Ticketmaster Review

Wednesday, June 7th

2023 Ticket Broker Reviews

Ticketmaster

• Over 45 years of experience in ticketing
• Access tickets to all major venues and events
• Get early access tickets through American Express

Ticketmaster is one of the first places a lot of people think of when buying tickets to a concert, theater performance, art show, or sporting event. They were founded in 1976 in Phoenix, Arizona and sold their first tickets for an orchestra concert at the University of New Mexico in 1976. They now sell tickets internationally and partner with big companies like American Express, Allianz, and ParkWhiz.

Create a free account

You can browse events through Ticketmaster by providing your city or zip code, searching specific dates, or just looking up schedules for a favorite artist, venue, or event. You could also create an account through Ticketmaster to discover recommended events based on tickets you've purchased in the past. You'll have to have an account to purchase tickets here as well as receive and view/use them. If you're an American Express card member, you'll get exclusive early access to big events through your account as well.

Mostly deals with major venues

Ticketmaster has a good list of local events near us, but we noticed they mostly have tickets for major venues. Some of their competitors had ticket listings for small local theaters and school performances, but Ticketmaster didn't list any of those.

Less than helpful seating maps

We thought it was odd that when you click on tickets for an event, you aren't always shown a map of the venue. Even for some big venues and popular events, they display a photo of the sport or concert rather than showing a seating map. For the events that do list a map, we wish you could hover over the different sections to see price ranges and compare. Instead, you just have to scroll through a list of available tickets and their individual prices. Specific seat numbers are provided after purchase, and you are guaranteed seats together if you're purchasing more than one ticket.

Painful service fees

Like almost all other ticket brokers, Ticketmaster tacks on some less-than desirable service charges to all ticket prices. They seem to be especially high here at nearly 38% of the ticket prices in most cases. Ouch! We understand that to some extent these fees are needed to keep everything running smoothly behind the scenes to help buyers and sellers, but some ticket brokers charge more than others and Ticketmaster is one of the highest.

Need more from their refund policy

All sales are final through Ticketmaster, but there are certain circumstances where refunds are allowed. If your event is canceled, you'll get your money back. They don't mention anything about what happens if you purchase invalid tickets, your tickets don't arrive on time, or you never get your tickets at all. This is definitely a case where Ticketmaster should be refunding their customers, but they make no mention of it.

Low customer satisfaction

For how well-known and popular Ticketmaster is, we were shocked at how bad their customer ratings are. People claim they have "non-existent" customer service and have major difficulties getting refunds from events that are canceled. We aren't surprised by this since all their interactions with customers are supposed to be done through email and they don't make it easy to find a "contact us" page. The other most common complaints come from sellers who say it takes months to receive the money they're owed from selling their tickets.

Trouble with the law

The Better Business Bureau gives Ticketmaster a "B-" rating and features over 500 reviews that come out to an average of 1.04 out of 5-stars rating. Government action was taken against Ticketmaster in 2019 as well as 2020 forcing them to pay $14 million in fines for misleading pricing claims and unauthorized access of a competitor's computer systems. Yikes! Needless to say, this company has some major flaws and has some cleaning up to do if we were to recommend them. In the meantime, stick with a higher-rated ticket broker.