Ticketmaster: We Know, You Hate Our Fees

Ticketmaster has finally acknowledged the seemingly obvious: that its service fees are annoying and cause some people to abandon the ticket-buying process entirely. In the company’s new blog, CEO Nathan Hubbard attributes the universal hatred of service fees to the fact that buyers “don’t understand what the heck they are for." So he goes on to break down who and what some of the fees go to: "promoters, venues, teams, artists and, yes, ticketing companies." He also unveils the company’s new plan to be more up-front about the fees.

Ticketmaster will now disclose some of the fees on the main ticket page, a change from the old—and irksome—practice of shielding them until the end of the ticket-buying process. Even so, the Los Angeles Times reports that a $30 ticket listed as $40.30 with fees included actually ends up costing $47.30, thanks to additional fees that can’t be determined “until we know how many tix are bought and shipping method chosen,” tweets company chief Irving Azoff. Azoff eventually wants “all-in” ticketing, meaning fixed prices for concert tickets (including those pesky fees, of course).