Not just L.I. and NJ, I got the same message trying to buy Boston tickets. It is very disappointing.

I got the same message trying to buy for the DC show, so Ticketmaster flacks trying to say this screw up was limited to NY/NJ shows are just slinging their usual BS. This needs to be investigated – Ticketmaster is a shameless company. The fact that they were redirecting the people they were shafting to their inhouse scalping site was just appalling. They need to be taken down.

I have a feeling the snafu was somehow related to whatever process they use to sell tickets directly to brokers. They’re definitely using shady practices to get the tickets in their hands, how else would they be posting tickets to specific seats for shows that aren’t even on sale yet (as was reported last year)?

Submitted my Springsteen ticket request on the ticketmaster web site at 10:00:15 last Saturday for the show at United Center in Chicago. Was given the screen saying no tickets matched my request but were instead available at ticketsnow. At 10:00:30 they had over 1000 tickets listed for sale on their website. Tell me how it would even be possible to buy a single ticket and relist it for sale in less than 30 seconds, let alone over 1000.

Here’s hoping that Bruce sees these crook for who they are.
They are taking advantage of their fans to pad their pockets during these rough economic times.
I hope Cuomo starts an investigation on behalf of NY fans.
This is criminal.

Lopez never contacted me. I wish he would. I used the automated system at 9AM. I ordered 2 General Admission seats for May 23rd. I got to the very very end. Gave my address, credit card info, the 3 digits on the back. At the last possible second, it said, “Due to technical difficulties, we are unable to process this order, you are being transferred”.

Thirty-five minutes later, I spoke to a human being who said, “Sorry, I see no confirmation and the show is sold out.” I asked to speak to a supervisor. Another 15 minutes go by. The best he could do was give me nosebleed seats on another night. No consolation.

I spent 3 hours trying to get Jones Beach tickets, i had some in my cart but the system crashed everytime.

I don’t know why anyone goes to concerts at these inflated prices.
My advice is go to Wal-Mart and buy the greatest hits album for 10
bucks and on the night of the concert crank it up real loud and pretend you are there.

Ticketmaster forgot to mention the Harford show also. I was trying to get tickets for the Hartford show, but when I would do a search for tickets and the price match and it says no match. Ticketsnow.com has the prices way too expensive and the ticketmaster site says $65 to $95.

Got the same response when trying to buy tickets to the Charlottesville show. I kept trying after being told that there were no more tickets left on the floor or in the lower level.Finally got through around 10:15, but by then the only tickets left were in the upper level. What a rip off for a $95 ticket. I don’t go to many shows any more. This is one reason why.

The biggest problem with both Ticketmaster, and the new Live Nation Ticketing system, is the person responsible for the scheduling these unusually-high-demand concert sale times.

Why put virtually every Phish show on sale simultaneously?? Didn’t LiveNation KNOW that their system was going to explode if they do it this way?

PUT ONE SHOW ON SALE AT A TIME!!!!

Maybe just one Phish show per day, or at the very least, no more than one show per hour! Wouldn’t that have made more sense?

If the sale times were staggered over a period of time, I’ll bet the Live Nation system wouldn’t have crapped out like it did.

Same goes for Ticketmaster with Springsteen.

With only a few exceptions, the vast majority of Springsteen shows on the east coast, all went on sale at 10am, thereby flooding TM’s system. Millions of people all accessing the site at the exact same time. Why they didn’t stagger the sale times for each show, is beyond me!

These sites only have so much bandwidth, and can only take so much traffic at a given moment.

Morons!

It’s a scam on the highest level and needs to be addressed immediately.

Betcha a Wal-Mart Greatest Hits album that TM’s scalper site won’t have any problems selling tix at a grand a pop. Funny how that works.

I got the same messages for DC AND Hershey Park, and once I was able to purchase any tix, they were singles only. Even for GA. I was also redirected time and again to Ticketmaster’s ‘alternative’ site, at ridiculous prices. Seems all tix were ‘pre-sold’ to the highest bidder. Hope this does get the full investigation.

