1 hour ago, Falcon Pride said:

So how did we survive without Ticketmaster?

I find what you are saying hard to believe wrt prices and where the money goes.

Before Ticketmaster, we used to have to camp out for tickets or wait on the phone to get tickets. But even back then, Ticketmaster was providing the service and infrastructure. They've been in business since the late 70's so I'm guessing most of us have been using Ticketmaster nearly our entire lives. My company provides a similar service and is a competitor of Ticketmaster (albeit on a smaller level), so I do know quite a bit about this industry. What you have to remember is we are not    Ticketmaster's customers....the venues are. Ticketmaster negotiates deals with the venues to provide service and infrastructure to manage the entire ticketing process. Part of those deals is a share of the revenue that Ticketmaster brings in....in essence Ticketmaster provides an additional revenue stream for the venues. In other words, a decent portion of the fees is actually a result of the venues themselves, not Ticketmaster. Typically, Ticketmaster only makes about $1.50-$2.00 per ticket. The rest of the fees are the negotiated revenue share with the venue, taxes, and to cover operational costs. The reason Ticketmaster exists is that they provide a service that make the ticketing process easier and more profitable for the venues. It's cheaper for the venues to use Ticketmaster than to develop, maintain and manage the necessary infrastructure to manage the process themselves....it's a classic case of outsourcing...is it cheaper to make it or buy it? The added expense the venues would have to incur to do all of that would result in higher ticket prices and an even worse experience for their customer...the ticket buyer. I'm not saying Ticketmaster is great at what they do (which is why my company is in the business). But the venues are partly responsible for the fees that everyone hates so much. 

I remember the lines outside Graves County High School in '93, '94, '97, and '98 when Alan Hatcher was on an absolute tear through the 1st region. Those were fun times. 

Crowds between 12,000-15,000 nearly every session this week and half of you all are complaining about ticket prices. Can’t we just enjoy the basketball?

Some folks would complain if you gave them a million dollars in ones.

To conclude this thread, the key is having reasonably local, single school county teams, typically 4A/5A/6A in football. The more they win, the bigger the crowd. Toss in Kentucky connections like Sheppard and Perry and that certainly helps, too. 

I remember the days at Saratoga Race Track, where the ticket lines would be two blocks long at 8am in the morning to purchase reserved seats.

About 15 years ago NYRA (New York Racing Association) switched to Ticketmaster.  The prices escalated, BUT the lines disappeared.  In that case you paid for the convenience of not having to stand in long lines.

This was the first tournament I have missed in some time, hated to miss it but seemed like attendance was great. I sold my seats so I didn't lose my package for next year and beyond. 

The attendance was mostly good.  It helps it that they sell the cheering sections twice each session.  Woodford helped a lot. I felt like every school repped pretty well. They said the Thursday night session had 14,700 or so but I'm not sure where they were.

On 3/17/2023 at 8:38 PM, Down4theblue said:

Some folks would complain if you gave them a million dollars in ones.

As they should. ?

 

Kidding, mostly.