Ticketmaster: Enemy of the Free World

Ticketmaster. You know them. They're the ones you have to go through to buy any sort of ticket for any sort of live music event in the western world. You've sat there and watched helplessly as your 25 dollar (or equivalent) ticket gains charges, and surcharges, and taxes with each click of your mouse. You've all turned pale as you finally reach the checkout page to find that your backrow seat is now a cool 40 dollars, which, for you and your girlfriend (as it would be most ungentlemanly to let her pay) is 80 fecking dollars. To see a band with the number "1" in their 'albums released' column.

Now, my problem is not that. Well, I mean it is that but I have a much larger problem to be discussed. You see, all of that headache mentioned above only occurs in one's life if you are lucky enough to actually get a ticket. Which is virtually impossible for any big show. For example, Radiohead tickets (@ Santa Barbara Bowl) went on sale Saturday at 10am. As an avid follower (see: fanatic) there I was, sat in front of my laptop, page ready and open, waiting for the clock to strike 10. When it did, I was swiftly kicked off the page. In a confused panic, I scrambled to get back. I did. I selected two tickets under "best available". It began to load. I waited with baited breath. At 10:03am a page appeared telling me that the concert was SOLD OUT.

Now, I'm no scientist, or mathematics expert, or claim to be remotely any good at anything to do with numbers, but as a rational, logical, human being I find it slightly far-fetched to believe that the following scenario occurred:

Step 1) Thousands of Radiohead fans all converged on Ticketmaster.com.

Step 2) The system - being one that is fair and true and represents the very best in western democracy - neatly and tidily put all of these thousands of seat in order of who clickidy wick'd on their lovely little website first and all of the seats were allocated accordingly.

Step 3) The exact amount of seats in Santa Barbara Bowl equated to the number of tickets sold, all were sold to genuine Radiohead lovers and everyone skipped off to work whistling "The Gloaming".

Step 4) All of this happened in three minutes.

No, that's bollocks isn't it. What instead happened was that a limited amount of seats were available to some fans, who are selected by a blind man throwing darts at a wall-chart (or something similar), and the rest go to the web-sites like StubHub - where you too can purchase tickets to see your favourite bands for 5x the original face-value price.

After being rejected at 10:03am, I investigated further. At 10:04am, StubHub suddenly had back row seats going for 600 dollars a pop. Lovely, I'll take ten please. Just let me re-mortgage my house, sell my children to slave labour markets and start cooking meth amphtemine to pay my credit card bill (big up, Breaking Bad - a work of genius). Now, StubHub is owned by who? I hear you ask. That's right, f**king Ticketmaster.

Stop me if I'm wrong here, but isn't that the very definition of monopoly trading? Well no, they say, because there are sites like LiveNation and blah blah blah. Yeah that is true, but where do these other sites direct you when you want to buy a ticket? To f**king Ticketmaster. You see folks, thats how a racket works. All roads lead to one thing and that one thing will shove it's hand in your pockets whether you like it or not.

Thom Yorke - Mentalist

I don't ask for much. I just want to see some music before my eyes and ears. Maybe get some of Thom's dribble on me during a freak out. I don't mind losing out on tickets to other fans. First come, first served. They were there before me, they should get the tickets. At least it would be a fair fight. What I can't accept however is these cyber-school bullies performing what can only be described as legal extortion. The sad thing is that, under the current regime, I know that in my lifetime (unless I become unhealthily rich and/or famous) I will never, if I live to be 1020 years old, sit in the front row of a Radiohead concert. Never. It is simply impossible. Who does get these tickets I will never know. I can only assume that it's people far more important than myself. Instead I have to settle for not even being in the back row of this one.

Ticketmaster, fuck you.

John.