[News] Flames introduce paperless tickets

[burn_baby_burn]

25%? NFL only charges 10%. I wonder if its Ticket Master, the NHL, or the individual teams who determine that?

[DT77]

What makes up the 25% everyone is talking about? I checked this out last night and for the seller, they take 10%. I'm not sure if there is a premium or other fees for buyers that you're including?

[Sec218]

Originally Posted by DT77

What makes up the 25% everyone is talking about? I checked this out last night and for the seller, they take 10%. I'm not sure if there is a premium or other fees for buyers that you're including?

I agree, they only charged 10% to me as well when I posted some tickets to sell yesterday.

[Bill Bumface]

I think the buyer sees your price +15%

[squiggs96]

You get 10% taken off of your selling price. There is a ticketmaster service charge equal to 15% that the buyer sees. I like how they do that, so they don't think you're gouging them and they just see it as a ticketmaster fee.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by getbak

Everything seems to be working well on the site. It looks like the only price restriction is that you can't sell below your own cost.

That's lame. If on Tuesday night I decide I don't want to go to the Wednesday 8:00 start against the Wild; and it's supposed to be cold and snowy, there is no way I would get my cost in a lockout year.

All that does is makes sure that I can't sell my tickets for $20; which would be a minimal profit for TM. I don't like that the fee is a percentage, but they won't take a deal that makes them little money.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by burn_baby_burn

25%? NFL only charges 10%. I wonder if its Ticket Master, the NHL, or the individual teams who determine that?

Ticketmaster charges an extra 15% "Service Charge" on top of the list price when the buyer checks out. They pay the seller 90% of the list price. That seems to be the standard across all sales on the site, NFL too.


The way the math works, it's not actually a full 25%. If you sell a ticket at a list price of $100, the buyer will pay $115, and the seller will receive $90, which means Ticketmaster is keeping 22% of the sale (I assume a piece of that goes back to the team). That's a pretty good racket since they already made a good chunk of money off the original sale of the ticket in the first place.


There's also a flat $4.95 "Delivery Fee" per purchase to email the tickets to the purchaser, plus they charge GST in Canada. When you factor those in, the seller ultimately receives less than 75% of what the buyer paid.


Ultimately, if you can make a face-to-face sale, both sides are better off. For me to just break even on a sale, I need to receive just over $70 per ticket. In order to get that, I would need to list the tickets for $80. When you add in Ticketmaster's fees and GST, the buyer would pay just under $200 for the pair. I would receive $144 from that sale, which just covers my cost.

On the other hand, if I can sell face-to-face for $85 per ticket, I end up with an extra $25 and the buyer saves $30.

[PeteMoss]

These things were created so the team's could benefit from the secondary ticket market (and of course ticketmaster is happy to oblige and load on the fees). The Flames will get some of the money collected.

[DT77]

Thanks for the clarification all.

Originally Posted by getbak

Ticketmaster charges an extra 15% "Service Charge" on top of the list price when the buyer checks out. They pay the seller 90% of the list price. That seems to be the standard across all sales on the site, NFL too.


The way the math works, it's not actually a full 25%. If you sell a ticket at a list price of $100, the buyer will pay $115, and the seller will receive $90, which means Ticketmaster is keeping 22% of the sale (I assume a piece of that goes back to the team). That's a pretty good racket since they already made a good chunk of money off the original sale of the ticket in the first place.


There's also a flat $4.95 "Delivery Fee" per purchase to email the tickets to the purchaser, plus they charge GST in Canada. When you factor those in, the seller ultimately receives less than 75% of what the buyer paid.


Ultimately, if you can make a face-to-face sale, both sides are better off. For me to just break even on a sale, I need to receive just over $70 per ticket. In order to get that, I would need to list the tickets for $80. When you add in Ticketmaster's fees and GST, the buyer would pay just under $200 for the pair. I would receive $144 from that sale, which just covers my cost.

On the other hand, if I can sell face-to-face for $85 per ticket, I end up with an extra $25 and the buyer saves $30.

Thanks also for this getbak. You've said everything I wanted to say and more. One can easily see why the "paperless" tickets came to light - increased revenue opportunities. STH "convenience", while certainly an issue, was likely nowhere near the top reason. Not that I have anything wrong with a team doing it. It's their product and they have every right to make as much money as they can and control their market as much as they want, but I'm frustrated at how it's somewhat pressed upon us. I went from easily being able to sell games I couldn't go to (at, near or quite often below my cost) to either:

a) Using this "secure" system with all of the faults listed above in which a third party makes a staggering 22% of my base cost (minimum) for doing what amounts to sweet bugger all.

b) Trying to convince complete strangers face-to-face that yes, these folded 8.5x11 printed out tickets are indeed legit or that I'll totally email you the tickets once you've paid me... oh, and those will be legit too.

