FWIW, for most concert venues, you can show up in-person, buy them from a physical ticketing kiosk, and avoid paying any fees. The physical kiosks often have inconvenient hours and locations, but it’s an option. In many cases, even buying tickets same-day for smaller venues is less expensive than paying for all of the fees.
This is a feature, not a bug. This is one of the things that made TicketMaster appealing 30-odd years ago, before the internet was popular; you could go to your local grocery store customer service counter, and buy tickets for a concert as soon as the store opened in the morning, rather than waiting in line at the venue. They’ve just extended that into the internet, and added suffocating fees on top of it, because they know that for hugely popular acts you simply don’t have any other option.
FWIW, for most concert venues, you can show up in-person, buy them from a physical ticketing kiosk, and avoid paying any fees. The physical kiosks often have inconvenient hours and locations, but it’s an option. In many cases, even buying tickets same-day for smaller venues is less expensive than paying for all of the fees.
Unless that show was “completely sold out” before the physical ticket office opened for business.
This is a feature, not a bug. This is one of the things that made TicketMaster appealing 30-odd years ago, before the internet was popular; you could go to your local grocery store customer service counter, and buy tickets for a concert as soon as the store opened in the morning, rather than waiting in line at the venue. They’ve just extended that into the internet, and added suffocating fees on top of it, because they know that for hugely popular acts you simply don’t have any other option.