Dear heartless, money-grubbing, uncaring prick owner(s) of Ticketbastard,

I write this letter knowing you will never read it.

In my mind, I imagine a vast warehouse somewhere on the near south side of Chicago, filled to the bursting with crates of letters and phone call transcripts from innocent consumers who are complaining about your incompetent employees, your archaic computer systems or your exorbitant "service" charges. (Ironic that we should have to pay "service" charges for recieving no valuable services whatsoever!) I see a bunch of guys in this warehouse wearing jumpsuits and carting crate after crate into this huge furnace, incinerating complaints with abandon.

I imagine that's the case because I know in my heart that you care about nothing but your bulging pocketbooks. How else to explain the fact that you charge unreasonable prices for a valueless "service" that you can't even bother to perform in anything close to a "competent" fashion? If you even possessed hearts, you might take a moment to think about what your company does, how poorly it does it, and how much it charges for doing it poorly. Then maybe things would change. Then justice might be served.

Instead, Ticketbastard continues along its uncompromising path toward shameless greed and awful performance. It's not bad enough that you're a corporate juggernaut crushing the very public you count as customers; you have to be an ugly, stupid juggernaut too.

Let me tell you fucksticks a few stories--and rest assured, for every story I tell in this letter, there are fifty more from other music fans across the country. I'm willing to bet that there isn't a concertgoer in America who doesn't have at least one Ticketbastard sob story to relate. Pretty amazing, that--you've managed to have a negative effect upon nearly every one of your customers, I'd wager. Yet they're forced to keep coming back to suck up more shit. Congratulations!

My worst encounter with the Ticketbastard beast took place when I was in college. R.E.M. had just announced a big show at the local Rosemont Horizon, about a twenty-thousand seater. It was the Monster Tour, big show, big album--big line for tickets. I got there about an hour before the "raffle ticket" distribution time and waited around the block in this huge crowd. Naturally, with such a massive group of people, I expected that they'd go about distributing the raffle tickets in an orderly fashion to us eager fans.

WRONG! Instead, some jerk-off stood in one spot near the front of the line and the crowd went rushing up in a mob-like pack to snag their raffle ticket and their chance at a spot in line. On top of that, there was no announcement further down the line about the raffle ticket distribution--folks just had to sorta figure it out on their own, leading to even more chaos. I swear ta Gawd, it was like that scene in It's a Wonderful Life where the citizens of Bedford Falls make a run on the Building and Loan. Insanity.

After being cursed by a shitty number (nobody's fault but Lady Fate's--I've yet to draw a good number in one of your raffle drawings), I found myself part of a mad pack of R.E.M. fans running a few blocks down the road en masse to the nearest Hot Tix location, which sold tickets a half-hour after the on-sale time for Ticketbastard. I got seats--behind the stage on the highest concievable level of the venue.

I guess it could be argued that the Ticketbastard employees (actually, the employees of Blockbuster Music who were in charge of Ticketbastard--a problem I'll address in a moment) had nothing to do with my failure to get better tickets, given the size of the crowd and the huge area demand for this show. But you can't debate the incompetence and sheer cluelessness of the employees as evidenced by their handling of the situation. Instead of taking charge of the crowd and making sure that things progressed in an orderly fashion, they voluntarily created a near-riot to get these worthless lottery tickets. The situation was never anything but confusing, and even bordered on dangerous at times. All thanks to the handling by the Ticketbastard outlet employees. (To be fair, I did recieve a call shortly after I wrote about this event when it first happened from a Ticketbastard employee, which I thought was nice. My article must have somehow snuck through.)

Then there's my latest encounter with the Ticketbastard beast, which took place a few Mondays ago. On my way to work, I heard a concert announcement on the radio: Bob Dylan. Tuesday night. Park West--an intimate venue that fits about 500 people, tops. Thirty bucks a ticket, limit two. ON SALE AT TEN A.M.

