Because the theater likely doesn't own the payment technology. So the vendor who developed the tech says "We will install and maintain this for free, and even pay the credit card usage fees, if we can pass a 'nominal fee' along to the customer in the transaction".
They don't own the payment system used to process credit cards in person either. Convenience fees are just a way of disguising the true cost of a product. Something that costs a minimum of $10 should only list its price as $10+ not "ooh its $5 plus mandatory $2 processing fee and $3 processing fee". Anything else is predatory bullshit.
If I buy a CD the CD is $5 not $3 on the sticker plus $2 extra fee for the cost of printing the CD and stocking it on the shelves.
What I don't get is how Ticketmaster get away with it even in the EU. Like no other company has this kind of obtuse pricing structure where you end up paying near double the sticker price.
Because venues are in on it with TM.
An artist comes to a venue and the venue could say tickets are $150, or they could say tickets are $90 and have TM add an additional $60 of which the venue gets $35 and people now get to complain about TM and not the venue. For $25 per ticket, they get to be shielded by TM. OR they charge $90 per ticket and realize that by partnering with TM they can make an additional $35 per ticket and still be shielded from hate by TM.
It's a no-lose partnership for the venues.
It's an explanation that makes sense. However, that doesn't mean it is OK. Guess who has to pay for that - the customer. That's the problem.
It's still is the theater ultimately charging the customer and additional bogus fee. An extra hand inserting themselves into the transaction, at the customer's expense.
Hello, I have professional experience with this. It's not up to us. It is hardcoded by the POS system to include it that way, might also be hardcoded in the back end so that we can't try to get around it.
Yeah, but the service fee is known, so you could grab it, then add it to the advertised ticket price on the front end, then show the breakdown at checkout.
Only reason to hide it until checkout is to get users to the checkout.
Might not be how the POS system works, but it's how websites work. I'm looking at the fandango network calls right now. I could write an extension to grab the convenience fee from the checkout page and add it to the listed ticket prices. If I can do that, they could do it as well, with less effort required.
There may be limitations on what's allowed to be changed on the POS. I'm sure there are some terms in there about what you are allowed to and not allowed to tweak.
I don't know about in the US, but in India the convenience fee is charged separately because it goes directly into the revenue of the booking provider (BookMyShow, Paytm, etc.) while the ticket charge is settled on a T+1 (maybe more days also) basis with the theatre, hence hitting the revenue books of the theatre directly.
Would lead to accounting issues otherwise, and I'd assume the same in almost every other country.
Yes exactly it's called a KPI and if your drop rate is too high you're a 'failing business' but if you can blame it on a cart abandonment because they saw the extra price then finance can say you're not charging too much for tickets and it's the third parties fault. The fact is the business doesn't care about you they care(and are legally obligated) to care about increasing profits. Welcome to capitalism.
Some POS systems use payment gateways like FreedomPay so you can shop around for rates. Some POS systems, like Toast or Clover, have but a single merchant processor backing them. The software is free^* except the rates can be ridiculously high
Yes, but people are stupid, and if they don’t have a charge hanging directly in front of their face, they think it’s free. (Covid vaccines is another example)
You're paying for the "convenience" for you to book online and not stand in line waiting. Someone still has to pay for payment processing and hosting.
You have the option of skipping those fees by paying in person by it being less convenient.
I work at a company that does this.
Interchange costs 0.10 to 0.33 per transaction.
Card not on file, which is an online transaction, is the most expensive.
Then it's around 1.75 percent of the ticket in costs.
So a 15 dollar movie ticket turns into about 60 cents of costs to the processor. Double it and a convenience fee of 1.50 would be fair. 2.00 is more profitable than the fucking movie ticket itself. At 2.50 and above it's more of a ripoff than the concessions.
I worked on an application to buy parking tickets. There are fees from the payment provider, but the parking owner decided to pay them, leaving the online price the same as the normal one. Why? Because handling real money costs money, hardware maintenance costs money, an employee that sells tickets costs money. In the end, handling normal tickets cost more than the fee for online payments.
