Online ticketing - charges

[cricketfieldclarets]

Anyone any idea how and why ticketmaster (and the like) charge fees for tickets you buy yourself online?

Bought some tickets for an event later this year and there is:

£2.60 per ticket 'service charge'
£1.50 per booking 'handling fee'


Confused as to what these are given I booked these myself and they are e tickets!

Surely they already make their cut from the events themselves?

Individually not a great amount. But when you buy lots of tickets (and they sell millions) surely this almost a scam!?

[Leisure]

You fishin' again James!

[cricketfieldclarets]

You fishin' again James!

No, going to a rave.

[claret wizard]

Just a guess but I imagine that the first charge is a "service charge" and the other charge is a "handling fee".

Your presumption that they take a cut from the ticket themselves is exactly that, a presumption.

Previously they didn't used to publish these charges separately, and did just to have a flat fee, but because people complained about paying a fee above the ticket face value they now break them out.

The fees are there to cover the cost of their IT operation, servers, hosting fees, connectivity and security solutions. The amount of investment these companies make is vast, they are constantly under cyber attack and have to put mechanisms in place to stop the touting industry. They also have charges above and beyond for using creditcards, paypal or whatever payment method they take, and various charges for moving the funds around.

They also still employ a lot of staff, OK, they don't mail tickets out but they do need manual intervention to load tickets, configure concert venues and liaise with artists reps etc

In the past you'd have to have taken a day off work, drive to the venue and queue up for tickets (i remember those days), or take the lottery of actually phoning up and talking to a real person relaying on the amount of operators a venue might have put on that day.

I've no worries about paying a little extra as the service is far better than it was previously.

[ŽižkovClaret]

mechanisms in place to stop the touting industry.

They ARE a decent proportion of the touting industry

https://www.nme.com/news/music/ticket-m ... me-2381649
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/ ... s-concerts

[theroyaldyche]

No, going to a rave.

Smarties on tap

[durhamclaret]

We should be really thankful to BFC for our online ticketing service
NO service charges
NO booking fees
NO postage fees
Well done BFC, long may it continue!

[Devils_Advocate]

In the past you'd have to have taken a day off work, drive to the venue and queue up for tickets (i remember those days), or take the lottery of actually phoning up and talking to a real person relaying on the amount of operators a venue might have put on that day.

Yep remember skipping college and getting the X43 to Manchester, walking from the centre to the Apollo (asking directions as we went along) and queuing up to get Stone Roses tickets for their 95 homecoming gig. Took up best part of the day and a lot of effort so a few quid handling fee is nothing

[Leisure]

We should be really thankful to BFC for our online ticketing service
NO service charges
NO booking fees
NO postage fees
Well done BFC, long may it continue!

Hope that people at the club read this and realise that some people do appreciate the service they give.