How could I pass this up? I sped to the nearest Ticketbastard outlet--at a local Carson Pierie Scott store--and hoped against hope that there would be no line and that I could sneak in to get a few tickets. Granted, I did arrive at about ten minutes after ten a.m., but as I walked to the counter and noticed a few happy fans stuffing tickets into their wallets, my hopes soared. They skyrocketed into space when I saw no line for tickets.

Instead of a line, there was an old lady. She was trying to buy tickets FOR SOMETHING ELSE. While Dylan tickets were on sale. Isn't there a rule against that? Shouldn't there be? Even if there was no visible line for the tickets, shouldn't the counter have remained empty to only those wanting Dylan tickets until the tickets were sold out?

Alas, it wasn't. So I stood there in line while they helped this old lady figure out that whatever event she wants to buy tickets for doesn't go on sale until 11 a.m. Great. Outta the way, I'm thinking. Move it or lose it.

Finally, they enter in the Dylan show info into the computer, only to have the COMPUTER FREEZE UP. A fellow Carson's employee, no doubt some kind of expert on the workings of the Ticketbastard computer system, suggests a clever solution: RESTART THE COMPUTER. That fails. They THEN have to CALL the TICKETBASTARD OFFICE to figure out how to FIX THE LOUSY APPLE IIE ON WHICH THE TICKETBASTARD SYSTEM IS RUN AT CARSON'S. The Ticketbastard employee on the phone informs the Ticketbastard lady at Carson's that the shows are both sold out--no shit, Sherlock--and I storm off to work in a nasty mood.

Add to these horror tales the countless times I've called the Ticketbastard hotline for concert info on an upcoming show, only to be confronted with a big fat "Huh?" just about every time, and you've got one hell of a seriously shitty company.

But I'm not just writing to give you and your company shit. That's a big reason for the letter, but not my only one. No, I have a few suggestions, just some handy tips that might help you repair your company and elevate it to a more respectable level of service.

First of all, your employees NEED MORE TRAINING. I'm not sure how the system works now--does someone at Carson's who is operating the Ticketbastard computer have any real knowledge about how the thing works, or are they just given a ten-minute tutorial on their first day about where to punch in the numbers and where the Return key is located on the keyboard? It seems like the latter is true. Either these people should have to attend a Ticketbastard-sponsored tutorial class on how everything works, or even better, you should train your own Ticketbastard employees to work at these various locations. I should not be at the mercy of a random Carson's employee who has no direct responsibility to make sure that my ticket order goes through quickly and efficiently. There's no accountability there.

Second, you need MORE COMPUTERS AND BETTER ONES. Whether I get my Dylan tickets or not should not have rested on the shoulders of an aging computer that's hooked up to more aging computers that probably can't bear the full work load of your business. Every Ticketbastard outlet should have at least two computers--that way, if one breaks down, the other can take over. (This would also eliminate the annoyance of waiting in one line for three different events going on sale at the same time. Why should I have to stand around for an hour with Jimmy Buffet fans when all I want is to get my Ben Folds Five tickets and go back to bed?)

But there should rarely be a system breakdown--or a system freeze, as I've also seen happen. You should have enough really powerful computers to handle any challenges that the customers bring your way. It always seems to me like you've only got the equipment to handle about five orders at a time in the Chicagoland area, and when you get more than that, everything just falls apart. That's lame. Fix it.

Finally, GET RID OF THE DAMN SERVICE CHARGE. Include it in the price of the ticket, or ditch it altogether. I've already spent $75 to see Springsteen--why the fuck would I want to pay eight dollars more to feed your greed? If it's an $80 ticket, then at least I won't feel like I'm being forced into rewarding you for being fuck-ups.

I'm a music lover. I buy a lot of concert tickets. I have to buy them all from you because I have no choice in the matter--the alternative is to boycott Ticketbastard and miss out on hours upon hours of great music. In a sense, I'm trapped, so I figure I might as well bitch about it.

My only wish is that you'd remove your corporate head from out your corporate ass and straighten out your business. Right now I figure that I could run Ticketbastard better than you--me, a no-experience, no-talent, near-burn-out. That's pretty sad, don't you think? I certainly do.

Sincerely,
Matt Springer