Pearl Jam, ticket fees, and the toggle
The first music era that I felt a part of was mid-90s grunge rock. Pearl Jam’s Ten is still one of the best all-time rock albums. They also began a “herculean fight with Ticketmaster over ticket prices and fees” that bands and concertgoers (read: me) rue to this day.
30 years later, I’m looking for Pearl Jam tickets on StubHub, where fees are thriving and more than 100% of face value in some instances. I noticed StubHub supports a toggle feature where the user can decide whether or not they want to see these fees upfront or wait until the last step in the checkout process. As a product manager, I’m a bit lost on why any user would prefer the latter. Even more suspicious, this feature is set to off by default. Let’s see it in action:
Can you, a reasonably informed consumer, think of any instance where you might say I prefer to wait until the very last step of the transaction to see fees?
Double-clicking into the UX — I got a pair
Let’s look at a specific pair of tickets. I’m feeling flashy so I’m picking Section E, Row 6. I have ‘show prices with estimated fees’ toggled off. When I hover over my tix in the right rail tile, it highlights Section E in the venue map but shows me the price inclusive of fees. So the hover logic doesn’t take into consideration my toggle setting. This, my friends, is what I would classify a ‘bug.’
By my math, it’s a $112 fee per ticket. But why are they making me do math in the first place?
I continued my journey to the ‘Review and Buy’ page, I was SO close. Fees are only a measly $111:
Widget (not) to the rescue
If you want to be more confused, here’s their little price widget:
This tells the user about the average price of the section, but not the row. This means the peasants in row 6 are being compared to the elites in row 1. If you were in row 6, how would that make you feel? And again, why all the math?
Money. Greed.
Stubhub made an estimated $1.4 billion dollars in FY 2023. That’s up 40% from the prior year. In April 2024 their plans to go public were announced, aiming for a $16.5 billion dollar valuation.
$100+ fees per ticket help revenue, but they also employ over 100 product people who look at this screen daily. They look at a lot of screens daily. And I’m certain some of them want to get rid of that toggle 😉
You’re curious about row 1 now, aren’t you? Here it is (yikes):
Prove me wrong
Please, someone at teach me a lesson in the comments. I would love to see the use case, bonus points if you share the UX research saying “user(s) wanted this.” If I’m proven wrong and you show that Stubhub employed user empathy in this toggle, I will take down this post. And if you’re cool and live in Los Angeles, I’ll take you to a concert with a max price of $50 per ticket. After fees.
It’s a toggle world
The Nielsen Norman Group is my favorite resource for design thinking content on digital features. Their article on toggles (✍️Alita Joice) is a great reference. Shout out to Apple and best-in-class toggle, and our friend, Airplane Mode:
Ticketmaster doing its fans ‘right’
Ticketmaster has learned from its mistakes and for this event, it’s using something called All-In Pricing. How transparent of them!
See you at the show,
- Joe Espo
PS — after writing this article, I got nervous and googled some keywords. Turns out there’s a class-action lawsuit about StubHub’s ticket fees! Good luck, lawyers.
