I'm a concert fanatic. If you know anything about me, you know that part about me. I'll build an entire road trip around a concert. I'll buy my concert tickets first, then figure out other touristy things to do in that area. But the music is the priority for me.

And I'll spend my dollars to do it. The first time that I saw Elton John during his "Red Piano" residency at Caesars Palace back in 2008 I paid $323.45 for my ticket, a lot of money but it was worth it to me. As long as I was spending, I went ahead and treated myself to a couple of their twelve-dollar Budweisers. Your beer choices were Bud or nothing.

With concerts coming back to pre-pandemic levels of attendance, we are seeing our concert venues getting back to the business of live music.

So, I wanted to see what kind of Luke Combs tickets were left this morning. I went to Metrapark.com and tried to find two tickets next to each other, which turned out to be harder than it sounds. But after several clicks, I found two of the $ 85.00 dollar seats. Eighty-five times two is one hundred seventy dollars. OK. Let's get checked out.

But when I looked at the total I was shocked to see that my total was considerably higher than one hundred seventy bucks. My total was $399.68.

That was because there is a "convenience fee" of $ 114.84 per ticket. So, now if I want to see Luke Combs on September 21st at Metra, I'd have to spend $ 399.68.

Two things. First, let's get a new name for this upcharge because of all the things that it could be, convenient is not one of them. And secondly, when did these fees start being more expensive than the ticket to the event itself?

We asked Ray Massie, Market and Sales Director for MetraPark/MontanaFair, why the fees are so high, and here's what he said:

When you go to buy Platinum seats (which are just about the only available seats) you are getting the best remaining seats currently. You'll see this page when you click......and wonder why are all these convenience fees here!

Credit: Metrapark.com
Credit: Metrapark.com
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The convenience fees for this ticket are $10.  The rest of the charge is the cost of the platinum ticket. It's placed in the fees area to allow us to properly account for the ticket to the promoter/performer.  It’s a bookkeeping entry to allow proper accounting for this class of ticket.

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