After numerous attempts and errors while trying to purchase tickets for Nassau Coliseum I then tried for Rutherford N.J. with the same problems. Every once in a while I would be directed to “Tickets Now” with their inflated prices. Intentional? I think so.

If not intentional then how can a company like this operate without a fail-safe system? They’re a mess…and btw, it wasn’t just minutes. I experienced the problem for over and hour and a half.

Not just the east coast either. I tried to get tickets to the Los Angeles show yesterday and in the first seconds of the sale there were no tickets matching my request. However, TicketsNow had an abundance of tickets available at hugely inflated prices…criminal!

Not to mention that those half-wits sent out an email announcing the ticket onsale time as 10:00, but the tickets went onsale at 9:00. They screwed the pooch all the way around on this.

they have to put an end to that ticketsnow stuff. It is really rediculous that ticketmaster has its own agency. It should be shut down so more people can get tickets at face value.

My story echoes everone elses. I got through for the 5-23 show in NJ. I got an offer for 3 seats, put my card in from my Ticketmaster account and then got booted out. But I did get a confirmation number and I did manage to get these seats after e-mailing T-Master about the problem. They said they were holding the tickets for 4 days until I confirmed payment which I did.
However, I have a hard time beleiving the system crashed from over-activity. After all they sell large stadium tours which have far more activity then the arena tours and this doesn’t happen. Frankly, since I had a confirmation number, if they hadn’t made good on the sale I was prepared to make a complaint to the State Consumer Affairs Department. You folks should do likewise.

Michelle,

I’m not sure what problems you had with Hershey, but you can 4 tickets together in Hershey right now with no problems. I guess the Hershey area doesn’t have a lot of demand for “The Boss”.

Got as far as getting the confirmation for two tickets to the Long Island show before getting kicked out. But I did get a phone call from Ticketmaster last night, who appologized for the problem on Monday, and offered two different (better!) seats for me to purchase. I did.

Ticketmaster sent out an email the day before that said the tickets would go on sale at 10AM–but they went on sale at 9AM. So I missed the boat completely. When I went on line at 9:45 the site said that there were no tickets available.

Same thing happened for the San Jose, CA show. We were given wait times or errors and were sometimes transfered to the TicketNow website. This is ridiculous. My mom ended up buying some GA tickets from eBay at a much higher price of course.

Service charge for piss poor service. Concert industry is a scam.

I went to buy the more expensive/best available tickets for the Pittsburgh show and Ticketmaster kept giving me the nose bleed seats. At exactly the moment they went on sale, Ticketmaster is telling me those seats are the best available plus they’re the most expensive. I hate this company…

I had entered the Ticketmaster site within one minute of the ticket release time and had a wait time that varied betweem 5 to 8 minutes. After waited for about 6 minutes a screen came up that said that they were currently doing their updating of the site! I tried again and after waiting a few minutes, the same error message came up. I knew by now that the tickets were probably sold out . The next time I tried it said that there were no tickets left as per my request. But, there were tickets on the TicketsNow site which were priced from 250.00 to 1500.00 and were available in quanity! This is now getting out of hand! Bruce priced his tickets at a price that all could afford and withing a few minutes of tickets sales that price was history! This needs to be investigated ASAP!

Oh, so now that it is all about Bruce we should launch an investigation. This kind of stuff has been going on for years but now that it is Bruce… well, something MUST be done about it. I am surprised that after admitting his “mistake” with Wal Mart that BS would allow another greedy corporation like TicketMaster to handle his business. It all isn’t the way it seems folks, he wants to move product just like everyone else in the business. Blah.

‘an unfortunate error’? What is it? The 90’s??

Ticketmaster just wanted to [once again] deprive fans of tickets so they could scalp them for at least 2x their face value around the internet…

Nothing new, same ol’ s#!t…

There’s some kind of scam going on with Ticketmaster—how is it not a huge conflict of interest for them to also have a scalping site. There were 10 of us in all parts of the tri-state area trying to get bruce tix at exactly 9:00am. 2/2 and all of us got the error message repeatedly for hours—not minutes. Meanwhile I went to stubhub website and they had 193 diff. listings for the Springsteen shows. Ridiculous and an investigation is needed.

