Hey, it’s Tom, cofounder of TicketStumbler.

It’s with a lot of confusion and mixed emotions that I write this.  Dan Haubert, my cofounder and friend since 3rd grade, passed away last week.  He died in a very tragic way, leaving those who knew him grasping for answers and finding absolutely none.  My heart goes out to his family and his girlfriend. I have plenty of complex shit to work through myself.

I know Dan’s absence is going to be felt on Hacker News (username “fallentimes”) and in the many ticket blogs and sport forums where he was considered a maven, maybe THE ticket maven.  His Facebook wall right now is a vestige of an indelible personality. If you knew him, you know that this simple comment is maybe the most accurate: “Dan, thanks for being Dan.”

I don’t yet feel like addressing the future of TicketStumbler in the absence of the gregarious and irreverent person that helped build it. Honestly, I just need some time to think, but I wanted to tell you before you hear it somewhere else. TicketStumbler is not going anywhere for now.

I want to thank Paul and Jessica of Y Combinator for being the most supportive advisors a company could ever have.  Thank you to everyone who’s offered to help in some way.

You’ll be missed, old friend.

Interesting break out of Ticketmaster fees:

A few comments:

-In this example, of the $20.50 in total service charges,  $8.25 (40%) goes to Ticketmaster and the remaining $12.25 (60%) goes to the venue. The distribution of face value ticket proceeds amongst the artist, label, Ticketmaster and venue would be even more interesting.

-Major artists are often able to negotiate cuts of the service fees and/or tickets for their own use or sale. The Nine Inch Nail’s Trent Reznor has eloquently discussed this and the secondary ticket market.

-Although complaints about Ticketmaster fees are ubiquitous, Ticketmaster isn’t making as much money as the average user would think. However, this is probably a moot point as no one likes to be hit with extras at the end; it makes people feel ripped off or cheated. It’s one thing to pay more money for shipping. It’s another to pay numerous extra fees that are often esoteric and glibly named (convenience fees?!). If you ever want to be infuriated look at your cell phone bill. Not surprisingly, customer sentiment towards phone companies and Ticketmaster is very similar.

-But, this isn’t all Ticketmaster’s fault. Ticketmaster has tried switching to a pricing model where all or most of the convenience fees are built in to the face value ticket price. The end price would be the exact same, but the ticket buying experience would be significantly more transparent and mostly spared of backloaded fees. Unfortunately, this sort of pricing structure has been met with opposition from the artists and venues who don’t want to raise prices, or rather don’t want the appearance of raising prices. When the face value cost is lower, it’s much easier for the artists and venues to shift blame towards Ticketmaster for “excessive fees” even if the artists and venues are getting a cut.

-Since Ticketmaster tacks the fees at the end, its competitors and the secondary ticket providers follow suit. People are used to having to pay extras even if they complain about it.

(thanks Garry Tan for the image)

In Rick Reilly’s [1] column this week, he writes that because of the recession, season ticket holders are dumping their tickets for ten cents on the dollar. He starts with a hypothetical $100 and browses the internet to see how many events he can go to before “spending” it all  [2].

Let’s start with a little NBA. You’ve heard the average NBA ticket is $48.83? Pah! I could’ve bought a ticket to the March 27 Nuggets at Mavericks game for $1.99. No lie. A very good NBA game for less than actual nuggets (McDonald’s, $3.29). Events: One. Money left: $98.01. I would’ve had to pay a little more to see the Raptors-Rockets on March 3—$3. Maybe I’ll sue. Events: Two. Left: $95.01.

It’s not just NBA tickets.

