In US, bought a ticket for event in UK online. Can’t download app in US. (Tickermaster UK) Have to use browser. Hope I have connectivity!
IOS link?
I hate Ticket master with passion. If a personnal life goal to see this disgusting business die.
You and me both
I’ve never bought a ticket on ticket master or anywhere else in my life. I just don’t ever go to things that require tickets 😂
You sound boring
There are many other ways in life where you can have fun without getting fucked sideways by a corporation. But you do you, but make sure you keep complaining about it on social media while you keep letting them do that, though. That’ll teach them a lesson :)
Well, you’re also then leaving the bands you love hung out to dry.
No one is fuckin happy about it. I don’t like record labels and their practices either, but you have to end up supporting them when you support the artists. Capitalism is the problem. And it’s pervasive. The Ticketmaster problem is also present in ISPs and cell phone companies. Did you forego giving money to both of those industries to make this comment?
Bands have enough money and influence to do something about it instead of leaving us the helpless peasants fight for their livelihood. And comparing essential utilities to tickets isn’t a good one, my friend. Also, with ISPs and cellphone companies, we actually have plenty of options.
I’m talking about the arrangement of how companies have worked since the deregulation 80s. Multiple huge bands have tried to change the monopoly Ticketmaster/livenation hold in the industry. And most bands that aren’t global phenomena are beholden to their record labels, who are beholden to Ticketmaster. Blaming the bands is pretty shitty. They’re about as powerless as we are, honestly.
Also, ISPs famously have divided the country up and all collectively decided to stay out of each other’s territories for the most part—and they are all running on OUR lines that are public. They supply the “last mile,” but we are still paying them to allow us access to our own infrastructure.
I’m just saying, there are so many examples of this. Airlines are the same. Greyhound busses. Trains. Search engines. Google. Credit reporting agencies. Big movie studios. Capitalism is beyond fucked up. Ticketmaster is one small part, and their lobbying power keeps their control. I buy plenty of tickets through smaller distributors like Dice. These are all pretty similar situations. Money = power, and the more power you have, the more power you have, on and on until you control whatever it is.
You technically have some choice, but your route, your band, your internet, your cell phone carrier, your search engines…a lot of them have pretty much cornered a huge share of the market through power brokering/lobbying/VCs funding them. Look at ride shares. VCs drove the price down by operating at a loss for like a decade+. And now that they took over the market, they have all the power.
Your problem isn’t with the bands trying to make a living. It’s with capitalism.
So your solution to this is never see any band or comedian or race or sporting event or anything that you have to buy tickets for?
Lmaoooo
For me personally, yes, that’s a solution, but for me only, people can do whatever they want. I’m not responsible for the artists’/comedians’ fights. If they’re ok with it, then why should I care?
Yes because the security of barcodes and screenshotted tickets were such a huge problem before. Paying customers used to constantly miss out on events because someone else had already gotten in with their ticket. /s
Yes because the security of barcodes and screenshotted tickets were such a huge problem before.
I think what you just described is actually a problem. Friends of my parents were visiting somewhere, bought tickets to a show from a reseller, met up with the seller (normal looking guy, no red flags, gave some plausible story why he was selling) and paid cash for printed out tickets with barcodes. Printouts looked legit, dates on the printouts were correct, etc. Went to the doors, tried to scan their tickets, got told that unfortunately they’d just been scammed. The impression they get from the box office worker is that this sort of bad news is something they’ve had to deliver frequently. Anecdotal, but I doubt those friends of my parents were the only ones to get scammed in this way. TicketMaster still sucks as an organization but the extra security of rotating barcodes does serve a legitimate security purpose, just like the rotating security codes generated by an authenticator app.
Airlines have recently been having problems with stowaways using screenshots of boarding pass barcodes or QR codes too. Such stowaways should get caught before departure by passenger headcounts or boarding ID checks, but clearly there are gaps or breakdowns in these procedures because some of these stowaways are getting caught at the destination. Others may have successfully flown for free. If it keeps happening I bet we’ll see rotating barcodes come to mobile boarding passes too, if that hasn’t already happened.
I mean, that’s sorta on them for buying from a scalper-at-best
(Still, fuck Ticketmaster)
Oh yes, I don’t mean to absolve them of any blame. They treated it as an expensive lesson, which is probably the best way for them to process it.