I bought 4 tickets for my daughter and her friends to Hannah Montana in Omaha last year. A few weeks after I bought them, I get a letter in the mail from a Ticket Broker in Omaha, wanting to buy my tickets. How in the world did he know I had tickets unless he is hooked up with Ticketmaster. They bite.

I got in exactly at 10 in the Chicago area, and got nosebleed seats. As soon as my transaction completed I went back in, just out of curiosity, and there were no tickets left and I was directed to Tickets Now, which had dozens and dozens of prime seats for 3x face value.
Fricking Ticketmaster.

This MUST be illegal. Tickets for Austin, TX go on sale this Saturday, February 7th at 10:00am. Yet TicketsNow has Austin tickets for sale RIGHT NOW at astronomical prices for this show. How can they sell those tickets on TicketsNow BEFORE the tickets go on sale to the public. This cannot be legal, surely?

Hey kids, let’s not forget that in addition to the minimum of more than 2 times face value, Ticketsnow also collects additional fees as in the information copied directly from there website for 1 ticket available in the 200s at East Rutherford.
Subtotal:1 x $198.00
Service Charge:1 x $29.70
Shipping:$14.95
That’ s $14.95 for a 42 cent envelope.
I had the same problem as everyone else, and I too logged on at presicely 9am. This has not been my first problem with Ticketmaster, but if you write to them, you get a very lovely FORM LETTER in response. Very nice. I hope someone does the right thing!

Same thing for the d.c. show …
Probably the only business in America not cutting jobs and showing high profits .. they have been nickel and diming for years !

On line, at 9:00 AM, i got 2 seats, they took my credit card and i got an authorization number…then poof…it wasn’t completed even though i had an authorization number. 15 minutes later there are no tickets available but lots available at Ticketmaster’s scalp site. In CT, ticket went on sale at 10 am and Ticketmaster’s scalp site were selling them at 9:45 AM (before they were released to the public). this is a huge conflict of interest, why not just scalp them all while you are at it?

I was completely screwed out of tickets for the Chicago show, but they did offer me the same seats I was trying to get a minute earlier for two hundred dollars. Ticketmaster is beyond corruption and their merger with Live Nation is going to be the worst thing to ever happen to concertgoers.

I too was online and hit “find” tickets at 10am for the DC show. After spinning and spinning the tickets I had the chance to buy were in the back of the stadium at the top in the 400 section. The highest ticket price for all the way in the back and all the way up top. I think the cheap seats are behind the stage/obstructed. So I bite the bullet to purchase, my 4 tickets turn into over a $500 to take my family. I enter my credit card, enter the 3 digits on the back, some box comes up for M&T back enrolling in some program that will save your password, I am thinking what is this? I did not have a bar to raise or lower the screen and the bottom button was partially off the screen. I could click “enroll now” so I assumed the bottom botton was proceed without enrolling. I clicked it and immediately got the error message about a technical difficulty. I sat their in shock thinking did I get the seats or not??? I waited a couple minutes for a confirmation number and when none came up I tried to call but of course the phone was busy (another article said they only got a few complaints…people couldn’t get through!!!). I just figured it wasn’t meant to be. My kids are in college and money is tight so I took it as a sign. But it’s one giant rip off and I would love to see Dateline or something take this one on.

I own a fairly large brokering business in the Northeast, and I can say from MY experience, it’s not Ticketmaster that is corrupt, but the employees that can be bought to give people like myself “perks”. For instance, those tickets you see on stubhub and ticketsnow before the show offically goes on sale are from presales for employees of the arena managment. Typically, staff is alloted a certain number of tickets for purchase. My company just goes ahead and buys them once the employees purchase them legally.
Also, once the “day of sale” beings, we have direct lines to “our” agents, so we can easily get through and get the best seats right away. It’s not that hard to do once you get a system going.

Whoops! We accidentally sold all of our face value tickets to brokers that we have contracts with. Let us make it up to you by selling you a ticket for $400. What Ticketscamster is doing is a crime and they should be proscecuted. Way to go Congressman Pascrel.

