Ticketmaster agrees to all-in pricing but customers not really better off

Under recent government pressure to be more transparent with ticket pricing, the heads of SeatGeek, TickPick, Live Nation (who owns Ticketmaster), and other companies met with President Joe Biden on Thursday to talk about fixing the junk fee issues found with most online ticket prices. What companies do, and customers don't see until they are about to purchase tickets, is hide all kinds of things like service fees so when you think you see a ticket for $39 and you buy it for $70, that's just Ticketmaster's way of taking advantage of the issue.

The all-in pricing that most companies agreed to on Thursday is better than not seeing everything you are paying for, but here's the thing. You are still going to be paying excessive amounts for tickets because Ticketmaster and its competitors can still charge whatever they want. The only difference with the all-in pricing is now you get to see what you are being scammed on prior to the actual purchase of the ticket.

The all-in pricing agreement is supposed to be rolled out over the summer. The ticket is going to cost you the same in September as it does in June, though. And for some reason I feel like Ticketmaster and others will somehow find a way to include a fee for having to do the all-in pricing as well.

Ticketmaster and others agree to all-in pricing but so what?

Of course, it helps that Ticketmaster completely melted down over the selling of tickets for Taylor Swift's Eras tour. In that situation, not only did Ticketmaster have a clear monopoly over the venues and therefore the selling of the tickets, but the hidden fees built into the prices made it a lot more expensive for people to go to the shows than it would have been at first glance of the price of the actual ticket. But if you have a nation of millions of angry Swifties against you, it's probably best you do something to change how your company operates.

So let's not lie to ourselves and think that government pressure caused Ticketmaster, etc. to change how they show ticket prices now. This is still all about ticket-selling monsters getting their money and not upsetting fans of the most popular musical artists on the planet. You were getting gouged before the all-in pricing and you will continue to get gouged after the plan goes into effect. You'll just know more upfront that you are still being scammed by monopolies.