=
I love the game of monopoly, have since I was a youth (read: ute). Two years ago, I was even Mr. Monopoly for Halloween. But when it comes to businesses, especially those in which two players already dominate, monopolies really chap my ass. It's been a while since there's been some good old-fashioned hatred on this blog and it's high time for some to return. It is only fitting that the first hatred of the New Year be directed at something which has festered in me for some time now, the proposed Ticketmaster and Live Nation merger.
Where to begin, well first of all, if you enjoy going to concerts, you almost certainly have to deal with them. Live Nation now owns a ton of smaller venues and exclusive deals with artists, forcing you to deal with them if you want to see a concert at that venue. Ticketmaster is just as ubiquitous if not more so at the larger venues and has its own subsidiary which has exclusive deals with over 200 artists. What exactly does that mean? Well, for one, facemelting fees. In looking at tickets for a show the other night I wanted to go to the other night, Live Nation tacked on additional fees that added up to 50% of the face value of the ticket. Ticketmaster has three separate categories of fees they tack on to ticket prices. The government charges 2.50 per flight in Airport Security fees, these clowns get away with charging 4 times that per show. They charge you a fee for printing out your own tickets for christ's sake. Why? Why does Radio Shack ask for your phone number when you purchase batteries.... I don't know.
Nirvana - Rape Me
Then there is the infamous "convenience fee." What is convenient about having to enter in that illegible code every time you want to look at seats? Would it be so hard to make the code an actual word instead of something translated into fucking wingdings before being crossed out with lines and squigglys? How about the convenience of getting three e-mails a day about going to Rascall Flatts concerts in Houston, TX just because I bought Mos Def tickets in NYC through them a year ago. Or then there is the convenience of them selling out of tickets but directing me to their wholly owned subsidiary TicketsNow, who in what could only be described as a Festivus Miracle, has tickets to offer at ten times the price because they are a licensed ticket broker. Certainly, Ticketmaster wouldn't funnel a few of those their way to get around charging face value. The convenience fee is a bunch of bollocks. There's absolutely nothing convenient about dealing with these slippery fucks, and yet I'm still being charged for it.
It would be one thing if the face value for tickets was reasonable, but Ticketmaster and Live Nation have ensured that isn't the case either. Over the same time period, while the CPI (measure of inflation) has only gone up 17%, ticket prices have increased 82%. Artists have little to no control over what their fans are charged for tickets. Pearl Jam even took the step of filing a complaint with the Justice Dept. as a means of capping ticket prices only to have their complaint rejected. For the life of me, I can't fathom what real overhead the company has. They don't have to market, since they're really the only show in town. The artists are in charge of the equipment; the venues, the soundsystem and upkeep. The only conclusion I've been able to reach is that the CEO's just sit and laugh all day every time a consumer is forced to pay an $8.00 convenience fee because that means they get to buy a bigger Gulfstream and add another hooker to their traveling rotating harem since they have the game rigged.
Elbow- The Fix is in
So if you enjoy music, hate spending money for no reason, and generally support justice and freedom, take some time to object to this travesty.
No comments:
Post a Comment