Over the past few years I've learned to grin and bear it when ordering tickets to out of town events. Yes, I realize that Ticketmaster or Telecharge will add a good $10 or more to the cost of each Broadway ticket, but there really is no alternative if you want to get your tickets in advance. And since that's roughly 10% or so of the ticket cost I've learned to accept it.

I've just now spent the last hour trying to book two tickets to the Hollywood Bowl in September. You cannot buy tickets direct, but must do them through Ticketmaster. So I was fairly happy with the seats offered at $34 each. (By the way, this was only possible to find after about 20 attempts at what they offer and each time having to type in the mystery word they show you). But does that mean that's really what the tickets cost? No. Add on $ 7.25 each for "convenience charge". Huh? Convenient for whom? Then add on $3.60 for the "processing fee". Now you can print your tickets off by email which is cheaper than the majority of ways they can send them. Picking them up at will call is apparently not an option here. Add $ 2.50 for the privilege of printing your own tickets. That means that the $34 tickets now cost $ 44.30 each. Would you believe that's slightly over 30% in fees per ticket?
Where will this madness end?

I would understand if there were an alternative, but I sure can't figure out what it would be.

Thanks for letting me vent.

What you said, Neopolitan!

I worked all day yesterday trying to get NCAA football tickets and Ticketmaster was a royal (and expensive) pain to deal with!

It's a lot of money for a little piece of paper.

Sometimes I feel for the amount of work a person has to do in order to secure decent tickets, it's a rip-off! Yea, there, I said it!

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks this is wrong! I booked 4 tickets for the Hollywood bowl for us and friends and I hate having to tell them the extra costs that you have to pay....yeah, "convenience for whom?"
Greed...

I'm with you. My recent Madonna tickets, which were expensive enough, had just about $20 each in Ticketmaster charges.

Absolutely agree.

Whenever I can, I go to the theater to buy advance tickets without the handling fee. But... if it's out of town, there is no way around it!

Even for same day 1/2 price ticket the charge is up to 33%!

I guess, they will charge us for as long as we pay...

I loathe Ticketmaster. I have no objection to charging what the market will bear, but when there's no competition? When you can't even buy tickets online or by phone from the venue's box office?

Neopolitan, it is a great pain, but unfortunately, it often can't be avoided. However, I've never had to pay for printing out my tickets. But, alas, one of the advantages of living near NYC is that I can usually go directly to the box office to buy tickets. I find it especially annoying when I have a discount offer and then realize that a good part of the savings will be lost on service charges if I can't get the tickets at the box office.

I hate to throw cold water on all the complainers, but I like the fees.

As I understand, Ticketmaster is owned by Paul Allen--one of the richest men in the world. I know that I am destined to always live the "simple life," but each time I pay a $12 surcharge on a ticket, I am all aglow in the knowledge that somebody somewhere (Paul Allen) is living the life that you and I can only dream about.

Jumping on a sunbeam, I am, yours very truly, L.M. Sunshine

I've been fed up with Ticketmaster for 16 years, ever since an agent hung up on me after I'd waited on hold for twenty minutes. When she finally answered, she said "Hello", not "Can I help you?" or anything like that to acknowledge my call. Taken off guard by the sudden "hello" after I'd waited all that time, I (stupidly) repeated "Hello?" She said "I'm not a parrot!" and hung up. I went to the box office for the tickets instead, and have done so ever since---I won't use Ticketmaster. Fortunately Cirque du Soleil sells tickets through their own website when they come to town.

Howard, this paying the $2.50 to print your own tickets was a new one to me. Our recent NYC trip, I printed out most of my tickets on line and there was no charge for doing that. Isn't that saving them the ticket printing costs as well as handling them? If anything they should be deducting a handling fee since they no longer have anything to "handle". How long before they also add a $5 fee for accessing their website to see what's available?

totally agree. "convenience charge"-- right! so then I can wait in the will call line for a half hour.

HATE ticketmaster and almost universally avoid going to performances that requires going through ticketmaster.
(@&#%(@#)#%!%!(%$!(@!_($#%&$%

Little Mary Sunshine's post is my very favorite thing I've read online all day today. Thank you, Miss Sunshine!

I understand that they're going to gouge me for the maximum they can get away with, and I am still willing to pay it, no matter how grudgingly, because I want the tickets. But I also recently had to pay $2.50 to print my own tickets. That one definitely had me scratching my head, but pay it I did. Sigh . . .

I'm curious: Why would you pay to run off the tickets when you can pick them up for free at the box office at late at the day of the performance?

Howard, picking them up there was not a listed option. I suspect that as huge as the Hollywood Bowl is and since they are having Ticketmaster handle ALL single sales, they don't want to be bothered with staffing and handling even will call tickets. There were about four different types of delivery available. Actually they would send them by regular mail free, but since I'm leaving in a week, that didn't seem like an option.

By the way, ever since my fiasco with Ticketmaster and Wicked, I'm leary of will call.

I had tickets to Wicked for just a couple days after it was to open on Broadway. Good seats, purchased through Ticketmaster, but in will call at the theatre. When we got to New York, I found out the show opening was delayed. It ended up that the day before our tickets I discovered our performance was now going to be the official opening night. When I went to the box office to pick up my tickets they didn't have any for me. After a lot of searching, they finally came up with the story that they see I had purchased some but apparently there was a problem with my credit card or something and they didn't go through. Huh? They had been charged a couple of months earlier and the credit card had long been paid. (Later I found out they credited my card on that same day that I went to pick up the tickets.) To this day I'm convinced that they needed tickets for "bigwigs" since it was now opening night. Mine were there in will call, so. . .

The reason TicketMaster charges these fees is simple: they can. If people stop buying tickets through Ticketmaster, these fees will stop. If a show loses money because people don't want to pay these fees, that show will stop using Ticketmaster.

Believe it or not, Ticketmaster doesn't care one iota about how loudly you complain about their exorbitant fees, and whether they get them through monopolistic policies. They only care about one thing: whether you pay them. As long as you do that, they will continue to charge them.

If you hate their charges but NOT enough to stop paying them, then you'll continue to pay them -- because they have absolutely no incentive to not charge them.

Yep, I hate, loathe, despise, resent and bear a strong feeling of general ill will toward Ticketmaster also, but they ARE pretty much the only game in town. The theatres/other venues gladly hand off sales to TM becasue it reduces their overhead and extends their marketing reach. Another option is to work via phone with a traditional ticket broker, but they are few and far between these days and often forced to deal with TM themselves.

I hate Ticketbastards. When I want to see something her in Atlanta, I go to the box office whenever possible. Another bonus of working at night, got my days free for stuff like that.

I'm with you on TM. I was pleasantly surprised recently when I went to book a ticket for a play in Seattle and discovered that they were using www.brownpapertickets.com

I hope more do so in the future.