question: why servicing fees for concert tickets are always incredulously big
comment: Because your willing to pay them. Im not being snarky or sarcastic. All that fee is the venue or website making literal free money by asking you to pay that charge. The bigger the draw on the band or event thats happening the larger service fee people would be willing to pay usually.
passages: With respect to events tickets, online reservations and payments, and other transactions, there is sometimes a service charge (often called a convenience fee) that serves as additional compensation for the company facilitating the transaction. Ticketmaster and others charge this, and have made a business model of it. However, such groups have a monopoly on particular events or even entire concert venues.
  
  Section::::Air travel.
   The term also refers to a growing trend, where venue owners charge an up-front fee to performing artists for the use of their facilities. The practice began in Los Angeles, California, during the 1980s. It has become common in many U.S. cities at low-turnout all-ages shows where performers are required to guarantee a minimum attendance through pre-show ticket sales. Pay-to-play gigs are a contentious practice in the UK, and some of the largest pay-to-play gig organisers have generated large amounts of discussion and criticism.
   Cover charges are usually much lower for local, semi-professional bands or entertainers than for better-known touring bands from other regions. In North America, the cover charge for a performance by a local teenage band may be as low as a few dollars; a show by a nationally-known band with a recording contract may have a $10 to $15 cover. Some expensive jazz clubs and comedy clubs have "both" a cover charge and a minimum drink requirement. Many sports bars have cover charge when they are showing a boxing or a UFC pay per view event, to help defray to costs of ordering the pay-per-view material.
   Typically, fees added to a ticket’s face value have included:
  
  BULLET::::- Service charge – Ticketmaster’s charge for its service.
  
  BULLET::::- Facility charge – Charge added by the venue.
  
  BULLET::::- Shipping, convenience and processing charges – Charges added dependent on the ticket delivery method and credit card processing fees.
  
  Fee amounts vary between events and are dependent on the venue, available delivery methods, and preferences of the artist. Some economists and activist groups have claimed that high ticket prices are due to a lack of competition within the music industry.
   Pay-to-play was cited as a cause of major damage to the quality of the New York comedy scene. In economic terms, a pay-to-play strategy elevates those people who can afford to perform for nothing, or can afford to pay for their stage-time, which has nothing to do with their quality as an act. The pay-to-play promoter is able to profit from the goodwill and desire to perform of the acts, while discouraging appearances by those who cannot afford to perform without payment.
   Several live changes have been common in performances. The post-chorus banters mentioned earlier are ad libbed at every performance and far more lengthy than the album versions. Due to these banters, the song is typically the longest song in a concert (it typically falls at the end of the main set or as an encore).
   Section::::Business models.
  
  Section::::Business models.:Cover charges.
  
  Bars and clubs that use cover charges use them for several reasons. In some cases, popular bars and clubs have a substantial excess demand; patrons are lined up outside the club waiting to get in. In this case, the club can gain additional revenue from customers by requiring an entrance charge. Other bars and clubs use cover charges only on nights when there is live entertainment or a DJ, to cover the costs of hiring the performers.
   Additional revenue is also often raised through in-concert advertising, from free local concerts for local sponsorships to sponsorships from corporations during major tours 2009's ""Vans' Warped Tour Presented by AT&T"". Both Vans and AT&T would have paid significant amounts to have their company names included at the forefront in all marketing material for the Warped Tour.
  
  Concessions and merchandise are also often sold during and after concerts; often by the venue in the case of the former, and by the performing band or artist in the case of the latter.
   The characters in the song are presumably a band performing a gig at a bar, singing toward a wealthier patron. They thank him for his generosity in providing various items that can be used by others, such as boats and planes. They ask, however, that he be generous when tipping for their performance. Whether or not they receive any money from him, however, they are in the "big time," relative to some in their current status.
  
