Ticketmaster Swift Snafu

Oh, come on. What next, everybody should be entitled to a new iPhone the day it comes out? Every automobile in the lineup at sticker price with no wait?

Oh, it takes time to make physical product. And it takes time to update software too!

Yes, this was a learning experience for Ticketmaster. They will have to upgrade their underlying software in order to make sure this does not happen again. Maybe it's a matter of employing additional servers too. This is unheard of? Even Spotify has outages once and again. Oops, that's another monopoly, in this case hurting all the artists, right?

So you couldn't get front row seats to Taylor Swift at face value. You can't even buy a Rolex at face value anymore, what's out there has been peeled off by independent distributors. They call it the market. And demand exceeded supply, that's it.

And you never see spam in your inbox anymore? Let's be clear, the spam filters are much better than they used to be, but spam still makes it to your inbox. Even Google can't tell exactly what is spam and what is not, and Gmail is the personal e-mail standard!

Have we really evolved into a society where nothing can break anymore, where everything works 24/7, where all situations are foreseen and addressed? Do you really think Nostradamus works at Ticketmaster?

But my inbox is filling up with requests to weigh in on radio programs, they're going to do an hour on it! What's there to talk about?

This is a story about the status of Taylor Swift, not the status of Ticketmaster.

But we've got Amy Klobuchar and other elected officials saying they're going to crack down. Who else are they going to crack down on, every site that goes down, not even for a full day? Come on, it happens on a regular basis.

But no response will satisfy these ignorant people grandstanding. Yes, they want to be seen as serving their constituents. If they're so wrong about this, what else are they wrong about? This brings into question how they're running the country, I mean if you can't even accept the facts, Republicans AND Democrats!

And where are these same people when ticket sales are soft. I don't see them testifying, telling the assembled multitude to go to a show to keep Ticketmaster alive.

As for the damn fees... It can be said again and again that they all don't go to Ticketmaster, but it never gets through. And everybody inside knows the fees were established to get a pot of money outside the commissionable gross, so the promoter could make a profit, so the acts didn't take it all.

And how about clamping down on the buildings who get part of the fees? And the indie promoters as well as the behemoths. Talk about a low margin business... Apple makes in the neighborhood of 30% margin and concert promoters are way down in the single digits. It's amazing anyone is even in the concert promotion business.

And you can't have concerts without tickets. And for all the b.s. about the old days, when you lined up... First and foremost, the first person in line didn't even get front row seats. And then, to create order, they'd shuffle the order of those in line, via movie theatre ticket numbers. I remember lining up, getting my number, going to breakfast and coming back over two hours later to buy my tickets for Springsteen's "River" tour forty years ago. And believe me, not only did I not sit in the front row, I wasn't even on the floor! And I'd gotten to Tower Records just after sunrise!

But now I can buy tickets anywhere, with my smartphone. And physical is history, and I can transfer the ducats via this same smartphone. As for going back to the good old days...THEY WEREN'T THAT GOOD!

God, is this the country we've devolved to? Where truth is irrelevant, where you can say whatever you want irrelevant of the facts? Yes, the blowback on Ticketmaster is akin to the claims that elections are rigged, all the other b.s. eating up news space.

I get it, it's a sexy story because it involves Taylor Swift. Kudos to Tay-Tay, she broke the system. She's not the first celebrity to do this and she won't be the last. It's testimony to how big Swift is, not to an underlying conspiracy. God, what exactly would Ticketmaster's motivation even be here? The goal is to sell when demand is there, everybody who doesn't get what they want immediately may ultimately never buy. Which is why companies build extra product, they want to be ready. And then you've got the shmatah business, all these companies like Old Navy and so many more who bought too much clothing and had to write it off since it was unsellable. Yes, when it goes the other way, where are these voices rising from the government and the blowhards trying to capture ratings on the backs of the sexy Swift and the hated Ticketmaster?

The acts are responsible for all of it. They set the ticket prices. They created the large fees. Ticketmaster is paid to take the heat. Because the acts don't want their fans to hate them. Even worse, the fans don't hate them even when they're told the acts are at fault, they just don't believe it!

We live in a computerized world of 1's and 0's. There is no little man inside the Ticketmaster software making decisions just like there's no little man inside your smartphone or computer. And software is imperfect. And people make mistakes. And you can't run a country based on emotion, you must base it on fact. This is how we got into this whole stolen election b.s. People said it didn't feel right that Trump lost. Well, it didn't feel like he won the first time around, but the facts said otherwise.

There's nothing to debate here, nothing to talk about, everyone inside knows Ticketmaster is the best way to sell tickets, they're the only company that can come anywhere near being able to handle this demand.

I wish everybody would STFU! There is no villain here. Just an incredibly successful pop star and a company that was caught off guard by demand.

But nobody wants to believe this. There must be a villain behind it all. Someone is out to get them. But, NO!

Really, it's utterly amazing. We've been talking about ticketing for over two decades now and the truth never matters.

But it must be stated again and again, just to be put on the record.

And there you have it.


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