I love how TM likes to downplay things to the public… ie, when I tried to order tickets to Phish in the latter part of 2008 (through Ticketmaster) and got error messages after waiting in the queue. I didn’t not get a ’sold out’ notice, just a server error!! They explain it away with supply/demand… but any ticketing company who wants to sell tickets that will ahve the massive response of Phish and other major artists, NEEDS to be able to handle it without server issues. That one moment at 10AM when a million people click at once… is the moment that they need to shine. Both of these companies have a very tarnished history with many major musicians and their fan bases. Neither has respect from me, and neither will have my business again if ever there is a respectable alternative. The possible merging of these two companies is downright sickening to me. Instead of anyone being the lesser of two evils as it stands right now… it will just be one huge inescapable monopolizing (yet try to prove it!!) ugly entity.

I had problems getting one single ticket for the Phoenix show. Right when they went on sale I tried to buy one – it said my wait time was 11 minutes. I sit there for more than 10 minutes watching it still say I have 11 minutes to wait. So I stop the whole thing and go for another chance… It says 3-4 minutes. Within 2 it gives me one GA floor ticket so I buy it immediately. Everything went through OK. Then I went back in to see if it was still having problems, tried to buy another and it said there were only nosebleeds. Then I tried again and it gave me GA floor… this is a corrupt business practice but we shouldn’t expect anything more from TM.

Tried to by DC tickets. I selected 2 seats within seconds of the sale going live. I couldn’t read the security check code so I made it show me a different one, and in those 30 seconds, the tickets were gone. I kept trying over and over again only to be told they didn’t have two tickets in “best available.” Instead, they directed me to TicketsNow, for tix selling for at least $200. No thanks.

Ticketmaster is organized crime in the 21st century.

$29.25 for service and shipping? What a joke!

They won’t have their hands in my pockets. Ever!

Pearl Jam tried to warn us years ago!

Pearl Jam tried to warn us years ago!

It’s all a scam, everyone I know got an error message trying to get springsteen tickets in Jersey. Miraculously, ticketsnow.com an affiliate of TicketMaster, had tickets available BEFORE they went on sale at ticketmaster. It’s criminal.

I got screwed for Denver. I was logged into the Ticketmaster site well before 10 and kept refreshing and as soon as the “Find Tickets” came on I submitted a request for 3 tickets. I was made to wait about 10 mins and then offered $95 tickets behind the stage. What kind of shit is that? And yes, even I found Denver tickets being sold before the online sale date. I grew up with Springsteen’s music and loved him but lost a lot of respect for him this Monday. No matter how he states his lack of control of Ticketmaster, knowing this persistent problem with the ticket agency and still turning a blind eye toward it stinks.

I didn’t get an error message for the San Jose show but even getting through successfully at 10:02, the best seats possible were upper level in the rear. I was appalled that the lower level seats (not GA, but seats) were apparently never ever available for normal face-value purchase. I’m taking my pre-teen boys to their first real concert ever and really thought I could “do better” by them at 10:02 – !

Ticketmaster should not be allowed to own a ticket scalping business, period. I knew this was going to happen. How can they be the original distributor for millions of tickets AND own a ticket scalping website without there being a HUGE conflict of interest? And they certainly shouldn’t be allowed to direct you to their ticket scalping website right after they claim there are no tickets available. The same thing is going to happen when Jimmy Buffett tix go on sale next week. FORCE Ticketbastard to sell their ticket scalping website NOW!

Last time I bought concert tickets was for U2 a few years back, and I did it old school style, went and stood in line. Now I know they just use a computer like you do at home, but I did get my tickets.

