Credit: Ninth Floor Comic (I think)

Brilliant! LCD Soundsystem are playing at the Astoria. Tickets are on Presale now.

Search Ticketmaster.com the show is £18.50 a head. Bit pricey but a possibly one of the most brilliant bands of the last couple of years. Put my credit card details in the machine. There will be a £3.25 booking fee for each ticket. What for? me putting the details into this form.

What does that make it? £21.75 a ticket, is there any other option? No, this is the promoters exclusive presale. *Click*

Now you have to receive it registered post: Your options here are £4.95, £4.95, £4.95. Ah any colour as long as it is £4.95? seems a lot *Click*

My two tickets for the LCD Soundsystem that are advertised at £18.50 each mark both come in for a pound short off £50. £11.45 surcharge on the pair of them, it is a 31% mark-up on advertised price.

Something is wrong here? How much are drinks in the venue? It is going to be an easy £100 night out. I don’t think I can bear to go through with buying them. I feel ripped off and I haven’t even bought them yet. Why do concert tickets cost this much money? Why are they marked up 31% ?

Fortunately I have worked in live events and online music industry for best part of the last ten years and this is why…

£18.50

Face Value

This is the money that goes into the shows budget, the amount the band fee was based on and is displayed to the advertising/budgets/everyone BUT final the purchaser of the tickets. Will go more into this later

£3.25

The ‘Booking Fee’

Other companies don’t charge a booking fee for taking your money? If you order a book from Amazon. Amazon sends the book - they charge some postage but no fee for the pleasure of taking our money. How does this booking fee break down.

£1.50 Is likely to go back to the promoter of the gig.

The company who decided the charge was £18.50 has an extra £1.50 a ticket. This fee is the reason why some companies use Ticketmaster, why some use See. Depending what kickback they negotiated over a period of time.