How do you feel about unexpected service fees on your concert tickets?
Yeah, we hate ‘em too.
That’s why we won’t be selling tickets to the upcoming Phoenix show at the Marquee Theater. Because the co-promoter/venue (Luckyman/Marqee) is asking us to collect an unwarranted and in our opinion, excessive, service charge above the advertised ticket price.
We are sorry to inconvenience you. We understand that some websites (like AZCentral.com) have us listed us as a place to buy tickets. However, the tickets are advertised as $25… and we are being asked to collect $28 from you. That’s just not the way we do it.
We aren’t shocked about this development. We didn’t just fall off the concert industry turnip truck or anything. We understand various levels of service charge hilarities have been going on forever in the concert biz. Nevertheless, we think its bullshit. That’s one of the reasons we hoodlums don’t personally buy a lot of tickets to the corporate shows (the other being the normally-excessive price of the ticket itself). It’s for sure why we don’t sell tickets for the corporate venues and shows.
If you’ve done business with the corporate ticket sellers and promoters in this town (and anywhere in the country, since a handful of corporate giants basically control the industry), you probably know how the concert ticket turnip tastes as well: The ticket buyer, trapped in a tightly-controlled industry, gets ambushed with a ton of extra “service” charges as the ticket buy proceeds, levied by anyone from the venue to the promoter. Good ol’ corporate greed doesn’t stop with Wall Street.
But we ain’t corporate, baby… we’re indie. We put our cards on the table. Our philosophy is that a person should get some extra service above and beyond what their basic purchase if they are going to have to pay extra. In addition, we believe the charge should accurately reflect the level of extra service. In our opinion, that’s not the case with this Phoenix show.
Are we entirely against service fees? Of course not. As an indie ticket seller, we have to charge them. But the fee has to be reasonable… and it should be charged and collected by the person providing the service.
If you buy tickets at our store, you know that we only charge a ONE dollar service fee. We know of none lower. We feel that is a fair price for our customers to pay for the convenience of not having to travel to the venue, and it covers the time and effort we put into the organizing, promoting, and selling the tickets. We aren’t involved in the contract, the show itself, or any of its proceeds… so that one little dollar is all we collect on tickets sales.
We think that’s fair. Our customers agree. They don’t mind paying a fair price for a little extra service… and we give them one more reason to visit the hoodlums at Hoodlums. We certainly aren’t in the ticket business to make money, we are in the ticket selling business to provide a service to our customers… so it works for everyone.
Normally, the whole process is smooth. We only sell tickets for indie shows and indie promoters, mainly with our buddies at Stateside Productions. They find the venue, they find the band, and they price the tickets as high or low as they want. Once they negotiate the price of the tickets, they print the price on the ticket, and give them to us to sell. We add on our dollar, and everyone is happy. No deception. No service charge for anything other than actual service.
Then we get our Phoenix tickets, and we are being asked to start collecting three bucks above the advertised ticket price? Like we said: We don’t do that. We charge ticket price plus a buck, not ticket price plus four bucks. That’s not a fair price. Besides,why would we collect an extra service fee for someone else’s service, especially when that “someone else” hasn’t provided ANY extra service.
If the venue wants to charge extra for their service, that’s their prerogative to negotiate the higher ticket price. If the venue wants to charge extra at its own box office, so be it. If the promoter, or the artist, or management, or anyone involved in the negotiations needs to charge $28 for the tickets in order to make ends meet, we aren’t in a position to debate that either. While it is our sincere belief that concerts in general need to be cheaper in order for the concert industry to thrive again, setting the ticket price is none of our business. You need to make an extra three bucks? Make it a $28 ticket. Don’t make it a $25 ticket and ask us to collect $28.
So to those of you that expected to be able to buy Phoenix tickets at Hoodlums, sorry. They are a great band, and we are sure that you will enjoy the show… but we just can’t bear the thought of charging you an excessive fee for “ghost” service.
We will still proudly sell tickets for Stateside shows, but unless the Marquee relents and loses the extra fees, we will not be able to sell for that venue. We realize the Marquee gets a lot of great bands, bands that our customers dig, and we hope to be able to continue to provide the extra service of saving you the drive to Tempe Town Lake, but we have to stick to our principles on this one. Hopefully you understand.
Have a great day.
Good for you! These service/handling charges are beyond the pale. Although not quite to the level of Ticketmaster, it still reeks like yesterdays fish. Glad to see my local music geeks taking a stand. Some might say you’re pissing into the wind……..hell, someone, somewhere has got say “I’m mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!”
Glad to hear Stateside hasn’t resorted to this monkey business.
Take care folks………………………..
Oh, as always, I love you guys. Way to stick it to the Man, or men, or whatever greedy bastards continue to make it more difficult than necessary to see a good show in this town. Piss into the wind as much as possible. Don’t change.
Thank you for doing the right thing!