Also while TicketMaster is going to sell this as being an “enhanced security” thing, it’s pretty obvious that increased security is only a side benefit for them. Their angle in this is getting more control over the tickets they sell. As long as there are many people who want to go than can physically fit in a venue, there will be a reselling market for event tickets. TicketMaster wants to take a cut of these downstream transactions.
While the security of rotating barcodes does hinder outright scams, mobile wallets normally allow wallet users to transfer items like tickets to another user if the ticket issuer allows it. TicketMaster does not allow this for their tickets, of course, because it could allow someone to resell tickets while cutting TicketMaster out of the transaction. Currently TM allows transfers using their app, but I’m sure they monitor usage of the feature and clamp down on anyone transferring many tickets. In other words if you try to resell in bulk without using TicketMaster’s own platform (where they get to take a cut), they drop the hammer on you.
Is it not where you are? Here it’s very questionable to buy online tickets as the person could sell them multiple times.
If it’s coming from Ticketmaster I get it, but don’t they resell tickets themselves as well?
Over here we use bar codes and QR codes exclusively and they deliver them through whatever method you want — PDF or image in email, text message, download PDF, you can even take a screenshot of the web page after you’re done paying if you want.
Which I’ve done many times (the screenshot thing) esp for things like movie tickets where I don’t bother with creating an account because I don’t go that often. I look up the movie or event, pick the seats, pay, take a screenshot of the QR code, send it to whoever’s going on Whatsapp, done.
I’m not sure I understand what the problem is. The venue already got their money. Either someone will show up to redeem the seat or they won’t, they don’t care either way. And it’s trivial to make sure the codes can’t be faked and that only the first scanned code gets in.
The fact there’s no way to check you’re not getting scammed has actually led to an almost total disappearance of scalping. The only resales happen only through friends or friend of a friend sort of thing.
Every once in a while there’s some organizer who thinks they’re smart and issue paper tickets and those are pretty much the only times you see tickets scalped online or outside the venue the night of the concert.
Season ticket holders resell their tickets all the time for stuff like hockey games they can’t make it too. As you said it’s paper, there isn’t anything stopping them from copying and selling it or emailing multiple people.
This is why reselling places exist, it creates a history for the seller so you know you aren’t getting scammed.
There is still valid reasons to resell tickets, most are non-returnable, so if the person can’t go anymore, why shouldn’t they try and recoup the cost? Sure “scalping” is gone, but not reselling tickets.
Scalping is usually used to refer to the specific act of reselling for profit, what definition are you using here?
Every sporting event I’ve been to in the past few years is exclusively digital tickets. Even the local amateur women’s soccer team.
I’m using scalping with the obvious definition of gouging profit.
I’m saying scalping is enabled by making tickets hard to counterfeit. You can’t criminalize the act of reselling itself but you can deter it by making it inherently untrustworthy. Reselling should be possible, but it needs to stop short of getting out of hand.
When you create a trustworthy ticket resell market you’re basically creating a hotbed of scalping. If people can reliably find clients for ever-increasing ticket prices, then ticket prices will keep going up. That’s exactly what Ticket Nation & friends have done, and they profit by taking a fat percentage.
They do. In fact they’ve been caught “reselling” tickets at scalper prices without them ever having been sold a first time.
The entire scalping/resale market arguably shouldn’t exist, instead tickets should be refundable within reason, at which point the organiser can issue and sell new tickets.
I’ve got season tickets and I can’t use them, or I bought concert tickets and have a surgery now.
There’s valid reasons to resell tickets, obviously scalping is different though, that’s doing it for profit.
I lived in a small town with a small theatre.
If you couldn’t make a show, you called it in and they’d try to resell your ticket; if they succeed, you we’re refunded. So there was no “due date/time” but the sooner you asked them to resell, the better your odds.
The entire scalping/resale market arguably shouldn’t exist, instead tickets should be refundable within reason, at which point the organiser can issue and sell new tickets.
I had to think about this for a minute, but this is exactly the way to handle it. Don’t allow direct transfers at all. You don’t get to pick who gets your tickets (and therefore scalping can’t exist.). But you still can refund your tickets (maybe with a SMALL fee) up to a couple hours before the event. I hope we don’t need legislation to say they have to be sold for the same price they were originally offered for. We don’t want an incentive for Ticketmaster to steal people’s tickets when a venue sells out.
You can add it to your own mobile wallet as well.
This is simply false. They’re an awful company, but you can just use your browser.