Wizards at Spurs on March 6? Would 99 cents be within your price range? True, it’s a balcony corner seat at the blimp-hangar known as the AT&T Center in San Antonio—which means you’re practically in Waco—but so what? Or, that same day, I could’ve taken in a little NASCAR—for six bucks. That’s how much it would’ve cost to see the Friday qualifying for the Kobalt Tools 500 near Atlanta. No, it ain’t the race. It’s faster than the race! Last year, the pole winner was Jeff Gordon. Six bucks? Are you nuts for nets? How about a night at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, March 25? OK, it’s pricey: $14.56 (eBay), but Serena Williams, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are scheduled to play. What do you want, a post-match loofa? (We’ll work on it.) Events: 8. Left: $49.96

This trend has become more apparent as the recession has progressed. Discounted tickets started springing up towards the end of the NFL football season when you could buy Lions, Bengals or Rams tickets for $5-$20. It wasn’t just the terrible teams either. The Arizona Cardinals – the team that went to the Super Bowl – had problems selling out their first playoff game. As did the Minnesota Vikings and San Diego Chargers. The NFL had to extend their local television blackout deadlines multiple times…for playoff games.

We expect this trend to continue through baseball season and likely even longer. Most baseball games don’t sellout anyway (unless you’re the Yankees, Red Sox or Cubs) and now seats will be available for a fraction of their face value. Broadway sales have been off. Further tests include summer concert sales and NFL season ticket renewal rates, but the early signs are bad. Each of the major sports (NFL, MLB, NBA, NASCAR and the NHL) have had layoffs. Luxury tax concerns caused one of the strangest NBA trade deadlines in recent memory.  And while the NBA is quick to point to their increase in attendance, the number is misleading.  Those attendance numbers are for paid attendance not actual attendance. One only has to look at the empty stands and lifeless corporate suites to understand what’s happening: season ticket holders are skipping out and corporations consider their suites sunk costs.

The NBA took out a $175 million loan to help half the league. The NHL  has done something similar. Teams are hurting. In an effort to get someone…anyone… in to the arena, teams have heavily discounted their tickets and introduced myriad packages and deals. The NHL’s Florida Panthers are promising free tickets to some of their customers if the team misses the playoffs. The NBA’s New Jersey Nets are giving away their tickets for free. Baseball’s Minnesota Twins are offering season tickets for $250.

Events aren’t selling [3]. How else could you explain a company with a monopoly throwing themselves in to a ill-conceived merger that would obviously be met with waves of lawsuits and opposition. Why would the monopoly company’s CEO rail against their quasi-wholesalers? Desperation. Entertainment is pure disposable income [4].

I write this all not to complain – there’s enough recession screamers out there -  but to observe. For someone who has never had the opportunity to see their favorite team play or who has always wanted truly great seats to a game, now’s the time to do it.  And I say that not as the co-founder of a ticket search engine and directory, but as a fan.  Shop around on Craigslist, Ticketmaster, Livenation and maybe even TicketStumbler too [5]. Call the teams up and see if you can get a deal. I organized a Bruins game for my college’s alumni group and was able to get tickets for half-off. Look for deals; they’re everywhere.

[1] Yeah, I know.

[2] His calculations unfortunately leave out fees and shipping. As more teams move to e-tickets, these will hopefully be reduced considerably.

[3] Of course, there are numerous exceptions.

[4] I’ve read numerous articles saying that during the Great Depression, movie ticket sales actually increased as people wanted an escape.

[5]

As it turns out, I was wrong.  I am human after all!

• 1200: New ticket update introduces anomalous timezone-related bug that causes many events to have the incorrect date/time.
• 1300: The error is tracked down and, influenced by the genius created by not having slept for 21 hours, I create a solution.
• 1330: The solution is implemented.
• 1350: I realize the “solution” actually had the potential to move a lot of tickets to the wrong events.  Unfortunately, once moved, there’s no way to figure out where they should go back to without making some assumptions.
• 1400: So begins the arduous task of re-initializing all ticket listings from scratch because the possibility of giving inaccurate data isn’t something to play around with.

What this means, besides further sleep deprivation for me, is that events will disappear/reappear on the site throughout the day and listings will be sparse for a little while.  All these issues should be resolved in a few hours.

The accuracy of our listings is very important to us so we make every effort to track down issues and stop them before they can spread, but once in a great while things slip by.  I apologize profusely for any inconvenience this may cause