why does not using ticketmaster equal less fees?

what's to say that live nation doesn't just keep the fees for itself?

i've used musictoday for tickets a lot and they are more expensive than ticketmaster and less reliable. their fees are about the same as ticketmaster but they do not allow you to print your own tickets or use the cheaper standard mail shipping options like ticketmaster. here's the fees from a pair of recent $30 tix i bought for highline ballroom:

Total Service Fee: 10.40 (USD)
Total Delivery Cost: 3.50 (USD)
Total Ticket Cost: 73.90 (USD)

They will keep all the money themselves and charge the same as what ticketmaster charges now.

I hate nazimaster! Especially for online b.s. charges like processing fee?? Are you kidding me? Isn't it supposed to be cheaper if you buy stuff online? Isn't 11 of my dollares PER ticket enough? And then add the facility fee, Mailing fee, and the sunny day fee and any other crapola fee they wish?? It's sooooo ridiculous. At least Pearl Jam tried to take them down in the early 90's but the "Machine" just greased too many senators with our hard earned money.

Thanks 4 nothing Nazimaster.

Thanx I feel slightly better.

I've always wondered... what ARE Ticketmaster's expenses?

I mean, I understand that there might have been a market for their services back in the day, before the internet... but today, there is absolutely no reason for ticketmaster to exist, let alone for it to charge the fees that it does.

When you buy tickets from Ticketmaster, you are not only paying their fees but any fees that the venue and/or concert promoter has set. Sure, Ticketmaster takes every dime of that "processing fee" or "conveinence fee" but the Facility fee and anything else tacked on comes straight from the venue.

That said, Ticketmaster still blows because they've made it difficult for venues to not use their services. Selling tickets and collecting those fees online is Ticketmaster's big business. They've set up the model that all other ticketing compannies follow now- say you collected just $2 for every ticket sold through your online ticketing service and you sold 5,000 tickets a day. That's $10,000 in one day- times 365. Big business. And Ticketmaster charges up to what? $11 per ticket now. Totally ridiculous.

i HATE having to use Ticketmaster, but my experiences with MusicToday have been preety nasty. Tickets sent out really late or not at all...nasty phone support..

Would love to see any alternative to TM pop up, but unless Live Nation revamps their outlets, it looks like it'll be more of the same nonsense.

Anyone try the Knitting Factory's new tickets-by-text service yet?

Come on, who actually thinks Livenation would actually LOWER ticket prices? You realize if Livenation started selling tix for shows they promote at, say Irving Plaza, you're not going to see lower-priced tix for the same shows from Ticketmaster or anyone else. In reality Livenation can get away with raising ticket prices (through "fees"), making a bigger profit in the end. Their investors would be happy!

So long as they keep selling tickets at the box office, I don't really care either way.

theoretically, they could charge lower service fees. Like on the recent Barry Manilow shows promoted by Bowery Presents at madison square garden, there were ticketmaster fees charged. The choice to use ticketmaster is up to the venue not necessarily the promoter. There were fees charged on the Barry Manilow show promoted by bowery presents at msg. And meat loaf too also promoted by bowery presents. Gosh, those indie promoters get some cool shows!

Musictoday's customer service is pretty awful. I'd rather pay the extra $$ to make sure my tix get to me. And now that they are a part of Live Nation, I'm officially disgusted. I've had a good experience with that company DucatKing. I bought tickets for Wolf Parade and Shins shows and got them fine and the charges were reasonable. Go indie!