Ticketmaster has a new name for its restricted tickets: “Fan Protected Paperless Ticketing.” But who exactly are they protecting, and how?
Here are a few things these “Fan Protected Paperless Tickets” don’t let you do:
- Easily donate tickets to charity or give them as gifts.
- Distribute tickets in advance so friends can enter when they want, instead of waiting to enter as one big group.
- Give a ticket away at the last minute because of an illness, a business trip or a change of plans.
- Share your ticket with another person, for any reason, without restrictions or strings attached.
And what if you’re a season ticket holder? Are you really planning to attend 81 home baseball games, 41 home basketball games or 41 home hockey games? Real fans buy and sell tickets all the time, on dozens of different exchanges that have been offering customer service and purchase guarantees for many years. We pay more or less than face value – but it is our choice, not Ticketmaster’s.
Why should we trust Ticketmaster to protect us? This is the company that charges us junk fees at every turn, including $2.50 just to print our tickets at home, on our own printers. We know whom to trust, and we know that “Fan Protected Paperless Tickets” are just another way for Ticketmaster to reduce fans’ protections, choices and convenience.
If you’re fed up with Ticketmaster, click here to join the Fan Freedom Project.