The Domestic Terrorist - Ticketbastard

MARK OF THE CON

This is what they call the mark of the con.

I’m told Ticketmaster’s top brass – the levithian, near monopolised beast that controls the ticket sales of almost every concert and event in England and the United States (and probably most of Europe too) - have been watching carefully the grey netherworld of Ebay ticket auctions. And instead of stamping out this vile profiteering, Ticketmaster are considering pocketing the profit for themselves.

Ticketmaster are considering auctioning every single ticket they have for sale in order to make even more money. Of course, no doubt their ‘starting price’ will be the price by which they were originally going to sell them anyway. And every pound above that price, which already has a built in healthy profit, is pure profiteering. Either you pay a fortune, or you don’t. Simple. And if you don’t, then someone else will.

So when U2 play your local enormodome, or Justin Timberlake, then it won’t be merely the first 20,000 tickets sold that matter. It will be the 20,000 most expensive tickets. Art is a commodity, and Ticketmaster are whoring it out on street corners to the highest bidder. Skimming profit off and ripping off the millions. Capitalism is wonderful.

Entertainment will no longer be for the people, but the sole preserve of the rich. And the less you can afford, of course, the worse your seats will be. For £2,500 a ticket you could be the proud owner of a front row ticket for Radiohead or U2. And for £150, you could standing at the back of a huge exhibition centre somewhere in Earl’s Court, about half a mile from a stage, whilst the millionaires lord it up at the front.

As if rock’n’roll is about sitting down anyway.

TICKETBASTARD

At the front – the people who don’t understand, don’t feel the democratisation that art creates, who are merely trading on the exclusivity, the prestige, of their experience, so that they can tell their mates they were at the front for The Stones. As if anyone gives a shit.

Like, so what? Isn’t this the way capitalism works?

Maybe. But that doesn’t make it right, or fair. It’s repugnant – the auctioning off of art as a commodity to generate profit for the rich, and the elitist, artificially-restricted nature of supply is the complete antithesis of the principles of democratisation and free access of great art and artists.

Art isn’t meant to be hidden, or solely a preserve of the rich and affluent. Art is about making the world a better place for all.

THE BIG STEAL

Of course, the public are already subject to the great ticket rip-off anyway. In order to be able to get ‘pre-sale’ access to tickets (that is, be able to buy tickets before the great unwashed get their chance to spend their hardearned dollars to see some famous people sing some songs a long way away), you can pay a subscription fee to be a member of an exclusive club, where one is allocated ‘exclusive premier seating’ at equally exclusive premier prices. Or you can sign up for mere ‘fan’ pre-sales, where you get equally premature access to the tickets, but normally the ones they have difficulty selling in the first place anyway. Block X, Row 23, Seat 121. For example.

Even once you have paid, hand over fist, your hard-earned pounds for the privilege of a hardrockin’ evening with your favourite millionaire megastars, there’s still more to be paid. It’s not enough to merely pay for your ticket. There’s ‘Service Fees’ for the right to spend money. You’re charged for their time and attention when all they’re doing is taking your money anyway. It’s like paying an item in a shop, and then paying the Service Assistant on the counter for their time. And then paying for the plastic bag to carry it in as well. And for someone to carry your bags home when you don’t want or need them to as well.

CAN’T PAY – WON’T PAY

Service Fees and Transaction Fees add up to £5 per ticket onto your costs. That’s five pounds for an automated bit of software spending your money. You even have to type in your own credit card numbers, and all your own details. So you pay someone else a fee and do all the hard work anyway. And on top of this, there’s also a delivery charge.

Now, get this. Not only are you charged for spending money. You’re charged to be sent the ticket. £4.90 for recorded delivery and they often arrive in a 56p envelope anyway. It’s a complete con. A rip off. A steal. You’re not even given the option of picking up the ticket on the day in most cases. And why not? You’re going to be at the venue anyway, right ? You don’t need to have it posted out to you, since you’re going to go to the venue anyway. Unless you’re selling the ticket on Ebay

It’s like charging you to have your shopping delivered home by some rude, amateurish courier – but you’re in the shop anyway, you’ve spent the money, and all you want to do is take the stuff home yourself.

It’s just about ripping you off. Extracting even more money from you in whatever means possible. Withdrawal is the only option possible. But it isn’t an option.

THE FREE MARKET

Privilege has its price.

In the free market, everything finds it price. Everything sells in the end, or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t – its price is nil. If it sells, that is its price. That is the value that people place upon them. The market will try to set its price ; try to dictate to us how much things are worth, how much profit it can make from us, how little we can have for how much it is.

If people don’t buy, people don’t sell. People think about why it doesn’t sell. About the cost, or the function, or all the other factors that match it.

Sometimes people have no choice. Sometimes people need the things that are sold. They cannot exist without them. So there is no choice. The basic necessities have a cost too. Food. Clothing. Heat. Space.

In a monopoly there is no alternative. No consumer choice : withdrawal is not an option – withdrawal is not to survive. You can’t go outside of a monopoly : by its nature, it is everywhere and it is everything.

And Ebay is the place where all things truly find their market worth : be they Radiohead tickets, Star Wars figures, or old junk. Either it sells or it doesn’t. But there is the mark of the con. The Consumer.

THE CON IN THE CONSUMER

Pickpockets call their victim the ‘Mark’. Scammers pull the ‘Con’. And the word Consumer surely has some correlation. The Consumer is the one who is conned. Capitalism charges what it can get away with. And the consumer pays the money. (Or he doesn’t).

So, after Ticketmaster implement this no doubt obscene auctioning of pleasure to the highest bidder, and the market accepts it, because it has no other choice, what is next?

Food, auctioned on Ebay? Yes, you too can bid for bread. Starting at loaves for merely £30 .00!

Health, available to the highest bidder?

But no matter what they sell, there’s something that can never be bought. Integrity. Honesty. Decency. All the values that make mankind the greatest animal there is. Can’t be bought. Can’t be sold. We don’t need them anywhere as near as much as they need us. Without customers, there is no business. Put them out of business. A business that treats its customers like this doesn’t deserve any customers anyway.

Show them that showbusiness is just business. Show them their place. Show them that withdrawal is an option. Show them that they too, can suffer the costs of the rip off. Sure we pay the price. Let them pay the cost.

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