College Candy

There is a real crisis going on in America and it’s deeply effecting the children. No, I’m not talking about the War in Iraq, the nuclear problem in Iran or the skyrocketing price of oil. I am talking about the Hannah Montana Ticket Shortage of 2007. Sounds ridiculous, huh? Well maybe to people with some semblance of a life, but to thousands of soccer moms and Disney-conditioned / obsessed tweens, this is a serious dilema of gargantuan proportions and someone must be held accountable.

For those of you who haven’t a clue what I am talking about, here’s a little backstory:

Hannah Montana is a fictional character from the Disney show of the same name. Hannah, (played by Billy Ray Cyrus’ daughter Miley) is a 14 year-old average teenager living a secret double life as a Teen Pop Sensation. The show has scored record ratings for the Disney Channel and is incredibly popular with the 5 to 12 demo. So naturally when Disney announced a nationwide Hannah Montana Live Tour (no, it’s not an ice show) demand for tickets spiked higher than that of a furry red homosexual tickle doll on Christmas Eve.

Tickets with a face value of $66 are reportedly selling on the secondary market for as much as $4500.

Sounds like a simple issue of supply and demand. So what’s the big deal, you say? The big deal is that Ticketmaster, the biggest monopolistic bully in the entertainment business is blaming ticket scalpers / brokers for causing this “ticket shortage” when infact they are scalping tickets themselves.

Case in point: A friend of mine bought HM tickets for her sister on Ticketmaster back in September. The show of course sold out immediately. A couple of days later, she received this email (note the subject line) from Ticketmaster offering to broker any extra Hannah Montana tickets she would not be able to use through their own service TicketExchange. WTF? Am I hearing this correctly? The same company that condemns the secondary market has created it’s own after-market resale venue to profit a second time on a ticket they have already sold? This is insane, deceptive and just plain evil.

Here is TM’s current sweet deal. When tickets go onsale, TM takes a percentage of face value. You then buy the ticket, and they gorge on another $8 – $30 as a “service charge.” Just incase you are thinking poor Ticketmaster, they are on track to make OVER $1 billion in 2007 revenues. That’s right…9 decimal places for those of you who are in remedial Algebra. But wait! How can they be expected to make living off of that?

They are now proposing to take over the secondary ticket market through their Ticket Exchange. Here, they will take another percentage of what you and I are trying to sell our tickets for – but then another $8 to $30 in “handling fees” on a ticket that has already been handled. That is a total of about 30% and $60 in fees and surcharges.

TM blames brokers and resellers for high ticket prices, but that is crap. Anyone who took high school economics knows that this is a matter of supply and demand. Now those fascists at TM want a bigger cut at our expense. There is no reason why they should continue taking advantage of consumers more than they already are.

Shame on you Ticketmaster…you blow!