I like to call them "inconvenience charges."

Can't remember where or why I bought the tickets that chaged for a $4 convenience charge and then brought up the "these are your tickets, please print them!" screen.

I think it was a theater here in DC - possibly Wooly Mammouth, but I am not positive. It was a less than amusing experience.

It is time for an anti-trust action against Tickmaster. They really have gone too far with the $4 fee to e-mail your tickets. The charge to send your tickets via U.S. mail is less! I too scoff at the fees and try mightily to avoid buying anything from them. Homecoming tickets at my out of state alma mater? I try to buy them through the booster club. Savion Glover in town? My friends and I arrange for one of us to make the box office run in person. But often there is no way to avoid the monster.

Remember, back in the grunge music era, when a few bands tried to defy Ticketmaster by refusing to play in arenas where the company controlled ticket sales? That caused major bands to have to play in second-rate or small venues but I think it's time for another revolt.

Tickets.com handles Nationals tickets nowadays.

From what I've been told by someone in the business (admittedly, Ticketmaster has a different system for nonprofit groups): the exact amount of the fees is not set by Ticketmaster. There are minimum fees, yes, but some of that money goes to the venue rather than Ticketmaster.

If you book frequently, you'll notice that not all venues, even for-profit venues, have the exact same convenience charges. This is because some are making more money than others.

My biggest annoyance, though, is the lack of service for my money - back in the day, you could essentially back your way out of a transaction in order to cycle through various available seats, often getting something on the side but vastly closer to the stage. Not anymore - even with two browsers going, you can only really get to two sets of seats rather than seven minutes worth of options. So many of these venues don't have a phone room and the guy in Dallas in the Ticketmaster phoneroom really can only select the same seats you can get on the internet. It's nearly impossible to get them to check alternate availability.

Steve, There is an interesting story behind your story. You might want to look at how much Ticketmaster kicks back to the venue. I have always thought this was illegal but it goes on.

tickets.com. Ticketmaster. Both stink.

I bought two tickets for a show next week for my girlfriend. The face value of the tickets was $25. The service charge was $6(!!) per ticket. Final charge: $62.

Ridiculous.

You make me tired.

I can't tell if you think Ticketmaster should do what it does for free, or if you think $40 is too much to pay to avoid flying to New Orleans to buy tickets at the venue, but either way you're not getting much sympathy from me. Whether you can get tickets without a surcharge is up to the promoter or venue, so if you're bitter about Ticketmaster being your only remote option for buying tickets, blame the folks who contracted with them and chose to sell the tickets that way. Would you be happier if Jazzfest didn't offer a remote purchase option at all?

Ticketmaster and similar companies provide a service, they incur costs in doing it, and they expect to be paid for it...just like EVERY OTHER for-profit venture in the universe. The only reason you're whining is because you think you're in the position to know how much money Ticketmaster is making and you think it's "too much." If the processing and other administrative charges were built into the ticket price, you'd have no way of knowing how much of it went Ticketmaster v. the venue v. the promoter v. the artist. And what makes you so sure your grocer, your drycleaner, your book store, your phone company, etc. are charging you less than "a nice 30% surcharge"?

No venue or promoter is obliged to sell through Ticketmaster or Tickets.com or whoever, they do it because it's a great deal for them: they are spared the technical and administrative nightmare of ticket distribution, and the ticketing company takes all the grief.

How much do you want to bet the above poster ("Z") is a Ticketmaster employee?

You want to hear a bunch of grief? Take a quick stop by the fan forums at ThePoliceTour.com. TM has instituted a bunch of steps to stop ticket scalping, but conveniently for them, one of the steps is auctioning off front-row tickets themselves and taking home a wad of cash.

Eliot Spitzer went after them a few years ago, click the following link

http://tinyurl.com/yc7mga

for an excellent summary of his case against them. Too bad nobody with any power nowadays is doing squat for consumer protections, on this or anything else (they're too busy handing credit card companies the right to charge you 30% interest. Hm. What is it with this 30% number?)

Another good article I found while Googling:

http://tinyurl.com/2covob

Poster "Z" does not make a valid point. The problem with Ticketmaster - enabling them to charge a rip-off price - is that by arrangement with the venue, they have a MONOPOLY on the sale of the tickets. I believe in the free market, but not in monopoly power.

To charge a couple of bucks per ticket, sure who would object to that. Like you say, everyone's in business to make a profit. But markups and extra charges like Hendrix describes - and these are quite typical of Ticketmaster's add-ons - are just an outrage.

And here's what I really do NOT understand. If I want to buy an airline ticket on-line, there is no extra charge. (In fact, I recently found that if I want to buy the same ticket by phone, the airline charges $10 extra, but on-line there's NO extra charge). If I want to book a room at Holiday Inn, or rent a car, there's no "convenience charge" or "order processing fee." Heck, if I want to buy a book on Amazon.com or audio equipment at MusiciansFriend.com or clothes via LL Bean's website -- there is NO extra charge or processing fee. Sure, there might be a shipping charge - but we're talking about shipping objects that WEIGH something, not a paper ticket that fits in a 39-cent envelope. And in fact, with all the competition, some of the big retailers offer free shipping as an incentive. Why? Because there IS competition in the sale of these items.

