With Live/NationTicketmaster CEO Irving Azoff joining Twitter, layers of PR have been peeled away and it’s almost like talking to the man himself. So when he breathlessly unveiled “New TM full disclosure” on Saturday, it was reason to be excited. So what does that mean? It means they’re trying, but still have a ways to go. The link leads to a page to buy Carrie Underwood tickets. While Metal Insider wasn’t about to buy Underwood tickets, Hypebot did a test purchase, and found there were still $6.50 in additional charges. That’s less than before, but still adds up. One day later, Azoff gave some clarification by tweeting “can’t boil all fees down to a per ticket fee until we know how many tix are bought and shipping method chosen so it has to happen later.” He then further clarified, tweeting that all in pricing means “print at home and order charges go away.” At this point, we’ll take what we can get, and some effort is better than none.
On a related note, when Ozzfest made the announcement in May that it was returning, one thing they trumpeted was “all-in” ticket pricing, which included no cost for parking. That didn’t stop parking from costing an incredibly steep $25 yesterday, or more than two discounted lawn seats. Somewhere along the line, Live Nation must have re-read their press release, because in between bands, there were announcements that there would be refunds given to anyone that paid for parking. If you wound up going to the Camden Ozzfest, paid for parking, and were alert/sober enough to keep your parking stub and don’t mind filling out an e-mail, you can go here to do it. Again, we like the effort they’re showing. But why the hell would they have charged money in the first place? We asked Live Nation and got referred back to Ozzfest.com, which isn’t offering any clarification as to why this might have happened in the first place.
