Upcoming Live Music
I have a nice little schedule of shows set for the Spring. There’s lots more I’d like to do, but time and money preclude it.
Here’s the schedule. Links take you to buy tickets should you want to join me.
Mar. 23 - Bang Bang Bang, Modern Skirts - Exit/In - 8pm
Apr. 14 - TV on the Radio, Noisettes - Cannery Ballroom - 9pm
Apr. 28 - Drive By Truckers - Georgia Theatre - 10pm sharp
May 19 - Bright Eyes, Gillian Welch - Ryman Auditorium - 8pm
Live music has become a big part of what I do lately. Not every show is great (YMSB was a big let down), but it’s a fun night out.
Because of this, I have had to do more business with Ticketmaster than I would like. I would prefer to pay anyone other than Ticketmaster. I presume a lot of artists don”t have control over how the tickets are sold, but I see more and more artists controlling their ticket sales (like the Drive-By Truckers).
Ticketmaster as a business has a right to charge whatever they would like. My problem is how “black box” the process is. Their “convenience charge” seems to be somewhat random and in the case of those $29.50 Bright Eyes tickets, I paid $8.40 per ticket for this convenience. Then, Ticketmaster has the gall to charge me $2.50 to email me my tickets. Add to that some random $1.50 fee and a $2.50 venue charge and it just becomes absurd.
I don’t mind paying a fee to buy tickets online. I realize the ticket company has to make money, but there’’s got to be a better way. The TV on the Radio tickets were bought through TicketWeb which charged a flat $5.00 fee regardless of how many tickets I bought. That makes sense to me. It even included them mailing me the physical tickets. This is similar to what Ticket Biscuit and Baseline Ticketing are doing. It’s simple and reasonable.