Elton John Fans Gouged

Ticketmaster may be in a bit of trouble in Saskatchewan. According to the Saskatchewan News Network, people trying to get tickets for Elton John's September concert in Regina are complaining the scalpers snapped up huge blocks of tickets making it difficult to get a hold of anything. People are now alleging that one of the ticket brokers that has tickets for hugely marked-up prices may actually be owned by Ticketmaster itself.  The article also mentions that Ticketmaster is trying to get Manitoba to lose its anti-scalping legislation. Read more...

A glance at the website shows tickets for John's show at the MTS Centre ranging from $104 to over $600. They're available from Ticketmaster for a mere $69-$149. Of course, those low Ticketmaster prices don't include convenience fees, which may take the price up to $600, anyhow.

I've never much minded Ticketmaster's convenience fees, personally. In fact, I'd like to suggest that Ticketmaster do an overview of its services and look at adding more fees for such conveniences as:

- Not being seated next to someone who knows all the words to the artists' songs coupled with the lack of awareness of their lack of talent leading to rampant and unavoidable singing. (I do not pay $70 to hear you sing Heart's "Alone.")
- Not being seated next to someone who started drinking MGD hours before the show started and are therefore both obnoxious and having to stand up and pee every five minutes.
- Not being seated next to people who think "woohoo" is an appropriate thing to yell in the middle of a song.

I'm certain Ticketmaster could tackle this issue quickly by adding a short questionnaire on concert-going practices to its ordering process.