LiveTicketNationMaster

LiveTicketNationMaster

Dear fellow lovers of live music: LiveNation & TicketMaster have officially merged.

Now, who knows what the full extent of this means, really? Other than the biggest damn ticketing company the planet has ever seen, or eve will see. Some speculate this means even higher convenience charges, but that remains to be seen. Especially since I swear I just read a Rolling Stone article not too long ago where one of the higher-ups at Ticketmaster swore he wanted to lower the conveniences charges. Granted, some if the fault of the venue - for example, Pittsburgh's Post-Gazette Pavilion charges a parking fee (I believe $17) PER TICKET for a lot that's essentially some gravel, port-o-potties, towers, & garbage cans. Granted, by the end of the night it's littered with beer cans & drunk dude pee, but still.

We could all go on for days about the injustice that is convenience charges, but I'll stick to the merger.

They don't technically have a monopoly on concert tickets, but you'll be hard-pressed to find an alternative that doesn't involve tickets way over face value, scalpers, & questionable legality. There are a few companies that have popped up lately, but mainly they serve tiny bands or local music. For the big arena acts, we're stuck with this nonsense. God bless the few venues left that sell their own tickets. Going back to Pittsburgh, just about all of the theater events tickets have to be purchased through the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. When I saw Eddie Izzard do stand up a few years ago, the Pittsburgh date was among the few not listed on Ticketmaster's website, because, thankfully, Pittsburgh's Benedum Center wasn't selling them through there. I'd bet that this method decreases the amount of scalping, too, but that's a discussion for another day.

We'll see where this goes. Probably nowhere good.

In the meantime, one of the ticketing alternatives out there is ticketweb.com. It's pretty small & doesn't cover all tour dates for all artists, but they do what they can. For example, they're selling tickets for one of AFI's tour dates, but that's it. But they are cheaper, & I've had nothing but good experiences with them. As in, I don't yell at my computer screen about stupid charges.