Metallica tickets went on sale yesterday in a Ticketek Pre-sale before the main sale on Thursday. I'm a bit of a fan of these heavy metal legends but for one reason or another I've missed their previous tours of Oz. So I was pretty keen to get on-line and snag a ticket. I managed to log on a 5 minutes too late and missed out but I don't think I'll bother trying to get a ticket when the main sale starts on Thursday for a couple of reasons:
1. Tickets are $150. That is expensive but not a show stopper in itself.
2. There is a note on the Ticketek website that says:
"Guidelines released by the Reserve Bank of Australia, which regulate how credit card merchant fees are collected, allow for retailers to pass on the cost of credit card payments to the consumer. In this instance the promoter has elected to pass these fees onto consumers that are paying by credit card, and therefore the Transaction Fee has been increased to cover this cost."
Okay that is fine. It is happening more and more often. I expected another dollar or two on top of Ticketek's usual fee of what I still consider to be still an outrageous $4.95 when you still have to pick up the ticket from the box office yourself. So I expected a fee of maybe $7 or $8. No. The fee for Metallica is $15.90. FIFTEEN DOLLARS AND NINETY CENTS! Are they fracking kidding. On top of a ticket price of $150 they want another $15.90. Oh, and that is the fee for picking up the ticket yourself from the box office. It costs more to get it mailed.
The capacity of Acer Arena in Sydney is about 21,000. Lets assume that for the 3 Metallica gigs the capacity is only 15000 people (the shows will sell out though). They are going to make 6.7 million dollars from ticket sales and on top of that another three quarters of a million in ticket surcharges. Ticketek will take a third so the promoters (Michael Coppel) will still make a lazy half a million just from the credit card surcharge alone. If they get 20000 punters at each show in Sydney they'll make 9 million dollars in ticket sales and up to 1 million dollars on top of that from the ticket surcharge. This is from Sydney alone. Metallica is also playing in Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane.
Greedy fucking bastards.
Update 13-05-2010: I did try and buy a ticket when the main sale went on and I missed out. Karma?
On top of rent, parking tickets, beer... $150 is not too easy. But it will be worth it! I paid $120 for Iron Maiden, that was well worth it, the show was epic. But Metallica is my favourite band so I'd pay $250 max to see them easily.
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