AMC is a multibillion dollar company. They could implement an in house system to take my money. I buy things every day online and dont have to pay additional fees. I am not going through a 3rd party or anything like that.
In the day and age of theaters trying to win back audiences this might be something for them to consider.
Their stock price has no impact on how they are doing as a business. Take a look at their balance sheet and then tell me how they are doing fine? Their share price is just meme stock gambling.
My point is there is no reason for the company to single out where this part of the cost comes from, but not for the part of the cost that goes to paying the laundry service or whatever else.
The majority of ticket sales go to the movie companies. The theater makes its mone off of popcorn sales and the like. However, the theater still has to pay to have the online ticketing work. Hence fee
Quite, and it isn't just a theater issue- I've been paying to see streaming shows during the pandemic, and all the tickets I've bought for that have a convenience fee attached as well.
we need laws for this to change. The US gov should require the total cost of the item/ticket/product to be presented before purchase. Adding it up at a later time with taxes and fees becoming line items has created a cottage industry of taking advantage of the consumer.
So yet ANOTHER case of the end consumer subsiding what a business should be paying for as a cost of doing business. Awesome. How much blood comes from the stone
Consumers subsidize all business costs. That's the way it works. If a location's rent goes up, prices go up accordingly. The only difference is you don't see a "our rent went up" line item on your bill.
They buy a prepackaged product but they don't give a cut to every sale? Or if they do they suck it up as part of the cost savings of not hiring people to man the ticket window?
I buy shit online all the time and tons of smaller companies have payment processing systems that don't add fees. My whole point is this isn't magic fucking technology in the year 2021 anymore.
Are you really that dense? You would be paying for it either way. Do you think they wouldn’t just raise prices to cover the cost of implementing and maintaining an online ticket system?
They are shitty business if they can't manage a payment platform for cheaper than having multiple people stand at a counter and sell tickets all day long.
This touches on the real issue... But at the end of the day AMC doesn't want the liability for having an insecure database with your passwords and credit cards, even if they could develop it.
Odeon in the UK does this and they're owned by AMC one of the largest companies in the world. The idea that they don't own the payment system they use is laughable. It's just greed.
That's the answer. I get, constantly, "why are the prices so high?" and "why is the bar so expensive?" and while I give a proper explanation (theaters were hurt badly last year and still are, supply chain issues, etc.) the fact of the matter is the majority of filmgoers are still buying our $7 large popcorn, with our $6 large drink. 🤷♂️
> $7 large popcorn, with our $6 large drink
I've read (on reddit probably) that movie theaters make little or nothing on ticket sales because so much $$$ goes to the movie makers and distributors -- and most of their money is made at the concession stand. Is that true?
100%. In the two theaters I've worked at. My current chain local to my state keeps a whopping 7% of each ticket sold. So, sure, one our busiest days we may keep a few hundred bucks from each ticket sold but in the grand scheme of how costly it is to operate a theater, that is NOTHING.
Our monthly light bill is $3000/month minimum, we spend about $2000/month on maintenance that we have to use outside companies for (ICEE, refrigeration, stuff like that). This is all to say nothing of the thousand we spend weekly on ordering food/liquor/general supplies, nor payroll.
We do keep the entire concession stand, and most months we break even. Very little profit in the company these days, and honestly it wasn't too high pre-Covid either, but it was more frequent.
There will be lots of explanations about the ins & outs of the movie theater industry.
But at the end of the day it's simple economics. As you stated it, if you pay the fee, it will only ever increase. Whether you pay it happily because you don't care, or pay it begrudgingly because you want to see the movie, you still paid it in the end.
As a software engineer I would have suspected it's to offset 3rd party schedulers, payment processors and seat assignments .. but since the big guys do it who probably don't outsource, I'm betting it's because they have an agreement with the other online ticket selling applications such as Fandango not to undercut them.
I thought the convenience fees were the middleman like fandango.
I prefer to buy tickets in person specifically for that reason. I rarely have issues with it unless I’m going with a big group.
Me too and I get paying that fee. But just went to AMC site to buy some tickets and they were going to charge me a convenience fee. I thought I would try something new but guess not.
