Gary Numan at the Fillmore. He puts on a decent show, but tickets are $40 before whatever extortion the TicketBastards tack onto that (and don't tell you about until checkout). Plus, the Fillmore is pretty much my least favorite venue in town. I can't pay that much without feeling like a mark. And apparently I have no guest-list pull there these days.
Laurie Anderson at Yoshi's. Normally I'd watch her read the phone book, but it's $58, plus another $10 if you want a reserved seat instead of showing up two hours early! If that wasn't irritating enough, the real insult-to-injury factor here, of course, is that Yoshi's only still exists because the City of SF gave them $7.5 million to prop up their failing business not too long ago. I feel like I've already been charged for this show.
Bah.
Dood. The Gary Numan one is bad enough (and yes, the Fillmore sucks complete ass... ) but $58 + $10 for Laurie Anderson? At _Yoshi's_? For that kind of dough she'd better be at your table making you dinner like Benihana.
Now that's avant garde.
I like when she pops the shrimp-tails into the pocket of her chef-jacket.
Small consolation, but Ticketmaster is now wrapping the fees into the ticket prices upfront.
Surely they still charge you an extra $1.50 if you choose "waste your own paper by printing out your tickets at home" instead of "will-call"?
of course. at the same time offering sending it to you by mail for free. this isn't candyland.
(here's their blog about the fees. i have to admit that it's a smart move. http://ticketology.ticketmaster.com/)
Among the insulting things about their process -- not the most, but at least the last -- is that the ticket page that they charge you to print out at your own expense has an ad on it. They are charging you to print out and carry around the advertising that they sold!
I guess the only way they could monetize this further would be if they also sued you for copyright infringement afterward.
Go see Marina and the Diamonds and the Parlotones!
The Avett Brothers are playing at Deer Valley in Utah, and tickets are $40. Those are stadium prices and The Avett Bros, while good, are not exactly a stadium band. RS had a piece on promoters slashing ticket prices but I haven't seen any of it. TMBG was only $26 apiece, and that included fees.
tickets are $40 before whatever extortion the TicketBastards tack onto that
1. That sounds quite reasonable. From memory, his shows cost maybe 25% more than that here in the UK
2. So don't use TicketBastards? If we have multiple ticket agencies to choose between (none of whom practice extortion to the same degree as TicketBastards), then surely you, in the land of free enterprise, can do the same? The only time I have to resort to TicketBastards is for select shows at arena sized venues, where they're the only option.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha "competition in the marketplace" ha ha ha ha ha ha ha how quaint.
We *have* competition here in Australia; well, there are two *different* TicketBastards, each who have exclusive's at certain venues, although it is common to have tours do shows at venues contracted to either side in different cities.
That said a *cheap* show (at a large venue) in Australia is close on US$80, most big international tours have balooned to > US$150.
Small comedy shows are often US$35 or so.
For stuff like that, I check on the day if they're sold out. If not, the ticket touts / scalpers are likely to be cheaper than box office on the evening.
Fan as I am of Penn and Teller, there was no way I was paying the official price to see them in London recently.
Big picture time.
You had two choices. For a touch over $100 you could have had two evenings out that might well have been entertaining, rewarding, life affirming, mind-food etc. etc.
or, you could save your hard earned moolah and gripe about it on the internet.
Did you choose wisely?
I have seen Gary Numan before. He puts on a pretty good show, but not, like, legendary or anything.
I see shows of similar quality around twice a month for usually not more than $12.
So I could pay 4× what the going rate is for such a show, at a venue I don't like... or I could gripe about it on the internet.
So yes, I chose wisely.