Guest Book

Read it and weep (link to full article below: Ticketmaster Auction Will Let Highest Bidder Set Concert Prices By CHRIS NELSON Three years after Ticketmaster introduced ticketFast, its online print-at-home ticketing service, consumers have so embraced it that the company now sells a half-million home-printed tickets for sporting and entertainment events each month in North America. Where ticketFast is available, 30 percent of tickets sold are now printed at home, said the company, which is by far the nation's largest ticket agency. But consumers - many of whom have complained for years about climbing ticket prices and Ticketmaster service charges - may be less eager for the next phase of Ticketmaster's Internet evolution. Late this year the company plans to begin auctioning the best seats to concerts through ticketmaster.com. With no official price ceiling on such tickets, Ticketmaster will be able to compete with brokers and scalpers for the highest price a market will bear. "The tickets are worth what they're worth," said John Pleasants, Ticketmaster's president and chief executive. "If somebody wants to charge $50 for a ticket, but it's actually worth $1,000 on eBay, the ticket's worth $1,000. I think more and more, our clients - the promoters, the clients in the buildings and the bands themselves - are saying to themselves, `Maybe that money should be coming to me instead of Bob the Broker.' " http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/01/technology/01TICK.html