Not so with Ticketmaster. In fact, they will even charge you extra if you want to PRINT YOUR OWN TICKET on-line. Dig -- it's my paper, its my inkjet cartridge, they save the time and money of mailing anything, the venue saves the expense of having me show up at their will-call window -- and yet, still, I pay for the "convenience."

There is something rotten in the state of Ticketmaster, for sure.

I used to work for a very small theatre company, and we used tickets.com to sell our tickets because they gave us free ticket stock and a ticket printer, they offered our customers 24/7 availability, and it was practically free. (It might have been completely free to us, in fact.) They did charge $2.50 per ticket sold plus a small per order charge, and we could have done what so many other venues and promoters do, which is make the ticket broker add those charges to the face value of the ticket. However, we thought that this was dirty pool. Since we required customers to buy a ticket, we felt that the price of the ticket should include, well, the ticket. So we asked tickets.com to sell the tickets at face value, and they deducted their fee from our check at settlement. Tickets.com got paid, but none of our customers ever paid a separate "convenience fee." There is no reason that every venue and promoter can't do this, and the fact that most of them choose not to is reason to be angry at the promoter or venue, since they are the ones who are choosing to, in effect, sell the tickets separately, like batteries.

Jazzfest is a general admission event using email rather than physical tickets. This is the least complicated set up for ticket sales, since there are no seats to assign and keep track of. There is no reason that Jazzfest couldn't take phone or Internet orders themselves, but they chose to use Ticketmaster. Why? Because Jazzfest doesn't have the staff to process the orders. Processing the orders costs money. But since Jazzfest is putting on the event, why shouldn't they be expected to pay all the associated costs? Isn't ticket distribution an integral part of putting on a ticketed event? The bottom line is that if Jazzfest can't afford to sell (meaning take and fulfill orders) tickets for $35/each, and obviously they can't, they have no business pricing tickets at $35/each. It's not that I am such a big fan of Ticketmaster et al, but promoters and venues have always had the ability to make the "convenience fee" problem disappear by pricing their tickets to include the costs of distribution, and they refuse to do it. Know who the enemy is, people.

bumper, you make me even more tired.

FYI, I don't work for Ticketmaster, or one of its competitors, or one of its contracted venues, or any part of the sports/entertainment complex. I am just an ordinary person who happens to think that there is way too much emphasis on the $5 profit Ticketmaster makes on a $10 convenience charge, and way too little emphasis on who's getting rich off the $200 concert ticket that doesn't include the ticket. I'd be willing to bet there are more entertainers and athletes on Forbes's "Highest Paid" list than there are people who work for ticket agencies. You are deceived if you think Ticketmaster has some kind of supernatural power over the helpless venues and promoters; Ticketmaster gets rich selling tickets with the blessing and assistance of the venues and promoters, many of whom profit handsomely from the association.

And also FYI, Eliot Spitzer's case was about scalping. It was NOT against Ticketmaster, it was against organizations and individuals, some of whom worked at Ticketmaster outlets (like record stores) who were buying large quantities of high-demand tickets and reselling them at huge markups, i.e. scalping.

SJH, I'm sorry you don't agree with me, but my point that Ticketmaster is in business to make a profit is perfectly valid. Your charge that they are making "too much" profit because they are a monopoly is sort of silly, since a) you don't have any idea how much profit they're actually making, and b) in America, there is no such thing at "too much profit." Oil companies and military body armor suppliers make WAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaay more profit than whatever Ticketmaster is making.

And Ticketmaster is not a monopoly. They have competitors (tickets.com, stubhub), and of course venues can always sell their own tickets. The Shakespeare Theatre, to name one, fulfills all its ticket orders in-house.

And if venues choose to use Ticketmaster, shouldn't you be just as angry at them? Or don't you think they entered into the agreement willingly? Such agreements undoubtedly exist, and they just as undoubtedly benefit both parties. Ticketmaster and the venues are in bed together, and if you think Ticketmaster's getting a bigger slice of that pie, you're wrong.

(And you're also wrong if you think you're getting some kind of really great deal when you order online. You have NO IDEA what Amazon or Musician's Friend or LL Bean paid for the merchandise you're buying; for all you know, you're paying five times their cost with a smile on your face just because you got free shipping.)

It bugs me that a ticket advertised by the venue as $100 actually costs $120. It bugs me that venues work with Ticketmaster without offering their customers a surcharge-free alternative. (It is IMPOSSIBLE to buy a Birchmere ticket at face value, no matter where or when you buy it. Can't be done.) It bugs me that Ticketmaster charges go up with the ticket price, since I doubt that it costs them more to sell me a $25 ticket than it does to sell me a $125 ticket. But the truth is still that no one is obliged to pay Ticketmaster a dime, which is why people that do and complain about it work my nerves. If you think they're too expensive, stop using them. If that means you'll miss a show you really wanted to see, you should maybe start to question who sets the ticket price and decides how they will be sold.

Is Ticketmaster going to to handle the FREE tickets for Ozfest this year? If so, it'll be interesting so so how 'free' these tickets will be.