01-31-2008, 04:34 PM
Hip tickets eXpensive on eBay
Kingston This Week.Com
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For Matt Rogers, it all started a few years ago when he got hooked on the Tragically Hip. The self-professed 23-year-old “big Hip fan” is a graduate student of elementary education at Plattsburgh State University in Watertown, N.Y. When tickets to the sold-out Hip concert at the Kingston Regional Sports and Entertainment Centre (KRSEC) first went on sale in December, he immediately went online and purchased, separately, two pairs of tickets.
He now holds only the Floor 3, Row 14 pair, having sold the Floor 3, Row 2 pair on eBay for $530 after 30 bids.
“It was unbelievable! Once it started going up, it’s like, ‘Oh my God, who really wants these second-row seats?’” Rogers said.
Turns out, a Kingston-area parent did. Rogers said they were amongst three bidders that kept going back and forth and at last scored the tickets for their son’s 21st birthday.
Rogers first learned about Hip’s homecoming concert at the new arena through a forum on Hipbase.com, a Hip fan site where “a lot of people were bitching about the ticket prices” at KRSEC. He paid $165.30 for each pair at $69.50 per ticket through Tickets.com, KRSEC’s official ticket supplier. The total amount includes a $22.80 convenience charge and a $3.50 order charge, which is a lot even for a diehard Hip fan’s standard.
However, Rogers was sure he would at least make his money back on eBay as he wasn’t the only one reselling KRSEC Hip tickets online. A seller on eBay recently fetched $330 for a pair of Floor 5, Row 2 tickets after 23 bids and another on Craigslist.org is looking for “best offer” for a pair of Floor 4, Row 4 (it was at $250 a week ago).
“Most of the Hip’s tickets, at the most, are $50. Add another $30 on top you start to scare people off. There’s always some sort of charge but this is a bit more than usual. If you divide $22.80 by two, that’s $11 per ticket plus the order processing fee. It’s a lot to throw on top of a $70 ticket — you usually see, like, $5 or $6,” he said.
Since KRSEC started selling tickets for its inaugural events, gung-ho spectators have only had two options to get tickets: online or by phone through the Costa Mesa, Calif.-based Tickets.com.
It was announced two weeks ago that tickets to the first four Kingston Frontenacs games would be available for in-person purchase, with no service fees, at the Kingston Memorial Centre. However, tickets are $18, 16, and $14 as opposed to $16.50 (before service charges) through Tickets.com.
Neil Shorthouse is the director of marketing for KRSEC. He confirmed this week that a temporary off-site box office will be “operational at the end of next week.”
“It’s not unusual in a scenario where you have a brand new building and you are going with a computerized ticketing system. We are very open with our fee structure and it is very similar to most venues in North America.”
The fee structure he referred to can be found under “Service Fee Structure,” which is the last link under “Helpful Hints,” which is the second link under “Tickets” on KRSEC’s website. It lists “several fees applicable to ticket purchases” such as convenience charge, order charge, and credit card charge.
“There are marketing tools attached to our ticketing system and depending on what level of service you want to provide, there are different costs attached to that,” Shorthouse said.
For example, Tickets.com has one dedicated phone line for KRSEC, so the operator in Costa Mesa will know the caller is calling about a KRSEC event. This is one of the “benefits” that determines the final percentage of applicable service charges, which pay for the ticketing software and systems, said Tickets.com’s vice president of marketing Mike Martinez.
“Service charges — it’s revenue for us, that’s how we make our money. I think people don’t realize that there’s such a large infrastructure behind all of the systems, it not only takes a lot of money to buy this equipment but to maintain it, too,” he said.
For buyers, this means shorter wait time on the phone or visual aids such as the colour-coded seating plan online.
“All of those things of course cost money,” Martinez said.
As for the inevitable credit card charge: “There’s no way around that. That’s how the credit card company gets compensated for,” he added.
So, somebody’s got to make money. For Rogers, he’s keeping the Row 14 tickets to himself.
“With the $530 I made, that now pays for the $165.30 for the tickets. I’m staying at a hotel with my girlfriend and I still have $80 left for food and gas. It makes the trip free and I get to see the Hip opening up the new arena,” he said. “I just saw them in New York but it’s going to be nothing compared to this Kingston show.”