  Section::::Music video.
   The first major payola investigation occurred in the early 1960s. DJ Alan Freed, who was uncooperative in committee hearings, was fired as a result. Dick Clark also testified before the committee, but survived, partially due to the fact that he had divested himself of ownership interest in all of his music-industry holdings.
   "We didn't start making any money until 1991, on the Clash of the Titans tour in the States – not even a dime," recalled Ian. "I got home from that tour to receive a cheque for a sizeable amount and called my accountant, saying, 'There must be a mistake.' We were of Iron Maiden's style of mindset, where we had to have these huge stage sets, and everything went straight back into the band."
   Caster was dissatisfied with the use of charity events to raise their funds. The production of these events can consume large amounts of time and money while yielding relatively small returns. According to the National Center for Charitable Statistics at the Urban Institute, of the 102,353 public charities reporting special fund-raising events in 2005, the average return was slightly less than 40 cents on the dollar with $5.92 billion in total production costs and a net of $3.9 billion.
   Arenas holding 15,000 capacity were only selling 5,000–6,000 seats, sometimes less.
   All-you-can-eat seats are typically located in "distant bleacher or upper-deck sections". Seat prices are marked up approximately 50% over the regular price of seats in that section.
   I believe...that there is something sacred about youth, and the song is about how youth is being sold and exploited. I think I felt like I had become part of that too. Maybe that's why sometimes I have a hard time with the TV end of music and much of the media and the magazines. When I pick up a magazine, I just count how many pages of ads before the first article starts. You go one, two...up to fifteen to twenty or more. And then in the back you have phone sex ads. So I've pretty much had it. I don't want to be the traveling medicine show where we go out and do the song and dance and someone else drops the back of the wagon and starts selling crap. I don't want our music to sell anything—or anyone else use it. There are a lot of middlemen, somewhere between the band and the audience. I know you need some people to help facilitate things for the live show, and I'm not saying that I don't appreciate these people but...In the last ten or fifteen years, there have been a lot of changes in music, and somehow the percentages being charged [by the concert industry] got out of hand. We also don't want to be part of all the marketing tools or whatever, but believe me, we have been. [That happened] on the first album and that's probably why we are where we are now, but it was hell and I feel awful about it and I'm not going to do it anymore.
   Since the early 1990s, the third verse of the song has featured a different groove than the rest of the song, and since the mid-1990s has become a sing-along, with the audience calling back the title line instead of Page. This has continued by Hearn since Page's departure. Both of these are heard on "Rock Spectacle".
   "Very often the mistake that's made is they look at revenue sharing numbers and the team's payroll and take the difference and see profit without looking at our expenses."
   Membership fees to some types of organizations, such as trade unions, are also known as subscriptions. Industries that use this model include mail order book sales clubs and music sales clubs, private webmail providers, cable television, satellite television providers with pay television channels, satellite radio, telephone companies, mobile network operators, internet providers, software publishers, websites (e.g., blogging websites), business solutions providers, financial services firms, health clubs, lawn mowing and snowplowing services, and pharmaceuticals, as well as the traditional newspapers, magazines, and academic journals.
   Finally, while pricing is a topic central to a company's profitability, pricing decisions are not limited to for-profit companies. The behavior of non-profit organizations, such as charities, educational institutions and industry trade groups, also involve setting prices. For instance, charities seeking to raise money may set different "target" levels for donations that reward donors with increases in status (e.g., name in newsletter), gifts or other benefits; likewise educational and cultural nonprofits often price seats for events in theatres, auditoriums and stadiums. Furthermore, while nonprofit organizations may not earn a "profit", by definition, it is the case that many nonprofits may desire to maximize "net revenue"—total revenue less total cost—for various programs and activities, such as selling seats to theatrical and cultural performances.
   BULLET::::- There is a structural excess supply of labour. There are always more people who would like to earn their income as an artist than there is demand for artists and artworks. For example, there are far more young indie rock bands aspiring to careers in music than there are available paid contracts in the recording industry. Due to this excess supply of labour, a nightclub owner has so many local young bands requesting to play at her venue that she can offer them little or no payment for their performance.
   In September 2015, the company announced that it would no longer present inclusive ticket prices with fees and other charges included, switching to the practice where a user has the choice to have a lower price displayed at first and fees added at checkout, or fees displayed upfront. The company has also announced a commitment to give $1 million of musical instruments to U.S. schools, in partnership with The Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation.
  
  Section::::Operations.
   The competition is sometimes billed as a "celebration of musicians with day jobs". As of 2013, a requirement is that all participants must be employees of the submitting company.
  
  Section::::Contest origin and purpose.
   "The national touring of PAID DUES is a dream come true. It’s what I had in mind when I first brought the idea to Guerilla Union--something like a Warped tour for underground hip-hop, where my friends and I could be outside in the daylight enjoying summer with our fans instead of cramped up in some dark smelly nightclub worried about staying up too late and being too tired for work the next morning,” states MURS. “It also provides a safe and comfortable environment in which the younger fans can be introduced to a proper live hip-hop show."
   It is important to remember that many organisations take varying approaches to door to door fundraising. There is a vast difference between charity fundraising agencies and marketing companies. Fundraising agencies usually pay a flat rate to fundraisers, whereas marketing companies often work on a purely commission basis, meaning the fundraiser is under greater pressure to complete the donation leading to higher pressure tactics to being used.
  
  Section::::Volunteer fundraisers.
   However, von Rhein notes that the theater's size poses a challenge to the performers attempting to fill its seats, and feels that it overemphasizes high-priced events. In 2009–2010, the theater introduced a pair of discounted ticket programs: a five dollar lunchtime series of 45-minute dance performances, and a discounted ten dollar ticket program was initiated for in-person, cash-only purchases in the last 90 minutes before performances.
  
raw_presuppositions: Servicing fees for concert tickets are used for servicing.
raw_corrections: Servicing fees are a way for the venue or website to make free money.