Sunday, July 31, 2005
Ticket "Convenience"
For Annie's 4th birthday I wanted to treat her and the family out to a show. I was hovering between the local Blue Man show and Medieval Times. Annie seemed to like both suggestions equally so it was a toss up. Went to enquire about Blue Man tickets online, and only found indifferent seats available in the near-term for a premium price. What really turned me off buying a set of tickets for the family to this show were the surcharges: $1 venue charge plus a $6.25 "convenience fee" per ticket. Yow. Felt like I was reading the fine print while buying a cell phone. So buying four tickets would have meant paying the equivalent of another half-ticket in additional fees. "Convenient" indeed for somebody, but not for me. I checked to see if these same fees were there when I called into TicketMaster, and after about 5 minutes wading through their automated system found they were still there. Ugh.
For Annie's 4th birthday I wanted to treat her and the family out to a show. I was hovering between the local Blue Man show and Medieval Times. Annie seemed to like both suggestions equally so it was a toss up. Went to enquire about Blue Man tickets online, and only found indifferent seats available in the near-term for a premium price. What really turned me off buying a set of tickets for the family to this show were the surcharges: $1 venue charge plus a $6.25 "convenience fee" per ticket. Yow. Felt like I was reading the fine print while buying a cell phone. So buying four tickets would have meant paying the equivalent of another half-ticket in additional fees. "Convenient" indeed for somebody, but not for me. I checked to see if these same fees were there when I called into TicketMaster, and after about 5 minutes wading through their automated system found they were still there. Ugh.
So I called Medieval Times, where I got an actual person on the phone. One of the first things I asked was whether there were any hidden "convenience" fees. I was assured that there wasn't, and so I went ahead with the order.
Ordering from Medieval Times as opposed to Blue Man ended up being much more "convenient" for me. They lost my business this time, though I will likely cave in and buy tickets in the future, but not likely for the whole family given the cost.
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