Ordered two tickets to the Degenerate Art Ensemble. Tickets $16.50 apiece, but the tacked on fees amounted to $12.65 apiece thus increasing the ticket price by %77 percent!

"Convenience charge", that's a good one.

The neatest thing about Ticketbastard is that not only do they immediately start spamming the crap out of you, they pass your email on to the venue and the artist and marginally similar artists and the booker and the cocktail waitresses so they can spam the crap out of you too. I'm still getting email from the goddamn Seattle Sounders because I went to a soccer game -- not a Sounders game -- four years ago.

FNARF

What soccer team did you pay to see, if not the Sounders?

Who pays to see soccer?

Man U v Celtic, Qwest Field. The Man U spam assault was even more relentless. I've paid to see USA play a few times too. Just the other day I paid to watch a preseason Australian Rules Football match. Sad, isn't it.

It's bullshit that a company that does pretty much what every other online company does for free can make more than the band, more than the record company, more than the people who own the venue, etc. One of my favorite companies I've heard of recently is http://www.brownpapertickets.com/, "the first and only fair-trade ticketing service". They charge a very reasonable service charge for tickets, and they give a portion of their profits to an assortment of charities. If I recall, the last time I ordered tickets through them, I even got to select which charity got the donation from the tickets I bought. Cool. If you know anyone associated with an artist or venue who needs to sell tickets online, and they're not already forced into some monopolistic agreement by Ticketbastards (that's too funny), encourage them to use this company.

"Die hard" means somebody who will be a fan no matter what, doesn't it? Seems like just the ones you'd want to bleed dry.

It's the fickle, dilettante fans who might need a little help to get them to show up.

Service fees and spam are aggravating, but I take issue with the increasing prevalence of presales and their effect on the ticket inventory available to the general public. When a show finally goes on sale to the public, after all of the marketing, artist, promoter, venue and trouble tickets are held, and the fan club and radio station presales have sold their allocatioins, the inventory available to the public is dramatically dwindled and less desirable. When the show is all GA this affects only the number of tickets that are offered to the public, but when the show is reserved then it is the quantity and the location of the tickets that are affected. So when you get online promptly when tickets go on sale for a highly anticipated reserved show, have fun in balcony I, row Y.

Oooh, don't forget the scalping, too. The fuckers who buy huge blocks of tickets and sell them at a 300-1000% increase. The Yankees/A's season opener in Oakland is 'sold out' until you check for tickets on craigslist where a $35 dollar ticket is advertised for $400.

I'm late to this, but...

You know why they do this? Because you'll pay anyway.

End discussion.