Let's see here. Out of the five concerts that I'm going to this year, I've only used Ticketmaster once to get a ticket and that one show, which is Owl City, I was a bit mad about paying it because of the additional "service fee." I paid $36.00 for the ticket, but $11.00 of that was in fees and I'm like, "What the heck do you guys do to warrant that charge?" I mean if the consumers are more well-informed by Live Nation/Ticketmaster on what they do to warrant tacking this fee and it is actually justified, I don't think people would be as angry about paying fees that's at least a third of the face value ticket price. They will still be angry nonetheless since, well, no one wants to pay any additional fees on top of the face value of the ticket.
Oddly enough, me paying $36.00 is in the middle in terms of how much I paid for a ticket this year. I've paid only $25-$26.00 using another site but those were in smaller venues filling around 300-500 people (seeing Big Wreck and Myles Kennedy) and I paid $40 and $50 and that was at a discounted price using Groupon (seeing Lindsey Stirling/Evanescence with an orchestra, and going to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra).
Wait a second, though; it's only "tacked on" if you can buy that ticket for $25.00 somewhere else. If the end price of the ticket is the same no matter where you go, then it matters not if it is "$36.00 for the ticket and $0.00 fees" or "$1.00 for the ticket and $35.00 for fees". Part of the deal a couple years ago was that they weren't "transparent enough", so they added the detail. Now, the detail is bad.
Couple that with the fact that concert tickets are literally the only common marketable good with a significant, regular secondary market (which means that the pricing is well below that which should be based on supply and demand) and it makes me scratch my head, for real. The alternative is not in any possible universe a $25.00 ticket with no fee.
Nah, it's still just tacked on money. If you go to buy a car that's advertized for 35k, and the guy tells you "here it is, the final price is 35k, but you can't drive it without a key and we charge $4,000 for those," you'd be pissed off. "Well, I'll just buy it from the secondary market!" "Yes sir. There's a Keyhub right down the street. They'll sell you the car for 129k."
And it wasn't just about transparency. Some of the charges were for kickbacks (facility maintenance fee), which insured their monopoly. Some were just stupidly exorbitant because they could get away with it. The $2.50 stamp I just bought would have been $7 ten years ago.
Look, I think much of the Ticketmaster bashing is unwarranted, but the fees are bullshit and arbitrary.
That car analogy isn't really accurate though; if it's $35k, it's $35k, whether $4k is a key fee or not. I think the point that isn't being fully digested - and I think you know this, because I believe we've talked about it before - is that it's not about what "Ticketbastard" is taking, it's what YOU'RE PAYING. If the secondary market is charging $100 a ticket on a $36 box office ticket, where we should be looking is at the $64 delta, not the $11 fee. The only people that should be pissed off about the $11 is the artist, because that's where the money is coming from, not you.
We live with "bullshit" fees all day every day and don't give a crap about it. Apple charges $1000 for a phone BECAUSE THEY CAN. It's not a build-up price, cost of parts, labor, plus a modest 5% profit and boom! That gets you to about $200. Everyone that is buying an iPhone pays an $800 "service fee" of sorts and most do so gladly. Parking in the city. Almost all markup. Fast food; that 32oz. Mountain Dew that kid just polished off is about a 98% markup for the franchise.
The only caveat is, I agree that there ought to be more scrutiny about the practices and any kickbacks. I have yet to ask him but a close friend is a senior guy at a venue around here, and I literally have not once been able to buy a ticket for a show at that arena from the initial sale at the box office. It's crazy how even mid-tier artists seem to sell out in minutes. Keith Urban (more than a mid-tier artist here) sold out TWO shows, 12,000 seats each, in about 16 minutes. But I was luckily able to access the secondary market - right there on the ticket seller's website! - immediately, and had the option of purchasing a $96 pit ticket for only $400! Lucky me! THAT I have a problem with, and so should Keith Urban, frankly.