smoke gets in your eyes

I ordered a pair of concert tickets the other day. Skydiggers at the Studio Theatre at Hamilton Place. Should be a great show. Small venue, excellent band. I am very excited. And at $27.50 a ticket, a great deal!


So the tickets arrived the other day and I just about fell over when I saw the receipt. $75.25 for two tickets. At $27.50 per ticket, how does the total end up being so high? Well here's a little lesson in math according to our good friends at Ticketmaster.

Face Value of tickets: $55.00
Facility Fees: $4.oo ($2/ticket)
Convenience Charges: $13.00 ($6.50/ticket)
Order Processing Fee: $3.25

I can understand the Order Processing Fee and the Facility Fee to a certain extent. But why am I paying $13.00 in Convenience Charges? What exactly is a Convenience Charge? Whose convenience are they talking about? Certainly not mine, I just paid $13.00 for no apparent reason!

Here is Ticketmaster's explanation, taken directly from their website:

Convenience Charge This fee covers costs that allow Ticketmaster to provide the widest range of available tickets while giving you multiple ways to purchase. Tickets are available in many neighbourhoods via local Retail Outlets, our telephone reservation system and Ticketmaster.ca. Tickets can be purchased through at least one distribution channel virtually 24 hours a day. The convenience charge varies by event and is determined by negotiations with arena operators, promoters and others based on costs for each event.

Is the convenience charge always the same no matter where I buy my tickets? The convenience charge may vary depending upon where you purchase the tickets. A convenience charge may or may not be applied when you purchase tickets at the venue box office. A convenience charge is applied when you purchase from the Internet, phone or retail outlet (e.g., at your local department store) and this charge may vary depending upon Ticketmaster's local agreements with its venue, promoter and outlet partners.

In other words, blah, blah, blah. This is the biggest load of bull shit I have ever heard. Shouldn't the order processing fee cover all of this stuff? And you can bet that the artist does not see a dime of this money. I understand that it is a business and everyone needs to make money, but something just seems very wrong about all this. I'll still go to the show and I am sure I will love it and will forget all about the extra fees. But it pisses me off when I think about how much of my hard earned dollars have gone to these crazy charges.