For more than 700 bucks, I’m not sure I’ll even get the exact Springsteen seats (2) I paid for at TicketsNow. I had no idea what a racket I was getting in to. I was logged on to Ticket Master before 10AM on Monday to get Springsteen tickets for the show at Verizon Center in D.C. I hit the ‘find tickets’ button for ‘best available’ at 10 AM and the system just chugged along for about 5 minutes before it said no tickets matched my preference criteria. Of course, I had no preferences. Then it offered the TicketsNow link. I had never heard of this outfit. But the show is my girlfriend’s birthday present, so I went for it. Instead of 98 bucks per seat, I paid 305 dollars per ticket, plus a 46 dollar service charge on each ticket, and then 15 bucks for shipping. I thought I got great seats in Verizon’s section 101, only to read the TicketsNow fine print which informs you that you actually get “comparable or better” tickets, whatever that means. So I guess I don’t know what I’ve got for my $716.45 order until it ships to me about 10 days before the show. Congress needs to get on this and artists need to say ‘enough already’ !!

“How can they be the original distributor for millions of tickets AND own a ticket scalping website without there being a HUGE conflict of interest?”

A crime, yes. A conflict of interest? Not from their side as they make money on the original sale And 15% commision on the resale at TicketsNow.com. Sorry Bruce, looks like I’ll be staying home this time.

I tried to buy tickets for the LI and/or NJ shows from 9am-10:30am and got the “routine maintenance” message. That problem was not just “minutes” as Ticketmaster claims.I can’t beleive they have so many tickets available on their own scalping website. How can this be legal? I also went on e-bay at 11:00am and tickets were already available from a seller in Canada! I’ve been to many Bruce concerts and never had this experience with ticket sales. It seems you can’t get concert or sporting event tickets today without dealing with these “ticket brokers”. This is getting out of control. I hope Bruce and other performers look into this problem.
Help the fans who REALLY want
to see you, and stop the people who
are buying these tickets just to turn a profit!

The problem definitely did not last a few minutes. It went on for hours with no option to buy regular prices tickets. I buy concert tickets from ticketmaster all the time but lately things have changed. There was a similar problem with Paul Simon tickets at the Beacon.

I got screwed in Los Angeles. I was logged onto the Ticketmaster site before 10 and kept refreshing and as soon as the “Find Tickets” came on I submitted a request for 2 Any Price/Best Available tickets. I was made to wait for about 10 mins and then was informed that no matches were found…And linked to TicketsNow

TICKETMASTER SUCKS.
this should not have happened. it is monoply at its finest. It is ridiculous. I want to see my hero sing, and now i cant because of “maintence”.
Please, lets hope, Bruce plays another night for his true fans.
and think about getting another ticket seller.
boycott ticketmaster !

I was on a desktop, laptop, telephone and iPhone trying to get Bruce tix in four different venues: Jersey, Philly, DC, and Pittsburgh. I kept getting the “maintenance” error, busy signals, and redirected to TicketsNow. I was on at 9:45 until 10:30 and did not get any tickets. The closest I came was putting in 1 ticket for Pittsburgh and it a ticket BEHIND THE STAGE popped up for the $89 price. Needless to say, I didn’t buy it. Saddest part is that everytime TM said “no tickets to match my request” (2 any price/any location)the TicketsNow had all kinds of tickets on the sidebar – starting at $215 for peanut heaven. What a racket.

In response to the person from San Jose, I too tried to buy tickets for San Jose and I was sent to ticektsnow. So it was happening here too.

What do I do now?My dream of showing Bruce in his hometown ruined and I spent all the morning on the ticketmaster’s webpage…Boicot to ticketmaster!

Luckily for me, Ottawa has it’s own ticket company. Scotiabank Place hosts all the concerts here, and probably 10 years ago, they dumped ticketmaster and opened their own ticketing website for all the events at the arena. I have to say, I have always got good seats to everything I have attended there. If you are online when tickets go onsale, you will get decent seats. They also cancel any tickets they find being resold online. Why don’t more places do this? We also don’t have to pay the crazy fees that ticketmaster charges. There are fees, but it’s a $10 ‘convenience fee,’ and $1 to ship you your tickets. That’s it, that’s all. I don’t know why more arenas and theatres haven’t done this and dumped the crooks at Tickemaster.

The 4/3 Glendale,AZ show – My wife was redirected to Tickets Now on Monday 2/2 before 10:05 AM – less than 5 minutes after tickets went on sale. She paid $220 each, including service charges, for $95 tickets. Ticketmaster makes three large service fees on these tickets in five minutes.

