Fifty-Two Percent Surcharge

I was talking to my friend Will Briarwood again. He was telling me about buying some concert tickets.

“I really like Jon Dee Graham.”

I saw him open for Alejandro Escovedo a year or two ago, and he was pretty great.

“And I really like Peter Case.”

Always puts on a good live show.

“And, as we’ve discussed many times, I love FitzGerald’s.”

The best music club in the Chicago area.

“So I bought tickets for the wife and me, to the Jon Dee Graham / Peter Case show at FitzGerald’s later this month.”

I sense a flipside to all this love and like.

“I hate Ticketmaster. It cost me $45.80 to buy two fifteen-dollar tickets online.”

That would be about a 52% surcharge. I thought you bought your tickets at FitzGerald’s, and avoided the Ticketmaster fees.

“I used to. Since we moved to County DuPage, it’s just too much hassle to drive to Berwyn in the evening, just to save fifteen bucks.”

It’s not as if a mature rock fan such as yourself can’t afford fifteen bucks, to save the hour or two you would spend driving to and from Berwyn.

“Perhaps. But it’s the principle.”

Umm, when people say it’s not the money, it’s the principle…

“Yeah, I know, they’re usually saying that it is the money. I just wish it was still my fifteen bucks, or Jon Dee’s, or Peter’s, or Bill Fitzgerald’s money. Not some evil corporate Ticketbastard.”