Ticketmaster is one of the largest ticket sales and distribution companies in the world, providing ticketing services for many major concert promoters, sports leagues, and theaters. However, one common frustration for customers is Ticketmaster’s lack of an option to purchase just a single seat, instead of multiple seats together. There are a few reasons why Ticketmaster does not allow single seat purchases.
Venue Layouts and Seating Policies
One factor is that many venues have seating layouts and policies that require groups of seats to be sold together. For example, concert halls or theaters with reserved seating typically have sections, rows, and seats that are grouped together. Selling single seats scattered throughout the venue would make it very difficult for the venue to manage orderly ticketing and seating. It could result in single isolated seats surrounded by empty seats, which does not provide a good experience for the customer who purchased the single ticket.
Venues want to sell tickets in logical blocks that follow the layout of the seating sections. It allows them to more efficiently track ticket sales, manage capacity, and assign seats in order. If single random seats could be purchased, it would make it extremely complicated to manage.
High Demand for Group Seating
For many popular events, there is high demand for group seating from couples, families, and friend groups who want to sit together. Venues want to accommodate groups and maximize ticket sales. Allowing single seats to be picked off would make it much harder to fulfill group orders.
Customers purchasing single scattered seats for themselves would effectively block groups from getting ideal seats together. With only single seats available, groups would be split up or stuck with suboptimal seats. That is a poor customer experience that venues want to avoid.
Operational Difficulties
Operationally, only selling single seats would be challenging for Ticketmaster and venues to manage. Every order would have to be for just one specific open seat in the venue layout. With thousands of tickets being sold, that becomes an enormous effort to manually handle each ticket purchase one-by-one.
It is more efficient to allow customers to purchase multiple seats together, which consolidates orders and allows available seats to be allocated in orderly blocks. From Ticketmaster’s perspective, only fulfilling single seat orders would be extremely labor and time intensive compared to handling grouped orders.
Customer Incentives for Group Sales
Ticketmaster also has a financial incentive to sell tickets in groups rather than individually. The company has negotiated deals with many venues in which they share a percentage of ticket sales revenue. By selling more tickets together in each order, Ticketmaster can collect more fees per transaction.
There are also packages andDynamic pricing where groups get discounted prices on bulk ticket orders. Limiting orders to single seats reduces the opportunity for those higher value group sales.
Revenue Optimization Factors
In addition to operational factors, there are some key business considerations driving Ticketmaster’s ticket sales strategy:
Capturing High Demand Seats for Resale
For extremely popular events where tickets sell out instantly, Ticketmaster wants to capture as many of the highest demand seats as possible to maximize sales revenue. This means prioritizing group orders over individual seats.
By locking in orders for blocks of top seats, they can ensure supply of those high-demand seats for their Ticketmaster Resale secondary market. Resale allows Ticketmaster to re-sell the best seats again at a premium.
Forcing Customers to Resale Market
Similarly, limiting single seat purchases channels more customers into the Resale market. With only groups of seats available in the primary sales, an individual customer’s only option is to pay higher prices on Resale. Ticketmaster takes a cut of up to 25% on Resale revenue.
Higher Fees on Group Orders
As noted earlier, Ticketmaster charges higher fees on group ticket orders compared to single seats. Groups have to pay service fees per ticket, not per order. More tickets = more fees.
Group Discount Pricing
Ticketmaster utilizes tiered discount pricing based on number of tickets purchased. The more tickets bought, the lower the per-ticket price. This incentivizes groups and resellers to purchase more from Ticketmaster.
Number of Tickets | Price per Ticket |
---|---|
1 seat | $100 |
2-4 seats | $95 |
5-8 seats | $90 |
9+ seats | $85 |
Higher Prices on Resale
Ticketmaster sets price floors on its Resale market to prevent tickets from being resold below face value. This allows them to raise secondary market prices higher, capitalizing on demand. Again, limiting single seat purchases helps drive customers into that higher priced Resale market.
Is This Anti-Consumer Behavior by Ticketmaster?
On the surface, Ticketmaster’s lack of single seat options seems deliberately anti-consumer. But there are also some legitimate operational constraints for venues. Smaller events may have no issue selling individual seats affordably, but major high-demand concerts and games require a more controlled approach.
Valid Logistical Factors
Managing venue seating is complex, especially at scale. Allowing chaotic single seat sales would legitimately make operations very challenging for venues. There are valid logistical and customer experience factors in requiring grouped ticket sales.
However, venues could be more flexible for low demand events where single seat sales would not disrupt operations.
Market Power Over Customers
While logistics are a factor, Ticketmaster also uses their market power to constrain options in ways that maximize revenues. Individual customers have no alternative but to accept difficult grouped sales that cater to resellers.
Independent ticket companies could provide single seat options to compete, but Ticketmaster’s dominance makes that very difficult. Lack of market competition empowers Ticketmaster to act more in their own interests than consumers.
Driving Up Prices
Ticketmaster’s sales tactics ultimately enable higher ticket prices, driven by:
– Forcing customers into high-fee group orders when single seats would suffice
– Pushing customers to the high-priced Resale market
These outcomes are good for Ticketmaster revenue but bad for consumers, especially individuals. While understandable for high demand events, those same tactics are utilized across all types of events where it harms affordability.
A Captive Audience
Fans feel captive to Ticketmaster because they control ticketing for so many major concerts, sporting events, and theaters. Die-hard fans will pay the higher prices enabled by Ticketmaster’s sales tactics.
But more casual fans get priced out of live events. A more fair ticketing market would better balance enabling high demand while maintaining broad affordability.
Conclusion
Ticketmaster’s refusal to offer single seat ticket sales is driven by a mix of logistical constraints and revenue maximizing tactics. For high demand events, grouped ticket sales are necessary to manage venue seating complexities. But those same policies applied to all events, regardless of demand, unfairly drive up costs for consumers.
While some restrictions are understandable, Ticketmaster should find ways to open up more affordable single seat options. That would require giving up some control and potential revenue. But it would create a more fair, consumer-friendly live event ticketing market.