TicketMaster Sucks — Never again! I filed a complaint with the California Attorney General and sent the following to TM:

To: Irving Azoff, CEO, Ticketmaster Entertainment

Dear Sir:

Just like Bruce Springsteen, I am furious for having been defrauded into buying tickets from your reseller for the Springsteen Concert in LA for 4/15/09. What transpired amounts to consumer fraud!

I was on the web site at 10:00 a.m. on 2/2/09 when tickets went on sale. I went to buy tickets from Ticketmaster, locked them in and then was dropped and somehow got redirected to something called TicketsNow. I was forced into a reseller owned by Ticketmaster without my even knowing it and ended up overpaying for tickets that were available at face value when I first logged in. I have 2 General Admission Tickets that should be $95.00 each instead of the outrageous $178 that I paid along with FedEx (which I didn’t want) and higher than normal service charges. I wanted to buy 4 tickets but couldn’t afford over $800. I wonder how many fans chose to pass up the concert because they ended up being directed to a site where the tickets, unbeknownst to us fans, had been marked up almost 100%? My total should have been around $200 instead of $424.25. I want a refund of what I paid as this is the most outrageous unfair business practice I have ever encountered. I look forward to your prompt reply.

Same experience with Ticketmaster.ca Thought I had 2 Springsteen tickets for his Toronto show until I tried to checkout. I filled in my address until I came to “Choose your country from the list” Guess what? No “Canada”. It didn’t exist!!! No matter what I tried, Canada did not exist. I got “timed out” and lost the tickets. I cannot believe this was some kind of computer glitch. I tried again but of course all tickets were gone. I found I could buy the same tickets on Tickets.now for a mere 2 1/2 times the original price. I can’t believe the performers (and government)allow this to happen. They need to take some responsibility!! They would stand a better (and faster) chance of changing things. After all, it’s the fans that keep them in business!!

This happened on MANY occasions. Not just for Bruce. This is the complaint to the Department of Justice Anti-Trust Division I filed 2 days prior to the Springsteen situation:
January 31, 2009

To Whom It May Concern:

This letter is intended to bring attention to what I, and many other concerned consumers, believe to be a company blatantly in violation of the anti-trust laws of The United States of America. I know that this company has been reported and challenged in the past with no action being taken to prevent continuing abuse of consumers. To make this as easy to follow as possible, I will use your guidelines:

The company being reported is Ticketmaster™ and their ticket brokerage site, Ticketsnow.com.
They have exclusive ticket resale contracts with 90% of the nation’s arenas and amphitheaters, 70% of all clubs and small theaters. This makes it nearly impossible for any live entertainment event to be ticketed at competitive pricing and fees for the consumer. Furthermore, when an event is sold out, the consumer is immediately directed to Ticketsnow.com to purchase ticket from brokers at a markup. These markups are often 100% to 300%+ higher than the original face value of the ticket.
To give a specific example of this, Dave Matthews Band tickets went on sale January 17, 2009 at 10 AM P.S.T.. Myself and a large collective group of fans eagerly awaited the public on sale time. Within seconds, the event had sold out. This in itself was not a surprise to any of us. The biggest surprise was that within those first 30 seconds of the tickets being offered to the public, we were directed to Ticketsnow.com and there were the best tickets in the best sections of the arena for sale for over $1,000.00. For a $70.00 ticket! I am not sure how you could buy the tickets and post them for resell at over 1500% markup in a matter of 20-30 seconds. Ticketmaster™ buying out and owning Ticketsnow.com seems to be a conflict of interest and a violation of Anti-Trust Law. When a ticket is purchased through Ticketmaster™, there are outrageous fees right away by means of a convenience charge (They are the only ticketing agency so there is no convenience, you HAVE to buy through them), there is a facility charge ( money they pay the facility to keep their contracts), there is a order processing charge ( again, you HAVE to go through them), and finally a shipping and ticketing charge ( or you can have them email you the tickets and you can print them out which costs them nothing but you still have to pay a fee for that as well). Now they can sell the tickets to a broker and receive all of the fees up front and have the broker list the tickets on Ticketsnow.com and receive and extra 10-25% charge on each ticket. But now instead of making those fees on a face value ticket, they make the fee on a ticket sold for hundreds of dollars more.

