How many times have you purchased a ticket for a show and were shocked at the service charges tacked onto already high prices? The last time that I bought tickets online I landed up paying $8.00 extra per ticket. Now, I make every effort to get down to the box office in order to avoid this lunacy. There is a new kid in town ready to take on Ticketmaster and they are called Live Nation. In January 2009 they will be ready to rock and roll in the U.S. while in Canada we will have to wait until 2010. Competition is great for the consumer and Ticketmaster has been riding the gravy train alone for far too long.

Ticketmaster must be running scared that consumer backlash will turn business away from them and right to Live Nation because they announced that they are experimenting with selling tickets with no extra fees for consumers who print out their tickets at home. There are those who say that this is all smoke and mirrors and that Ticketmaster will merely add the service charges to the price of the tickets and hope that the consumer is too stupid to realize that he is still paying exorbitant services charges. The only difference is that they will not show as service charges. Ticketmaster believes that as long as the service charges are invisible that the consumer won’t complain.

It will be interesting to see if Live Nation will put a dent in the stranglehold that Ticketmaster has in the business. And, if they do, will they be any better or really charge less additional fees, or is bundling service charges into to ticket prices as a way to fool the consumer the way of the future?