Ticketmaster settlement will be good for concert goers, especially club acts
Posted 5 months ago by jackl - 11 comments Link: http://phi.sh/b/4ef09f80
"In the last few weeks, nearly every warm-blooded American who’s ponied up for a big-ticket event in the 21st century has received an email alerting them to a proposed settlement of a lawsuit against Ticketmaster few had ever heard of.
Particularly in the wake of Ticketmaster’s controversial merger with concert promoter Live Nation two years ago, the near-monopolist has earned a poor reputation for its high online purchase fees and bad relationships with venues and consumers. While the settlement may offer a measure of public retribution for its unhappy customers, it’s not going to line their pockets—but it might be a wake-up call for a troubled industry."
-Good magazine (12/13/11)
According to the net magazine "Good" (familiar to Starbucks customers who use the wi-fi service at their store networks), the Ticketmaster class action lawsuit will be good for consumers. If you bought any online TM tickets between 1999 and 2011, you should have already received an email or several in the past few weeks explaining the somewhat confusing small credits you will receiving as long as you don't "opt out" of the class action settlement (which you do by simply doing nothing -- you theoretically might have an opportunity to bring your own separate lawsuit against TM, which is obviously a far-fetched idea).
It's not so much that the small $1.50 discounts on the next 17 tickets that you buy through TM (and the $3 credits for express UPS shipping if you did that), but that the lawsuit settlement will allow more competition into the online ticket sales arena, generally lowering those too damn high "convenience" (service) charges and advance delivery charges through robust competition among a number of smaller, scrappier ticket selling companies. This will be especially helpful for advance sales of smaller acts in clubs, where TM "convenience fees" and advance mail requirements often approach or exceed the modest costs of the $10 - 30 tickets themselves.
More information in the Good article here about the good implications for fans on overall bottom line ticket prices in the future.
Comments
It may have gone in your spam filter. They may still be sending them out.
You can go to this website if you changed your email address from what you may have used in the past to get the ticket orders:
http://ticketfeelitigation.com/ (see the sidebar, there's contact information too)
and
http://ticketfeelitigation.com/docs/Email_Notice.pdf
when i first read it i was actually insulted. oh great, i get a buck fit-y discount (max 17) when i choose to do business with them again, rather than a cumulative amount for the dozens of transactions i've made over the years? no thanks. what a backhanded restitution. think i'll just not do business with them any more.
as far as i see it, the only way to combat this monopoly is to not give them your money. not realistic, i know, since a vast majority of the venues the band plays are in on this scam. hey redlight/capshaw, i do think you've done some good with phish 3.0, but i was never really happy to have you managing the band in the first place & would urge you to be proactive against this nonsense. too bad you're also part of the machine...
trey at heinz hall will be awesome though
The point of the article is that the lawsuit also opened up the industry to more competition, so service charges will tend to be lower in the future. This should be a bigger savings overall to people than the small rebates TM will offer its email customers for tickets they bought over the past 12 years.
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