An Open Letter to Ticketmaster:

Dear Ticketmaster,

I’m planning on going to see Her Space Holiday next week, at the Troubadour. I’m really excited about this for two reasons 1. Marc Bianchi is an inspiration 2. I haven’t been to a show that I’ve *wanted* to go to in FOREVER. So, I head over to your site and punch in the details. Wow! $10, that’s fantastic. I get two, and proceed to checkout.

Total: $37.50

WHAT?

$17.50 in service charges is completely unacceptable. I could take another person for that price! Hell, I could take another person AND afford to buy them a drink.

I don’t intend to be stuck in the past, but I remember the days when service fees were like $3. I didn’t like it, but hey, I could buy tickets from the comfort of my own home, before I had a car. Then they went up to $5 per ticket. By this time I was mostly working my connections to get into shows. Slave labor for tickets, you know. But now, $6.50 per ticket, $8.50 per ticket for ticketfast (which leaves me no cute little stub to put on my wall) and even more if I want the tickets in my hand before the night of the show? It can’t be THAT much effort to have someone print em out and stuff ’em in an envelope.

What, exactly, am I forking over these service charges for, anyway? Your site isn’t any cooler or more effective, unless you’re seriously counting those cryptic warped non-words I have to type in before I’m allowed to proceed at one point. If it someone’s job to produce those words, and he’s the reason I’m paying crazy services charges, fire him, because “clour” is most certainly not a real word.

You’re not stopping me Ticketmaster, you awful monopoly, from going to the show, but I will no longer be using your services if I can help it.

Your fiesty non-customer, -Bree