Boyung.com

I've bought tickets for several events in the last month or so.  I cringe every time I do this because of all of the fees that they charge on top of the ticket prices.  Here's a few examples:

Tickets to Video Games Live concert:

• Historic Preservation Fee - $3 per ticket
• Credit Card Fee - 2.6% of total cost ()
• Convenience Fee (for online purchases) - $5.50 per ticket
• Per Order Fee - $3.50 per order
• Delivery Fees - $3.50 to mail the tickets OR $3.50 to pick up tickets at the box office

Tickets to Spamalot:

• Convenience Fee (ticketmaster.com) - $9.85 per ticket
• Order Processing Fee - $4.55
• Delivery Fees - $2.50 to print tickets myself or free to have them mailed via standard mail

Tickets to Brewers games (these fees are identical using the website or ordering over the phone):

• Convenience Fee - $3.25 per ticket & $2.00 per parking pass
• Delivery Fees - $3.00

For Video Games Live and Spamalot, I payed the fees, except to print the tickets myself, since there's enough time to have them mailed.  I could go to the theater box offices and avoid these fees, but it really is worth that much to avoid going downtown a separate time just to buy tickets.  For the Brewers games, I will go to the stadium once and buy all of the tickets for all of the games that I plan on going to.  Based on last year, I would have spent over $70 in fees, for all of the games that I purchased.

The first problem that I have with this is the two items in bold above.  A delivery charge for picking up the tickets at the box office OR having them mailed?  That's insane.  Of course, the only thing worse than that is a charge to print the tickets myself, when ticketmaster does not charge to mail them to me.  Picking up the tickets at the box office or printing them myself save these companies money, so this fee is pure profit for them.  Of course, the same can be said about my other issue with ticket fees - the "convenience" fees for being able to use the website (or in the case of the Brewers tickets, even using the phone) to purchase tickets.  I can understand a web processing fee for them to print out the tickets, envelope, and mailing the tickets out, but one ticket or ten tickets, the cost for the company is nearly identical.  And it is nowhere near the $3.25, $5.50, or $9.85 per ticket that they charge.  If anything, the box offices should charge less for using the website, since it saves them money.  Of course, that will never happen.