Here are more details on Ticketmaster’s all-in pricing
As you may have heard, Ticketmaster is adopting the “all-in” approach when it comes to advertising the cost of live event tickets. In the past, we saw a ticket being touted for sale for, say, $69. But that wasn’t the final price. All kinds of fees and taxes were added at check-out, making that original MSRP of $69 look like a cruel joke.
Ticketmaster is doing what the airlines were forced to do a number of years back: Any advertised prices must include all taxes and fees. None of this nonsense of seeing a flight to Vancouver for $99 only to discover that this was for one-way travel before all taxes and fees. Consumers and governments demanded truth in advertising, so what we see now is the actual price we’ll have to pay. Good. I hate check-out surprises.
Wait. You should probably review what these fees and taxes are. There’s a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about what actually happens. I’ve written about them here.
Here are a few more things I’ve since found out about Ticketmaster’s pricing policy.
While Americans are still working their way toward the new system, Canadians already see all-in pricing in all provinces in Canada. When you log on, you see the face value of the ticket and all the other charges right upfront. That itemized list carries all the way through from sign-on to checkout. This is what the Americans want. Keep in mind that when you read any stories out of the US, they don’t yet have what we do so there are still many complaints and much confusion.
Some US residents have had all-in pricing for a while. New York state was the first. Tennessee will follow this Thursday. Meanwhile, Ticketmaster is pushing for all-in upfront pricing across the board for everyone in all states, countries, and territories.
Ticketmaster continues to advocate for an industry wide mandate of upfront pricing in U.S. The fans will see the most benefit when all ticketing marketplaces go all-in together so that consumers can accurately compare prices. Here’s a blog they wrote about that.
