Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 3/4/2009 (4387 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
It will be interesting to hear the fallout, if any, from Ticketmaster's experiment this morning when it puts Metallica tickets on sale.
The demonized ticket-selling giant is using Winnipeg as a Canadian test market, trying to overcome the bad PR (and interest from the legal community) it has earned for having rerouted concert fans to its own online ticket-scalping site.
The American heavy-metal band's Oct. 12 show at the MTS Centre is expected to sell out quickly. To stanch the flow of premium tickets to Internet scalpers, Ticketmaster is using a "paperless" system for the best 20 per cent of seats.
Fans lucky enough to beat the rush will not be issued tickets. Instead they will produce their credit cards as ID at the show.
It's an interesting idea. And you have to be impressed with the speed with which Ticketmaster is responding to its perceived evil doings.
Could you imagine, say, the federal government responding to the market so quickly over it inability to handle the demand for passports?
In the meantime, these paperless tickets may indeed cut into profit margin of scalpers. At the very least, Metallica speculators will get access to poorer seats, which won't be worth as much on the black market.
But this system still has flaws. You can't buy Metallica seats for your headbanger mother's birthday present and give her the tickets.
If you get through on your computer first and buy tickets for six friends, all of you will incur the hassle of meeting at a pre-arranged time to go through the gate together.
And if you've allowed your 16-year-old to use your credit card, you'll have to give it to him the night of the show. Etc., etc., etc.
The howls will continue, though on some levels Ticketmaster gets a bum rap. Yes, it has a near monopoly, but the job it performs -- distributing thousands of discrete items, in order, with 100 per cent accuracy -- is incredibly complex.
The company claims, by the way, that 50 per cent of its global inventory goes unsold. And when shows don't sell out, buying tickets online can be pleasant and efficient.
The online scalping issue has become a flashpoint because concert-goers already hate Ticketmaster for its obscene and inconsistent service charges. People assume that Ticketmaster pockets all these "convenience fees," whether they're $5 or $25 a ticket.
But these fees are the result of backroom negotiations between the performer's management, the venue and the promoter. These parties often can get a percentage kickback, to keep the face value of the ticket lower.
Ticketmaster is willing to appear to be the gouger, because this makes its primary customers happy. And, in truth, the ticket agent does assume the least risk if a show fails at the box office.
But the system is crazy. Does Amazon, for example, add a "convenience fee" on top of its shipping charge when it sells a book for Random House? For that matter, does Superstore tack on a convenience fee to the sticker price of the carrots it sells for Peak of the Market? No, in all other retail industries (well, except airlines) the extra costs are built into the final price. Surely the concert industry should move in this direction.
As well, there have to be even better mechanisms to deal with scalping. If the market commands $500 for a floor seat to Metallica, the money should go to the band, not to some sleazeball in a digital trench coat.
Why can't online buyers be asked to register their names, and those of all their friends they've bought for?
Then you need only a driver's licence or a student card for ID. Yes, it's more cumbersome than the current free-for-all, and it has the unfortunate side-effect of making concert tickets into official documents like passports.
But it could be worse. The federal government could be in charge.
morley.walker@freepress.mb.ca
TicketsNow attacked in poll
ALMOST half of Canadian concertgoers believe Ticketmaster is price-gouging through its website TicketsNow.com.
A new Angus Reid poll reveals 49 per cent of Canadian concertgoers call TicketsNow, a website owned by Ticketmaster, a "veiled attempt by Ticketmaster to get more money from concertgoers that should be shut down."
TicketsNow.com offers tickets at higher prices from licensed brokers and individual sellers. A class-action lawsuit filed in Toronto alleges Ticketmaster "conspired to divert tickets to popular events" from its main website to TicketsNow.
The Angus Reid poll also finds a third of Canadians, over the past year, purchased their concert tickets through Ticketmaster, and half of all concertgoers don't approve of a website selling tickets at a premium price.
A large portion (44 per cent) of Canadian concertgoers are ambivalent about TicketsNow. However, negative opinions of Ticketmaster's sister site outnumber any positive opinions by a seven-to-one margin, and only seven per cent of the concert-going public are in favour of TicketsNow, according to the poll.
-- Canwest News Service