PreferredSeat.com Blog

Live Nation and Ticketmaster are going to forgo service fees for the month of June on all concerts, at all the amphitheaters they operate, in order to stem the flow of criticism and sell some tickets. Concert tours have been flopping left and right lately including the cancellation of Christina Aguilera’s tour and several tour dates by the Eagles, the Country Throwdown tour and others.

It may be that the Live Nation and Ticketmasters idea to jack up all the ticket prices to scalper prices isn’t going to fly with concert fans as the market gets flooded with acts trying to get in on the act.

Michael Rapino of Live Nation was quoted recently “Our fundamental belief at Ticketmaster/Live Nation,” he said, “is [that] the answer to grow our business is less about trying to make $5 or $6 million in service fees off secondaries and much more important to figure out how to capture that $1 billion in up-sell on the face value of tickets.”

In other words, we don’t need to have service fees if we’ve already jacked up the price of tickets high enough and hidden all the fees into the face value of the ticket. The Aerosmith tour is going on sale this week and with a face value of $190 a ticket before service charges, it appears the service fees are may have already been included in the price of the ticket.

So now they are trying to pull a public relations move by eliminating the service fees, that they may have already starting including in the face value of the already overpriced tickets. With the outrageous face values of concert tickets today, you cannnot tell.

The Jonas Brothers are selling tickets 14 rows from the stage for $276 per ticket, and Nick Jonas said they are going to help out, “With the tough economy, my brothers and I wanted to do something,” Nick Jonas says. “We have a close relationship with our fans, and this is one way to help them out.” (USA Today)  Try selling your tickets cheaper!

In the same article they mention that 40% of amphitheater tickets go unsold. So doesn’t it make sense that Live Nation and Ticketmaster don’t see that they have an overpriced product when  a large number of their fans are bitching about the cost to attend a concert, and showing it by not attending.

I say send them all to Vegas and buy your concert tickets from Preferred Seating Tickets!