But, why does this service fee cunningly get added when you’re about to check out?
Personally, I feel that this practice of hiding the wide array of service fees from the advertised price is tiring and slightly deceptive. This may be due to the monopolistic tendencies a certain ticketing site has on the primary market. They know they will continually have a strong demand so they take advantage of the ticket pricing structure.
Ticket service charges are anywhere from $2 to $50+ per ticket! Yes, over $50 at times. The problem is that customers don’t have any control of this number if they are trying to purchase a ticket. Ticketing companies offer customized and disparate rates to venues based on the volume of tickets the ticketing companies except to sell. It’s a closed door negotiation that ends with the customer paying an extra 10-30% for the transaction.
What happened to transparency these days? How about advertising ticket prices that include service fees so the customer accurately sees the checkout price of the ticket?
SeatGeek's Solution
Because all of us at SeatGeek are sporting fans and concert goers, we know what it’s like to see the ticket price jump up when we’re about to check out. Not only do we ensure you’re getting the best deals on the secondary ticket market for your event, but we factor service charges into our DealScore and ticket prices we list.
So, if you’re getting a great deal to see Katy Perry on November 16 at Madison Square Garden, the price that SeatGeek offers to a customer is the full price including shipping AND service fees. Take a look:
At SeatGeek, our search engine is created to help fans get the best deal for their tickets. We’ve created the best product with transparent deals so you never have to be surprised by another service fee again.
Photo credit Flickr user: Jannie-Jan & Storyvillegirl