Kingston This Week.Com
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.kingstonthisweek.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=882721">http://www.kingstonthisweek.com/Article ... x?e=882721</a><!-- m -->
For Matt Rogers, it all started a few years ago when he got hooked on the Tragically Hip. The self-professed 23-year-old “big Hip fan” is a graduate student of elementary education at Plattsburgh State University in Watertown, N.Y. When tickets to the sold-out Hip concert at the Kingston Regional Sports and Entertainment Centre (KRSEC) first went on sale in December, he immediately went online and purchased, separately, two pairs of tickets.
He now holds only the Floor 3, Row 14 pair, having sold the Floor 3, Row 2 pair on eBay for $530 after 30 bids.
“It was unbelievable! Once it started going up, it’s like, ‘Oh my God, who really wants these second-row seats?’” Rogers said.
Turns out, a Kingston-area parent did. Rogers said they were amongst three bidders that kept going back and forth and at last scored the tickets for their son’s 21st birthday.
Rogers first learned about Hip’s homecoming concert at the new arena through a forum on Hipbase.com, a Hip fan site where “a lot of people were bitching about the ticket prices” at KRSEC. He paid $165.30 for each pair at $69.50 per ticket through Tickets.com, KRSEC’s official ticket supplier. The total amount includes a $22.80 convenience charge and a $3.50 order charge, which is a lot even for a diehard Hip fan’s standard.
However, Rogers was sure he would at least make his money back on eBay as he wasn’t the only one reselling KRSEC Hip tickets online. A seller on eBay recently fetched $330 for a pair of Floor 5, Row 2 tickets after 23 bids and another on Craigslist.org is looking for “best offer” for a pair of Floor 4, Row 4 (it was at $250 a week ago).
“Most of the Hip’s tickets, at the most, are $50. Add another $30 on top you start to scare people off. There’s always some sort of charge but this is a bit more than usual. If you divide $22.80 by two, that’s $11 per ticket plus the order processing fee. It’s a lot to throw on top of a $70 ticket — you usually see, like, $5 or $6,” he said.
Since KRSEC started selling tickets for its inaugural events, gung-ho spectators have only had two options to get tickets: online or by phone through the Costa Mesa, Calif.-based Tickets.com.
It was announced two weeks ago that tickets to the first four Kingston Frontenacs games would be available for in-person purchase, with no service fees, at the Kingston Memorial Centre. However, tickets are $18, 16, and $14 as opposed to $16.50 (before service charges) through Tickets.com.
Neil Shorthouse is the director of marketing for KRSEC. He confirmed this week that a temporary off-site box office will be “operational at the end of next week.”
“It’s not unusual in a scenario where you have a brand new building and you are going with a computerized ticketing system. We are very open with our fee structure and it is very similar to most venues in North America.”
The fee structure he referred to can be found under “Service Fee Structure,” which is the last link under “Helpful Hints,” which is the second link under “Tickets” on KRSEC’s website. It lists “several fees applicable to ticket purchases” such as convenience charge, order charge, and credit card charge.
“There are marketing tools attached to our ticketing system and depending on what level of service you want to provide, there are different costs attached to that,” Shorthouse said.
For example, Tickets.com has one dedicated phone line for KRSEC, so the operator in Costa Mesa will know the caller is calling about a KRSEC event. This is one of the “benefits” that determines the final percentage of applicable service charges, which pay for the ticketing software and systems, said Tickets.com’s vice president of marketing Mike Martinez.
“Service charges — it’s revenue for us, that’s how we make our money. I think people don’t realize that there’s such a large infrastructure behind all of the systems, it not only takes a lot of money to buy this equipment but to maintain it, too,” he said.
For buyers, this means shorter wait time on the phone or visual aids such as the colour-coded seating plan online.
“All of those things of course cost money,” Martinez said.
As for the inevitable credit card charge: “There’s no way around that. That’s how the credit card company gets compensated for,” he added.
So, somebody’s got to make money. For Rogers, he’s keeping the Row 14 tickets to himself.
“With the $530 I made, that now pays for the $165.30 for the tickets. I’m staying at a hotel with my girlfriend and I still have $80 left for food and gas. It makes the trip free and I get to see the Hip opening up the new arena,” he said. “I just saw them in New York but it’s going to be nothing compared to this Kingston show.”