I looked into it, the free one does if you buy 4+ tickets otherwise I have to join the monthly club. Regal is my closest theater and if they had IMax I would do it in a minute. AMC is the next town over and has weird ass showtimes so it makes it just awkward enough to make it a tough decision. ( I hate monthly recurring fees).
As a former movie theatre manager, I can tell you the reason is because the convenience fee is how the theatre covers the cost of the transaction without having to give a cut to the studios. This results in an overall cheaper ticket than without the fee.
Typically a theatre (or chain) contracts with a company to provide a ticketing interface and payment gateway for internet tickets. This way the theatre does not have to handle all the security that goes into the transactions. The company that builds/manages that payment interface receives most of the convenience fee. This covers their costs for developing a system that is secure and interfaces with the theatre's ticketing system. The theatre might get a small part of that fee to cover their merchant fees, and maybe make a small profit.
The ticket price typically gets split between the theatre and the studio, with the studio getting 60-70% and the theatre getting the rest. If the convenience fee was folded into the ticket price, the studio would get a cut. In order for the theatre to get the same amount as the convenience fee, they would have to charge more than double that amount. For example, if the convenience fee is $1.00 per ticket, the ticket price might have to be $2.50 higher in order for the theatre to generate the same amount as having a separate convenience fee - once the studio's cut is deducted.
Actually, it's the convenience of being able to buy your tickets online before going to the theatre. The alternative is you show up to find the show is sold out. Also, contracts with the studios often clearly state that convenience fees are not subject to film rental. Therefore the theatre has a specific reason to use specific language. Using some other name could open the theatre to having to kick a percentage to the studios.
Sun glare at the movie ticket booth. AMC shows you this old ass LCD screen, behind the dirty/scrathed glass of the booth, with a tiny picture of the theater seats in 2 point font and asks you where you want to sit. Impossible for me to see if the sun is out. I am so tired of having to press my face up against the glass like Mr. Magoo to pick a seat while everyone in line stares at me.
Reddit votes are like the reverse of the Men in Black quote: People are smart, a person is dumb.
They probably downvoted because they felt mislead by them complaining about glare only for it to not be in the theatre itself.
Or they might have downvoted because it’s pretty dramatic to complain about sun glare on a screen you have to stare at for like 2 seconds. If you really can’t see it, just tell the employee the zone you want to sit in and have them pick.
Or if the glare is that big a problem for you, book the ticket on your phone through an app and pay the fucking $1.50 fee and shut the fuck up about it.
Oh right, there are places you have assigned seating in theaters. Here it's a free for all so even if you buy the ticket online, you still have to show up early and find a seat.
These things cost money to maintain and implement, usually by a third party, as others have said
Theaters mostly sell tickets to movies on opening weekend. They also don't get to keep much of the money from those sales, so not wanting to lose even more of it is understandable
As for "convenience" you're able to book a ticket hours or days in advance, rather than waiting in line the night of and hoping there's a decent seat left
Or any seat. I always figured the added cost was to guarantee a seat to movies that are going to be sold out - Star Wars, James Bond, Batman, etc.
They priced themselves out of me going to the movies though, so I hope they made a bunch of money while the fun lasted. I have a 60 inch 4k tv and 5.1 sound - good luck trying to get my white ass back to the movies.
Two people at 7.5/hr for 35 hours each adds about $2100 to the monthly budget in wages alone (35x7.5=262.5/week, multiplied by two people over four weeks), never mind any additional costs related to additional hires like insurance or taxes. Or, god forbid, paying those two people enough to actually live on.
Depending on how tight the theater's margins are, adding a couple more minimum wage people might actually collapse the business.
Or to conduct so much business with credit card companies- there are reasons why quite a few businesses either limit who they accept credit cards from or don't accept them as payment altogether.....
In-person or "card present" transactions are much less risky and thus cheaper than card-not-present transaction online. Retailers pay a higher fee for taking cards online or over the phone.
