Is the curtain dropping on ‘hidden fees’ for concert tickets?
Is the curtain dropping on ‘hidden fees’ for concert tickets?
Two major ticketing companies say they’ll soon end the practice of tacking on so-called “hidden” fees to ticket prices. Instead, Ticketmaster and SeatGeek will be more transparent about the full price of a ticket up front. The moves come as the companies face pressure from the Biden Administration.
Maybe you’ve experienced this: You think you’re buying a concert ticket at one price, but when you get to the check out, there’s a whole bunch of fees added on. University of Miami Professor of Music Industry Serona Elton has been there.
“I even remember calling out to the other room, ‘Honey, I got tickets for $100. Whoa. Well, no, sorry. No, I was wrong. It’s $180. Not $100,'” said Elton.
The first price you see is what the artist is charging, Elton says. But the venue and the ticketing company want their cut too.
“Another way to think of them is that they actually are different slices of the total ticket cost pie,” said Elton.
Customers just didn’t know they had to pay for all those slices until they were near the end of the transaction. But now, that will be more clear from the start.
These moves are voluntary, but regulators have been scrutinizing the ticketing industry, says Steve Tadelis, an economics professor at UC Berkeley.
“These businesses understand that the writing’s on the wall, we might as well do it now voluntarily, instead of having it forced upon us,” said Tadelis.
Being more transparent could save some face for Ticketmaster; their parent company is reportedly facing an antitrust investigation.
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