Trying to view them through your browser will bring you to this pop-up. And it says you can’t use screen shots or print outs.
The only other option is to use a mobile wallet, but that prevents me from sending my friends their tickets, since I purchased them all together.
I just used this service on Saturday and I didn’t get this pop up.
The reason you can’t use screenshots or printouts is because they’re now using rotating barcodes. Much like the rotating codes in an authenticator app, the number values behind the barcode are changing on some regular cadence. Only the most recent barcode value is considered valid.
The only other option is to use a mobile wallet, but that prevents me from sending my friends their tickets, since I purchased them all together.
Some ticket sellers allow you to transfer tickets from one wallet to another wallet, but of course TicketMaster isn’t one of them because they’re fucking TicketMaster. What TicketMaster does allow is transfers from one TicketMaster account to another. Of course then everyone needs to have a TicketMaster account, needs to have the app, etc. It’s either that or leave all the tickets in your app or wallet and go in together. If you tell the door person “I have the tickets for these X people,” they’ll be able to handle that.
Jesus, what a bunch of needless “security”. They’re tickets to a concert, ffs. This is all for personal data mining.
Jesus, what a bunch of needless “security”
I disagree with this part. Ticket theft is an actual issue, there are lots of ways to get a copy of someone else’s barcode and either use it before they do or (more likely) sell it to someone else online. TicketMaster’s marketing is talking up the increased security to distract from their true purpose, which is of course to find more ways to take more money from fans. Of course it’s debatable whether the increased security is worth the decreased convenience for ticketholders. That is the inevitable tension when it comes to security, where any increase in security always incurs at least some cost in terms of convenience.
This is all for personal data mining.
TicketMaster might be selling user data, but I don’t think that’s their main aim. They want control of the resale market so they can take a cut when tickets are resold. Note how they don’t allow direct transfers between two mobile wallets, they only allow transfers using their app. That’s so they can monitor transfers. If they see someone transferring dozens or hundreds of tickets to many other TicketMaster users then that person is likely reselling and they can clamp down on their account. TicketMaster’s true intent is to force all resales onto their ticket marketplace, because that’s where they get to take a cut of resales.
You can use your phone’s browser to access the ticket. From https://help.livenation.com/hc/en-us/articles/9907955578129-How-do-I-use-Mobile-Entry-tickets
How do I find and use my tickets?
On a mobile browser:
- Open a web browser app and go to Ticketmaster.com.
- Sign into your My Account.
- Tap the circle in the top right and tap Upcoming Events.
- Find your order and tap View Tickets to access your tickets. We recommend adding your tickets to a digital wallet so that you’ll always have your ticket on hand.
- Your phone’s your ticket — scan it at the venue entrance and you’re in!
Also, if the event isn’t Mobile-only, you can select a different option for your ticket. See https://help.livenation.com/hc/en-us/articles/9902009367953-How-are-tickets-delivered for more details.
That doesn’t work anymore. If you follow those instructions you’ll receive the pop-up I posted.
I did exactly that in February.
The thing didn’t scan right anyway, likely due to my phone being a filthy potato with a gradually failing protective screen.
Yup, found this out at Dead & Co in SF last summer. Had to stand off to the side with my wife and 2 friends while downloading the app and going through the bullshit high off my ass with an army of deadheads behind us.
What happens when you click the “Next” button down at the bottom right?
If it doesn’t take you to your ticket then that sounds like a bug. Definitely a frustrating one; hopefully not intentional.
I’d ask for a refund
You can use the mobile website if you don’t want to install their app. You can also put the tickets in a mobile wallet if you use one.
This is just so you don’t screenshot, share it, and try to double-dip your ticket with a friend.
AXS does not integrate with google wallet. I put a note in each calendar event which app the tickets are in. At least the Pixel phones now let you put anything in your wallet that is a QR code. I wish it would let us put plain old images in the wallet.
How the hell would you double dip? They scan you in.
I built a ticketing app for folk festivals 2 decades ago and we had that problem beat even then.
Actually think this is more about protecting against unscrupulous scalpers selling tickets multiple times.
When you can just email a pdf or print it, nothing stops you from doing it multiple times.
At the end, it’s ticketbastard that has to listen to the people that got scammed. This method forces authentication and secure the chain of custody.
Change a number. Then when they scan it you claim it’s an error and then you are dealing with a “technology problem”.
