No code? No ticket? Big problem! Ticketmaster and fans haven’t been getting along for decades now. Back in early ‘94 , Pearl Jam laid down the groundwork for their upcoming tour. The issue arose when Ticketmaster, as per usual, applied fees and service charges adding up to almost 18 dollars. Pearl Jam quickly abandoned their tour plans. Then, after being prompted by Justice Department officials, they filed an antitrust complaint against Ticketmaster, which led to a federal investigation into the company’s alleged monopoly. Pearl Jam accused Ticketmaster of abusing its marketplace dominance by collecting the sky-high service fees and charges. This inevitably left users with no other option but to go through with the unfair conditions. Under oath, The Ticketmaster CEO, Fred Rosen, brought these past hidden terms and conditions out of the dark, adding they inflate service fees, particularly for concert tickets, into the $4 to $6 range, then offer 20 percent of Ticketmaster’s profits for the entire year at a particular location, which could be as much as $500,000 if the venue agrees to use Ticketmaster exclusively. 

More recently, fans are once again in an uproar. Well known musical artist Harry Styles is playing at the local USB arena to debut his brand new album Harry’s House. Fans are deeply angered due to the rules for trying to purchase these tickets. A code distributed by Ticketmaster themselves was necessary to be able to buy a ticket. Fans register with their email address well in advance of a presale and wait to be offered a code that they can use to get into the “verified fan only” sale. Ticketmaster claims to use the best information possible to give codes to people who are real fans and not someone who will sell the ticket they receive, though they speak very little on this topic for obvious reasons. But, even with this, the code isn’t even a confirmation for a ticket. Fans still have to make the dire attempt to purchase a ticket. This was extremely unfair to those die-hard fans, whose ticket purchase was out of their control. 

Ticketmaster is relied upon by almost every fandom known to man – and they are highly disliked among almost all of them. Overall, Ticketmaster should be held accountable for these stresses and unfair ways of ticket purchase. 

* Image via Pixabay.com