Ticketmaster Sucks... And This is News?

Never piss off a Springsteen fan, I guess.

The "uproar" over Springsteen tickets selling out, and then Darth Ticketmaster redirecting people to TicketsNow, their scalping arm, is funny to me. Where has everyone been all this time? Ticketmaster has always done this, only instead of doing it in person at the local Virgin Music Store or Wherehouse, they are doing it in the comfort of your own home.

My hate/hate relationship with Ticketmaster began early. As a concert-obsessed teenager, my dutiful mother stood in line with me for tickets to just about every mid-90s show. From Nine Inch Nails to Pearl Jam, Nirvana to R.E.M., Ticketmaster repeatedly proved that no matter how early you got in line, no matter how much you were ready to shell out in insane "service charges," they were going to withhold a huge chunk of the best tickets for their VIP corporate clients and friends.

Eddie Vedder, the over-earnest lead singer of Pearl Jam, attempted to take on the 'Master, both legally and though selling his band's tickets through a special hotline. Ultimately he caved and sold out, as band after band has done in the face of the mega-corp of ticket sales.

Now that Ticketmaster is in talks to merge with slightly less evil competitor, Live Nation, things will only get worse. The company that charges you $2.50 to print your own ticket (instead of them spending money on mailing you the paper ticket), and sometime $20 worth of fees on top of each ticket's face value, will soon own the majority of ticket sales in America. Awesome.

So why is this only now being covered by the press? Call it the perfect storm of Springsteen: add one huge classic rock icon to one amazingly high-profile Super Bowl performance, and you get a ticket sales nightmare. For his part, Bruce is heated at Ticketmaster's decision to offer tickets through their scalping group, TicketsNow, accusing the company of having a conflict of interest, and inflicting "an abuse of our fans and our trust."

This Boss fan agrees, but cautions that nothing - not the wrath of Springsteen or the good intentions of any member of Congress - will do much to change the greedy culture of ticket hawkers. Guess we'll all just have to wait until show day and buy our tickets for half-price again.