Sure, they can you on, but which patron is the real patron?
Suppose the ticket was supplied as a PDF. Then it is either in the users Downloads directory or in their email. If that PDF is obtained by a malicious actor, it could be resold countless times. You could have 100 “guests” arrive at a venue with a bogus ticket but only the first one gets in, because they were scanned. That first person may not be the legitimate ticket owner.
Now, if your using their app, they usually put an animation over the barcode, and the gate attendants know to look for that. If that animation isn’t there, don’t scan. Pretty simple instructions to give to anyone. And accessing the app likely requires logging in, probably with some form of MFA (though probably SMS), so it gets a lot more difficult to rip off both the legitimate users and Ticketmaster in this way.
I don’t like having to use a specific app for things like this, but “I kinda get it”.
Now, it’d be better if we had a universal standard format for putting secure, validated passes into the native phone app. Perhaps registering your device to your account via their website, then only allowing the ticket to be installed on one device. I’m sure there’d be more to it, im just spitballing.
PGP-encrypted email for everyone, problem solved.
Yah, yah, I know…
There you go, assuming the problem is worth the corporation’s time and money to bother solving. The correct answer is to not bother hiring a customer support department and telling people that they’re SOL when stuff goes wrong. The goal is to take in more money than you spend on customer support, so you spend none.
I was given a free ticket to an event last night. I did it all using their web page. Their page was very slow and when I finally got to the point where it was supposed to show the ticket, it kept blanking the page right when the bar code would load. Luckily the gentleman at the booth could see it was legitimate and that there was a technical issue, so he printed it out for me.
That monopoly must go.
“give us your personal information so we can sell it quickly before we might lose money”
I, for one, am looking forward to be $.0036 Check in the mail. While some lawyer pockets $97 Billion. Any day now…
Antirust is very different than Class Action (were you’d get a 36cent check). This would be the FTC filing charges, which has much more power.
I’m sure it’ll be a voucher just like the last lawsuit against a ticketing company. I’d like to say it was LiveNation but I honestly can’t remember. I remember looking at the concerts I could go to with the voucher and they were all shit.
But that was the point, wasn’t it. Give up potential profit that they were in fact never going to get in the first place.
Oh like how in Canada the Lawblaws corporation and other grocers were caught colluding over bread prices for nearly 20 years, and their punishment? Everyone who got into the class action (you had to sign up) ya got a whopping $25 to use at their store…
Worst part to me is that the majority of people either never used the entirety of the $25 credit, saving Loblaw’s money. Or, they spent more than $25 while shopping and injected more money into the business.
The percentage of people who went through the effort of spending exactly $25 is probably extremely low.
Good, it’s about time!
You also can’t do shit with their service, app and web, if you’re on a VPN. It just refuses. Even – and this may be illegal – unsubscribing from their emails.
I’d say just use a different service but, uh… What other service is there? 😟
DICE is great, but most of these are tied to venues. Most of the bigger stages, stadiums, theaters, etc. all have contracts through LiveNation, so TicketMaster/LiveNation is the only way to enter those venues.
You can sometimes call the box office directly though.
dice too gives you tickets in their app
https://dicefm.zendesk.com/hc/en-gb/articles/22367835146513-Why-we-ask-you-to-download-our-app
“why we ask you to download an application”
- we want to mine your data
- we want to mine your data
- you need to give us this data
- come on you’ll love being datamined
Looks like AXS.com may be an alternate, found it through bandsintown.com
AXS is no better as far as ticket scalpers go. Used them for Cruel World fest last year, they’re just another version of Ticketmaster. Maybe marginally less invasive app-wise, but as far as jacking up event prices they’re the same.
AXS wouldn’t even mail me a regular paper ticket last year. My only options was to pay $20 extra for a “commemorative” ticket. Fuck AXS.
Ticket stubs as a souvenir are a thing of the past, unfortunately. It’s laughable they want to charge for “commemorative” stubs, of course the want to fuck people out of even more money for already ridiculously priced events.
you might be able to add them to Google wallet if you have Google wallet.
The Amazon equivalent for my country does this for their site on mobile by removing filters and making it so anything related to your account just tells you to use the app.
However If you toggle desktop mode in your browser everything works perfectly fine. It’s almost as if they just want to data mine you. Surely no company would have that as a motive!
Sadly, I tried desktop mode in Firefox and still got the pop-up