Here is an example:

2 tickets to Dave Matthews Band

Face Value of Ticket – $69.30 x 2

Convenience Charge – $8.00 x 2

Order Processing Charge – $3.15

Ticketing Charge – $5.00

Total Charges – $162.75

Ticketmaster™ Profit – $24.15 or about 20% markup from face value.

Now those same 2 tickets sold to a broker can be resold on Ticketsnow.com for $1.391.00 per ticket. If Ticketsnow.com charges the seller 10% and the buyer 15% they make 25% on the total order.

2 tickets to Dave Matthews Band

Face Value of Ticket – $1,391.00 x 2

10% Charge to seller – $278.20

15% Charge to buyer – $417.30

Total Charges – $3477.5

Ticketmaster™ Profit – $24.15 for Original Fees

$695.50 for Ticketsnow.com Fees

Total Profit – $719.65

From a pair of tickets that had a face value of $138.60. Now I understand that the brokers on Ticketsnow.com can resell the tickets for whatever price they want and that is not directed by Ticketmaster™. However, why wouldn’t they want the best tickets, which can resell for the highest amount, getting into the hands of brokers that resell on Ticketsnow.com?

The service that is affected by this is the live entertainment business. Normal fans do not stand a chance anymore of going to see their favorite band or sports team and getting decent seats without having to buy them on the secondary market at a premium. As well as being forced to compete with Ticketmaster™ and its affiliate brokers to get tickets at face value. Almost every live entertainment ticket bought in the United States has to be purchased through Ticketmaster™ with no evidence of alternative means of ticketing. They have the monopoly on live event ticketing.
If Live Nation splits from their partnership with Ticketmaster™, it would be the only possible competitor. As of right now there is no competition.
I am just a concerned consumer that is fed up with the monopolistic ticketing agency Ticketmaster™ not being looked at with the same attention given to other monopolies like AT&T or Microsoft.
The people that this affects are the normal people who want to enjoy live entertainment without having to pay though the nose for tickets. I know there will always be a supply and demand in effect for live entertainment. But, if there were more alternatives to Ticketmaster™ for buying tickets, at least more people that aren’t professional ticket brokers could buy seats for a decent price.

Best Regards,

Kyle Cooper

I have been going to concerts since 1981 and I remember when you could first use the phone to call in and get tickets, you could only start calling in to buy the tickets a full 2 hours after they went on sale at ticket locations and the venue.

These venues have no balls at all, I was in Houston on Sat., the Bruce tickets went on sale at 10 am. I showed up at the Toyota Center where the concert is going to be at 9:40 only to be told tickets will not go on sale there until Monday morning!!!!!

I drove to a Randalls (Grocery Store) and bought the tickets there, there was only one guy ahead of me in line. We both got lower level seats for face value, he bought 1 pair, then after I bought mine he bought another pair.

Something needs to be done, the freaking venues need to be the only place that sells the tickets when they first sell them. Then a day or 2 later let people call or use the computer, this crap hardly ever happened in the 80’s!!!!!

I tried to get tickets from 1001 am till 10 45 am for the verizon center concert 2/2 … only to be redirected to ticket now for 4 seats best available, 2 seats best available, and 1 seat best available….. laughing because this place has 20k seats and there was NO WAY all seats were gone that fast without something ILLEGAL happening…. I went to 1 of the other 4 venues…. and got through by phone…. to the University Park ticket office…. my kids and I are in the rafters… 4 rows back but we only paid 462.00 for 4 seats….. I’ll never use TICKETMASTER again or visit venues with unfair legalized scalping practices……..

Ticketmaster MUST GO !!

