adamyntium

Yet another reason why I hate Ticketmaster

My sis and I decided that it’d be fun to go see the musical Wicked, which is playing here in San Francisco. Granted, like most big-budget musicals nowadays, it comes with a painfully big-budget price ($85 for decent seats, plus surcharges). But this post isn’t about surcharge-bitching.

No, I’m furious that there’s no easy way for me to see what tickets are still available. Here’s the procedure:

1) Go to Ticketmaster site, search for “Wicked” and bookmark the appropriate page.

2) Click on a date and time.

3) Choose the number and type of tickets and hit submit.

4) Type in a captcha (code designed to foil bots). Wait up to a minute.

5) Be told there are no tickets available for that performance. Return to step 2.

Would it involve rocket science for Ticketmaster to enable a feature that lets me “Search for [x] tickets for a performance on the following dates and times” or “Search for [x] tickets for a performance between these two dates…”? I mean, that ~$10/ticket or so must be paying for something, right? Oops, forgot I wasn’t going to be complaining about their usurious ticket surcharges…

Bastards.

Oh, and did I mention that they want us to pay $2.50 per ticket to use our own printer paper and ink printing out tickets… but will pay postage and labor and material costs to print out tickets and mail ’em to us? Aaaaaaaaaaaagh!

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Adam Lasnik

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12 responses to “Yet another reason why I hate Ticketmaster”

  1. GM Avatar
    GM

    Hi,

    It would be better to call Ticketmaster and ask the agent to preform a “Mastersearch” which searches the best seats for the whole range of dates for an event.

    Good luck on finding 2 seats side by side for Wicked It’s a very very popular show, and the best seems to be scattered seats.You might get lucky though! 🙂

    Reply
  2. Michele Timm Avatar
    Michele Timm

    Hi Adam,
    It’s been a very long time…  I couldn’t help but make a comment since I am employed at StubHub – TickeMaster’s rival.  Well not exactly, since we sell secondary tickets but never-the-less, you can find tickets to most events on stubhub.com.  There is a hefty fee but on the other hand you get to chose the tickets you want (all at different prices).  For what it’s worth check out our site.  I wanted to say hello and that I miss talking to you.  I hope all is well.

    Reply
  3. J. Avatar
    J.

    This is now listing #2 in Google under “I hate ticketmaster”.  $8.50 for a $22.50 Broken Social Scene ticket.  $%$#%$#%$#%

    Reply
  4. Frank Avatar
    Frank

    On Nov 1st I ordered tickets for the Radio City Christmas Spectacular on Sun Nov 20th.  On the 10th I received an email stating my tickets had been printed and mailed.  When Fri the 18th rolled around and no tickets arrived I just had to call.  The customer rep at Ticketmaster assured me my tickets were mailed on Nov 10th ….hmmmm.  They could have been mailed from Hawaii and still arrived by now.  To make a long story short….today is Nov 23rd and guess what just arrived in the mail today?
    The tickets I had to get replacements for last weekend.  Here’s the best part ….the freaking idiots mailed me tickets postmarked Nov21st for a show that already took place on the 20th.  What f%&$#@g idiots they are.

    Reply
  5. Ryan Avatar
    Ryan

    Actually i think it would be bset if you called ticketmaster and tell them they suck dick…it be a lot more fun too

    Reply
  6. Marc Avatar
    Marc

    “TicketBastard” is sueing StubHub, among others, for selling their “official premium tickets” to the public even though they are the official ticket provider.  Additionally, they don’t like StubHub and others “threatening” to move future concerts to other venues (presumably to venues without contracts with TicketBastard) if they don’t make some of the tickets available to them.

    Let me paraphrase:
    We, TicketBastard, do not want anybody infringing on our monopoly of tickets that we have contrated with venue sites for.

    If the venues are bending to the demands (er “threats”) of other ticket providers, then TicketBastard should be sueing the venues, not the competition.

    It makes me laugh to see the TicketBastard scumbags fight like rabid dogs for their sole right to finacially rape the public.

    Reply
  7. Doug Avatar
    Doug

    I refuse to use TicketBastard.  I will drive miles out of my way to buy tickets without their damn extortion charge at the box office.  The last straw was when they would not return the extortion money when the band canceled their tour.  I figure, if the band canceled and TicketBastard wants their money get it from the band not the consumer!!!

    Reply
  8. Jeff Avatar
    Jeff

    If you love spam, and enjoy sorting junk mail for recycling, buy just one ticket from TicketMaster.  About siz years ago, I bought baseball tickets from these swine, and they REQUIRED me to answer many survey questions BEFORE they would sell me the tickets.  I swore then to never buy tickets from them again.  This summer I caved, doing someone a favor.  I don’t know how long it will take me to shed all the unsolicited junk that now comes my way.  NEVER AGAIN – and this time I mean it.

    Reply
  9. Search Quality Tickets Avatar
    Search Quality Tickets

    Find latest Reviews on online sports tickets, broadway tickets, concert tickets, theater tickets, event tickets, NFL, NBA, Hockey Tickets and more???.

    Reply
  10. BobG Avatar
    BobG

    I created and alternative website that is great and friendly and helps many groups across the country.  Our service are FREE for organizations and our fees to customers are very low, but it is difficult to change the minds of these larger venues to use other groups.

    It will take consumers to stop using the service and demand other services like ours.  Check us out at http://www.MyCommunityTickets.com.
    Cheers

    Reply
  11. rick Avatar
    rick

    i work at ticket master and u have no idea whats it like working for a company where literally every customer lies about this and that…u people think by yelling it will help whatever situation,u have or better yet what is it u people dont understand about our policy..u make a purchase its yours regardless if u use the tickets or not.and that’s it..im more of the good reps who makes sure i don’t get off the line until the jobs done but none the less u people find any little thing to complain about and act like we are capable of doing more then we can i cant begin to tell u how many times a day people call thinking they can get free tickets

    there’s no free tickets or discounts for employees
    …but still the angry calls will always come and people will always demand free stuff and act like were all dumb who work there pshhh….let the bickering begin

    Reply
  12. Pete Avatar
    Pete

    I have not even read through the whole page, but I must say EVERY TIME I have tried to use Ticketmaster I have issues…I HATE TICKETMASTER! Sorry, but I needed somewhere to vent…I will not even attempt to use them for anything other than searching events ever again

    Reply

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