Do Prices on Ticketmaster Suddenly Seem Much Higher? You’re Not Alone.

For years now, the Ticketmaster experience has been defined by hitting the checkout button and seeing the price of your ticket purchase jump, sometimes nearly double, thanks to so-called “service fees.” Finally, that is going to change. No, Ticketmaster isn’t getting rid of the service charges. But it will now display the full cost of the purchase, fees included, from the very start of your transaction.

In a blog post, Ticketmaster announced its so-called “all-in pricing,” which starts Monday, May 12. “With All In Prices, you’ll be able to find tickets within your budget right away, with no surprises at checkout. That’s because you’ll see the cost of your ticket—including fees, before taxes—from the moment you start shopping for any Ticketmaster event in the US,” the company said.

Why is Ticketmaster introducing its new pricing that transparently reflects the actual cost of tickets? To hear Ticketmaster’s version of events, this is something it has wanted all along. “We’re all in on putting fans first. We’ve long advocated for all-in pricing laws worldwide, and support a consistent ticket-buying experience for fans,” the company claimed in a blog post.

There is something quite funny about Ticketmaster turning this into some sort of new feature and positioning itself as being pro-consumer, as if someone forced it to operate with hidden fees that only appear at checkout all this time. Ticketing fees have been an issue for a long time, with Ticketmaster being one of the biggest culprits. A 2018 Government Accountability Office report found that service fees hit ticket buyers with costs that add, on average, 27% to 31% of the advertised ticket price to their final purchase.

When the Biden administration started pursuing its crackdown on junk fees, Ticketmaster promised to go along with the changes—but spent more of its efforts skirting and fighting them. Per the Washington Post, the ticketing giant started showing the full purchase price on tickets only for shows at Live Nation venues, a company Ticketmaster merged with back in 2010. The company also ramped up its lobbying spending as soon as the junk fee rules started to be discussed. That doesn’t exactly seem like the kind of thing a company that has always wanted price transparency would do.

Instead, the explanation for Ticketmaster’s “All In Pricing,” the groundbreaking concept of showing what things cost, is much simpler. The Federal Trade Commission’s “Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees,” which requires businesses to “clearly and conspicuously” display the total price with fees included from the jump, went into effect on May 12. Weird how that needed to become the law of the land for Ticketmaster to actually do the thing it claims it has long supported.