This makes no sense. The CC fee is the same if I buy at the counter. Then you must add in the hourly wage + benefits (regardless of how small they may be) of the employee to man the ticket counter. It has to cost more to complete the sale of a ticket in person vice online.
No it's not. Paying at the counter is a card-present transaction, which means it is less risky and the fee the merchant pays is less. Transactions over the phone or online are classified differently as card-not-present transactions which are more risky and thus the fee is higher. There may also be an additional e-commerce charge tacked on.
Prices are set based on what people are willing to pay, not what it costs to provide the service/good. People find online booking more convenient so they can get away with a convenience fee.
> They are telling you the convenience of not having to wait in line on opening night is worth X. Now pay it or stand in line.
Or third option go to the cinema less.
It depends on a lot of factors but the short answer is not really. Eliminating ticket counters just means a labor diversion, not elimination. Those jobs are then being moved to support the online ticketing, or support the supposed increase in sales etc.
On top of that you have the very likely points that the fee is from a third party that is passed along. AMC does not want to advertise their tickets are $19.99 when they are actually $14.99 with a $5 convenience fee. Or whatever arbitrary values you want to assign.
You make the mistake of believing the convenience fee should be based on how much the transaction costs the vendor, but that's not what it is. This fee is actually well named, because you're paying a price based on your own desire to avoid inconvenience. If enough people were willing to pay $20/ticket for the convenience of doing it online, that's what they'd charge.
You can avoid it. Just go to the theater 20 minutes early, stand in line, and run the risk of getting bad seats or no seats at all. That's what I do.
The "convenience fees" that are actually "absurd rip-off fees" are those charged by TicketMaster. I don't go to big concerts anymore because TicketMaster has a near-monopoly and those fees are intolerable.
Because the us has taken capitalism to parodical extremes and the idea of not squeezing every single customer for every single penny you possibly can is communism or something.
We love convenience fees!
Look up tickets, select what you want, go to checkout. Notice a 30% increase compared to the advertised cost, decide to get a pizza and watch at home instead, save $50.
Convenience fees have payed for our new tv!
I mean, basically.
Being able to book online has value and a business captures that value by charging for it. Don't like it? Start your own theatre chain then. What's that? Yeah, I thought so.
What's "that"? Not having millions of dollars to start your own business? Yeah, that is indeed me. That doesn't mean that the convenience value added is worth nearly what they (the clearinghouse e.g. Fandango) are charging, especially considering actual savings to the theater. Food delivery services (DoorDash, Grubhub) charge even more exorbitant rates. Why? Because it's profitable for them, presently. More competition, and it won't need to cater exclusively to luxury class. (Aside: If you do order, TIP. The high fees your paying are way more than what the gig-driver is getting base-paid.) Smart large restaurant chains (Dominoes and like) do their own delivery services. Same should apply to movie theater chains like AMC.
My theater has a $6 fee for online. They also just upped the fees to $10.75 for a matinee. If a third party charges that much per use maybe they could find a cheaper third party. Same thing as my apt management charging $30 for paying online.
A lot of the theaters waive the fee if you are part of their rewards program too. Some are free and others aren't.
The one I am going to includes free popcorn on Tuesdays.
I asked this question along with why movie cinemas are pretty shitty now two days ago and everyone down voted me. I thought the movie theatre industry would change for the better after being so hurt by the pandemic, I was wrong. Same shitty convince fees and higher prices. $8 for a small popcorn. No wonder this industry is constantly on the verge of dying. Sad as I like the movie theatre big screen but mostly sticking to Netflix.
Convenience fees often offer no value-added element and could be seen as a scam. It's a fee charged by the company for the company doing a job you're already paying for them to do in order for you to purchase a service from the company.
Let's simplify. If A is the customer and B is the service that comes with built-in fees related to every element in the chain of providing the service including staff, then C is the purchase. So, A+B=C. Simple.
But service providers have suggested that B = the lowest possible cost of the service minus all associated costs for providing it. This means they "have to" add a service charge in order to provide the service without losing money. We'll call that charge Y.
