On 3 June, concert promoter Live Nation dropped the service fee on more than 5m concert tickets in a drive they call – funnily enough – "No Service Fee Wednesdays". Concerts included in the deal are Nickelback, Nine Inch Nails, Coldplay, the Killers and Depeche Mode.
But don't all run to your computer or nearest ticket office in the hope of taking advantage of this offer, because it's only available for US shows. Why? Because here in the UK, Live Nation has an exclusive deal with Ticketmaster (that is now being challenged), who decide what the booking fee should be, and they don't appear to want to give it up any time soon.
The service fee (also called booking fee) is what's added to the ticket price by the agent to "cover their costs". I understand that they need to cover the manpower, the credit card costs and the technology required to process my purchase, as well as make a reasonable profit. But how come the service fees can be anything from £2 to £15 per ticket? How can they justify a fee for printing out your own ticket, using your own ink and paper? Does it really cost four times as much to process a purchase of four tickets than a purchase of one? If it covers administrative costs, how come the charges are different for different artists playing the same venue? The answer to all these questions, according to some, is: the fee is calculated on the price of the ticket and much of it is used to cover the millons of pounds that Ticketmaster in effect pay venues (and promoters like Live Nation) to be their "preferred" ticket solution.
Let's look at the example of the O2, the most popular venue in the world. Last year, they sold over 1.8m tickets to different shows. Ticketmaster refused to comment on the specifics of their deals with venues but the rumour is that it cost them at least £1m a year to be the O2's preferred ticket agency (this may not be a straight fee – some believe such payments could be made in other forms, such as contributions to the venue's marketing costs). Such large payments would still be worth it considering the amount that would be made back in ticket sales.
I've talked to people in the music industry about this issue. Most of them want me to keep their identity secret when relaying their opinion, as they know how powerful Ticketmaster is and don't want to fall foul of the company. The manager of an arena-filling UK artist admitted it was infuriating that he's not able to keep the cost of tickets down for fans. "Ticketmaster can charge whatever they want for booking and transaction fees, and since they've got pretty much all the arenas locked up, my artist and I have to accept it or not tour at all."
A major UK agent (again, anonymous) says that Ticketmaster often makes more money than the artist from a concert, once the act's management has paid for the venue, promotion, sound and lights, road crew, transport, hotels etc. And, unlike Ticketmaster, if the gig doesn't sell out the artist risks losing money. "What the f*ck have they [Ticketmaster] risked?" says the agent. "They haven't risked a penny other than staffing. Manchester Arena had the highest booking fee on my artist's tour. Could I bring it down? No. 'f*ck off, we're the only arena in Manchester,' they said."
In 1994, Pearl Jam decided that they would not put up with this practice and took their dispute to Congress. In the end, the band had to cancel their tour in defiance, but the Justice Department decided against investigating Ticketmaster. Today, if you try to get tickets to Pearl Jam shows, guess who you have to buy them through? Ticketmaster.
Earlier in the year, Bruce Springsteen referred to an "abuse of fans" when he found that Ticketmaster, who have both a primary and secondary ticketing site, were directing fans trying to purchase tickets for two of his concerts to their secondary site (where tickets can cost up to $1,800). Ticketmaster blamed a computer glitch but ended up paying out a large settlement and promised to do better. In the meantime, nobody in the UK seems to even raise an eyebrow, even though Ticketmaster is housing GetMeIn (a secondary site that they now own) in their offices in London.
The government has initiated a consultation into ticketing practice, but has said they can't yet comment on the contents of the thousands of public submissions they've received. A Ticketmaster spokesman told MusicWeek: "We don't believe that extended legislation will offer an effective response to the issues surrounding the secondary market. Our strategy remains to offer our clients and consumers market-based solutions that deliver greater transparency."
Transparency is what I wish for, but I've yet to come across it when it comes to ticketing. Dave Chumbley at the Primary agency says that they've now started their own ticket website called Artistticket.com. "We do pre-sales and we aim to be the cheapest because we work directly with the artist and our deals with them are transparent. The fan can either come straight to us or through a link at our artist's website."
"There would not be a business without the artist," he continues. "When promoters own venues and with Ticketmaster owning the worlds largest management, as well as a secondary site, they're all doing deals. My attitude is: there isn't a ticket in existence until I confirm the show."
But once they exist, as with Michael Jackson's shows at the O2, Ticketmaster will be there to collect.