The only way to ensure the ability to do what I've done in the past was to get all of the tickets printed at the beginning of the season (which I'm glad they offered as I'm sure corporate accounts took advantage of that) but since I go to nearly 3/4 of the games, the cards are quite nice.

Oh well. Whiney complaint over. It could certainly be worse... I'm sure.

[MotoRacer]

Surprised there is no new thread on this since paperless tickets not really the topic anymore

[Reggie28]

With Ebay taking a 10% cut and Paypal taking about another 2%, it seems like a better option than the TM resale route. I receive a confirmed payment (usually within minutes) and the buyer gets a "transfer to a friend" guaranteed ticket . Easy. I was out of town for the last home stand and got reasonable prices for the 2 sets I had to sell to strangers.

I suspect TM will want to get a piece of this action and somehow obstruct or prevent this from happening.

[macrov]

Originally Posted by Reggie28

With Ebay taking a 10% cut and Paypal taking about another 2%, it seems like a better option than the TM resale route. I receive a confirmed payment (usually within minutes) and the buyer gets a "transfer to a friend" guaranteed ticket . Easy. I was out of town for the last home stand and got reasonable prices for the 2 sets I had to sell to strangers.

I suspect TM will want to get a piece of this action and somehow obstruct or prevent this from happening.

I used ebay a lot when I was in Toronto, and it worked just fine with electronic tickets.

Just out of curiosity, what stops us from creating our own secondary ticket market on Calgary Puck? We must have a good 25%+ of the season ticket holders on here, and probably an even higher percentage of the tickets that float in the secondary market.

The fees could be flat - like 2-5$ a transaction, with the proceeds going to the flames foundation.

[dying4acup]

In a market like Calgary, I'm surprised they even require ticketmaster anymore. They could employ their own extra staff member or 2, and collect all that extra revenue. As a fan I would rather see the team collect the extra revenue, than the subsidiary.

That said, I'm guessing that ticketmaster is an important partner when it comes to other events like concerts and wrestling, etc.

At some point, I wouldn't be surprised if NHL teams (and cfl teams for that matter) didn't collectively make entities like ticketmaster and stubhub obsolete in Canada!

[burn_baby_burn]

You can list your tickets for less then face value. Face Value for my tickets is $42. I listed tickets for upcoming games at $35.

[albertGQ]

Originally Posted by burn_baby_burn

You can list your tickets for less then face value. Face Value for my tickets is $42. I listed tickets for upcoming games at $35.

People are talking about their cost, not face value.

[burn_baby_burn]

Originally Posted by albertGQ

People are talking about their cost, not face value.

I know, still surprised that the Flames would allow this. What do they want for tickets in the old Sportcheck Zone? $40 plus fees? Guys are dumping them for $25. Once people catch on, there will be a lot of empty seats up there.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by burn_baby_burn

I know, still surprised that the Flames would allow this. What do they want for tickets in the old Sportcheck Zone? $40 plus fees? Guys are dumping them for $25. Once people catch on, there will be a lot of empty seats up there.

The main reason is because unlike many industries who try to fight the consumer at every turn forcing them to use other means to get what they want the Flames have realized that they are better off taking 22% of the pie instead of 0% of below face tickets and sell a few more actual tickets. With over 16000 season ticket holders that is a pretty big market to ignore compared to the 3000 other seats. If they didnt allow it kijiji or here still does.

Also it will allow the flames to discount there own tickets as gameday approaches for low demand games.

[Badgers Nose]

At least support passbook and the samsung copy of it.

[kipperfan]

Bump…I bought some tickets for tonights game and they were emailed to me. I saw some mentions of using a phone to scan tickets earlier in the thread, but looking for confirmation if this can be done.

I am currently sitting at home with no printer and if the phone scanning is not going to work I am going to need to head back to work to print these bad boys, so hopefully somebody can help me out with an answer fairly quick.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by kipperfan

Bump…I bought some tickets for tonights game and they were emailed to me. I saw some mentions of using a phone to scan tickets earlier in the thread, but looking for confirmation if this can be done.

I am currently sitting at home with no printer and if the phone scanning is not going to work I am going to need to head back to work to print these bad boys, so hopefully somebody can help me out with an answer fairly quick.

When I called the saddledome last week they said that this wasn't possible. I had to go in with ID and get them reprinted at customer services