I tried to buy phish tickets at exactly the time they went on sale. i had 2 seats and the network failed and i lost them.
more recently, the leonard cohen show in nyc also was a disaster thanks to ticketmasters complete mishandling. the minute sales opened the tickets were gone and they were on ebay and stubhub for 4 – 10 times the face value. this is truly disgusting.
where are all the antiestablisment baby boomers? why are we supporting ticketmaster, stubhub and the bands who do business with them? we are not going to jones beach or whatever its called anymore, to start…

Same thing in SJ. Noticed right away that Ticketmaster had much better tickets and much more expensive tickets with their other company immediately after tickets went on sale. Despite starting right at 10, we have behind the stage seats because that is the closest we could find (2 tickets). It all felt very shady and sneaky.

The system is set up to screw the public. Its a scam, we should boycott these events until a fair and equitable system is in place. The artists themselves should take control of this instead of burying their heads in the cash they make.Unfortunately I fear all you lemmings will still keep putting up with this.

I tried to order tickets from ticket master for the laser floyd shoy in NYC, the tickets were allegedly sold out. I get detoured to Ticketnetwork ticket and suites, I paid 27 dollars more per ticket. I also got hit with an overnight delivery charge, when I checked standard mail( i did not get the tickets until 24 hours later–not exactly overnight. This was also in addition to the $9.20 convenience charge. I find out today that the tickets are NOT SOLD OUT and I could have gotten better tickets from the Nokia Theater in NYC. This is an outrage, and is un ethical. I am disappointed in the conduct ticket master. its funny the tickets say TICKETMASTER, isn’t scalping illegal????/

I paid $385.25 for 2 tickets to the Bruce Springsteen San Jose concert at HP pavilion, April 1st 2009!(For a ticket price of only $95 ticket + service charge of $48.30 and shipping $14.95!)And that too for behind the stage tickets! I had gone online the day the tickets were made available on 2/2/09 and kept being redirected to Ticketsnow constantly for even tickets which within seconds of seeming available would show as unavailable and I feel cheated, but ended up ordering at the above price at double their face value!!
I learned only recently of the type of scalping practiced by Ticketsnow for Ticketmaster. Is there any way of having Ticketsnow pay me back the difference? I feel there should be some way FTC, DOJ and Rep. Bill Pascrell ( I found that there is a blogspot saying that he is investigating Ticketsnow?) can help those of us cheated by this scam!
Thank you for your work in this regard.
Madhu

Here’s a new twist. I was one of those who was redirected to ticketsnow at just minutes 10:00 on 2/2 when tickets went on sale and ended up buying two for the DC concert at double face value plus all those added fees. I got a call this week from ticketsnow saying that they sold more tickets than they actually had, and I could either get a refund or better seats at another venue (Hershey or somewhere in Virginia). Lesson learned — that’s the last time I buy any tickets from either company.

On 2/3/09 at 10 am my husband attempted to buy Bruce Springsteen tickets to Verizon Center May 18 and was redirected to tickets now where we paid $525 for two tickets “comparable or better, to be delivered after 5/3″ according to the tickets now confirmation. Today on 5/6 we were informed by ticketsnow that they did not have our tickets. They would either give us tickets to see the concert in Hershey PA plus hotel and gas money or refund our $525. In the meantime they held our money for three months knowing they weren’t going to make good on the sale. We won’t be buying anything again from tickets now and maybe not for Bruce Springsteen again.

I purchased Bruce Springsteen tickets at the Times Union Center for May 14 as a birthday present for my husband. I was redirected to Tickets Now where I paid, what I later learned, was more than face value for two tickets. They were guaranteed to be “comparable or better.” Now after calling Tickets Now to see where my tickets are, I learned we can get inferior tickets and a slight discount. Their “reseller” didn’t come through, but the interest on my money came through for Tickets Now. The Attorney General needs to look closely at Ticket Master and their Tickets Now subsiderary.

Fraud! Same story as many others. Bought tickets in first minutes available. Apparently bounced to ticketsnow (which IS ticketmaster), bought at $300 (face value). COuld later get only $100 tickets AND were told afterwards no rtefund. So they screw up and we end up with grossly inferior seats worth 1/3 as much. I don’t think so, and my wasted time is adding up. TicketBast*rd.

There are options in the ticketing world… but we need to let bands know we need them to work with other ticketing services. Brown Paper Tickets charges like $1.99 total as a service fee. That’s gonna create competition as more producers switch.