Promise by Ticketmaster, other companies could spark change in Spokane

A transparency agreement made Thursday at the White House by U.S. ticket retail giants could bring welcome change to the Spokane events scene this fall.

President Joe Biden held a meeting at the White House with companies including Live Nation, SeatGeek and Ticketmaster, calling on them to do away with “junk fees,” or hidden fees customers must pay on top of the ticket price advertised for an event.

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., sent out a news release Thursday in support of the agreement.

“Studies from the New York Attorney General’s office and the Government Accountability Office show that surprise fees can contribute anywhere from 21% to as much as 58% of the total cost of tickets,” the news release reads.

Live Nation, which took ownership of Ticketmaster in a merger last year, committed to post ticket prices in full and upfront come September.

Ticketmaster came under fire last year when Taylor Swift’s tour announcement spurred glitches and frozen queues for thousands of fans trying to purchase tickets on the company’s website.

A busy concert season is underway in Spokane.

On Thursday afternoon, the telephone rang nonstop in the ticketing office of Spokane Arena. Country music star Chris Stapleton was set to play for a sold-out crowd that night, and concert-goers dialed just hours before the show asking how to access tickets purchased online. The Arena is among several local venues that contract with companies to sell tickets. For Thursday’s show, the Arena went through TicketsWest, a company that also sells tickets for the Podium, First Interstate Center for the Arts and Spokane Convention Center.

Spokane Public Facilities District leadership began preliminary talks about hidden ticketing fees last year when Ticketmaster fell under scrutiny, entertainment director Matt Meyer said Thursday. Meyer said he figured facilities ticketing will follow the direction of the agreement made in D.C.

“We haven’t had much conversation, because we’re kind of trying to see how it shakes out from a federal level – from the legal standpoint,” Meyer said. “We’re just waiting for the legalese to come down. That way, everyone’s playing by the same rules at the same time.”

In April, Marysville, Washington, resident Stephanie Davey and a Spokesman-Review reporter bought two tickets to see alt-rock band Foo Fighters play with The Breeders on Aug. 4 at the Arena. A receipt TicketsWest sent via email listed each ticket priced at $139.50. To the right of that listed price, another column labeled “Fee” carried a separate charge of $28.44. In total, each ticket cost $167.94, nearly $30 more than the sticker price advertised on the ticketing website.

About a mile south of the river, officials with Riverfront Park say they’ve heard frustrations over the years from Pavilion concertgoers about hidden ticket fees. The 5,000-person venue contracts ticket sales exclusively with AEG Presents, a California-based company.

Park programming and marketing manager Amy Lindsey said she wasn’t surprised about the Ticketmaster news, because it’s been a discussion topic in the events industry for decades.

“From a transparency standpoint, it’s great news,” she said Thursday in a phone interview. “It’s a surprise when you’re in the checkout process and your ticket jumps up in price.

“People should be able to see if they can actually afford a ticket.”

Lindsey added that hidden fees are not controlled by park officials, but she believes ticket-selling companies will move in the direction of transparency.

At the Knitting Factory, general manager Kent Shelton said the No. 1 complaint he’s heard from patrons is about hidden ticket fees.

“They don’t ever seem to think it was Ticketmaster or another ticketing outlet,” Shelton said. “They always think that we’re the ones padding the ticket price, trying to rip them off.”

But Shelton said a much bigger problem is internet bots programmed to buy up dozens of tickets at a time, then resell them to third-party retailers that sell them at significantly higher costs.

“In a lot of cases, we’ve had a show go on sale here that sold out in, like, 10 minutes,” he said. “When you put a show on sale that’s going to be in three months and it instantly sells out, you know something is up. We know how the rhythms of these things work.”

When ticket companies such as Ticketmaster figure out a third-party buyout happened, the companies will try to investigate the situation and refund the tickets back into the system, Shelton said.

“I’m happy that prices will start to be more up front,” Shelton said of Thursday’s agreement in D.C. “I hope this will give concertgoers a much better idea of what they’re paying for and how to get there.”

Some local venues, such as the Fox Theater, will not see any change to their ticketing system with the news out of the White House.

Instead of contracting to sell tickets, the nonprofit theater sells tickets out of its own box office using a system called Tessitura.

“We pride ourselves on our customer service,” Fox Theater marketing director Kathy Gustafson said. “If you can’t do it online, it’s not like Ticketmaster, where there’s nobody to call. We have a box office number in-house, so a human will answer the phone and help you.”