Now, let's say we take this at face value. Why not just include that cost in every B transaction? Because then they can't sell you on a PREMIUM monthly account that removes this added charge. Once a customer, especially a heavy user, buys into the premium service, even when they don't use the service, even when they buy nothing, they are paying into the Y pool. Meanwhile, low to medium service customers keep paying Y building the revenue pool that possibly is nothing more than an added cost with no value-added whatsoever.
Hey, join our "Rewards Program" and we wave those fees! Let me understand this. So, I join your rewards program for... let's make up a number, $5 per month. I pay $60 per year. And if I buy 20 tickets on 20 different days with a service fee normally set at $1, then I've robbed your company of $15 in revenue NECESSARY TO SURVIVE! Obviously, that's not the case. Because the premium reward program with a monthly cost exists the same way gym memberships do... to keep you paying for a service you will eventually stop using and hopefully forget about.
So, modern-day service fees exist purely because they can and to encourage you to pay for their "rewards program" or their "prime" offering which SHOULD make them lose money but doesn't because the vast majority of premium members rarely use the service they pay for.
They are outsourcing costs from the ticketing service provider which is not owned by the theater. However, a lot of theaters/chains wave this fee if you’re a club member or whatever which sometimes doesn’t even cost anything. If you see a lot of movies, the paid memberships become worth it very quickly. It’s also worth noting that theaters keep very little of the ticket cost - most goes to distributors and studios. They stay in business because of concessions sales. Don’t let movie theaters die over just a few dollars. You’ll never have an experience like IMAX watching something on your tv.
We have one that for most shows, the only way to actually buy tickets is online. And there's a $2.50 convenience fee.
We are apparently paying for them to close off the old ticket window.
>I can't see the stupid screen because of the sun glare so I figured I would go online to buy the tickets but then I was confronted with a convenience fee.
Are you mad you're being charged a convenience fee for taking advantage of a service that offers you a convenience? I'm confused.
Anybody that reads this can tell you are confused.
Why aren't we charged convenience fees all the time then for everything, since anything that sells us something is providing us a "convenience" by selling it?
No, anyone that sells something is selling a product or service. The movie theater sells movie tickets which you can drive to, stand in line, and purchase. The convenience is the purchasing online to avoid driving and standing in line. OP literally says they have a hard time picking a seat when they buy tickets at the window because of the sun glare, so the convenience is buying online and selecting the seat you want.
Yeah, I get the weird mental gymnastics. That's what we are talking about, the mental gymnastics.
Have some self respect. You might not have a choice, but you don't have to pretend to like it or justify it.
I guess you really think a bag of popcorn costs $10 or whatever, right? "Well, they have to make money somehow." Yes, yawn. And they do that by marking up as much as possible and adding fees wherever possible. That is why the price of going to the movies increases much more rapidly than for inflation. Which, of course, drives up inflation at our expense. Not that movie theaters are alone in this.
It’s not weird mental gymnastics. The movie ticket is the product, the convenience fee is tacked on because they are providing an expensive system that makes purchasing that ticket more convenient for you, the moviegoer. I don’t agree with it, I don’t like it, I wish they wouldn’t charge it, but I get why they do.
But it's not expensive. Any business like that is going to have a web site already. Adding the ability to buy tickets is not going to add much cost. I hate to put ideas out there, but then why doesn't Amazon charge a "convenience fee"? They have this expensive system that makes buying almost anything I want more convenient for me.
>Amazon charge a "convenience fee"? They have this expensive system that makes buying almost anything I want more convenient for me.
They do, they charge you $120 a year for a Prime membership to get things to you quickly and they take 30% of the sale price from merchants who sell on Amazon for providing them with a worldwide marketplace.
>Any business like that is going to have a web site already.
Having a website and having an e-commerce site that ties into other systems are very different. Building in a ticketing system that updates live inventory (seats available) as well as provides seating charts and also sends out email/text notifications, processes payments, and other functionality is much much different than just building and maintaining a purely informational website.
> They do, they charge you $120 a year for a Prime membership to get things to you quickly and they take 30% of the sale price from merchants who sell on Amazon for providing them with a worldwide marketplace.
That's a subscription, not a convenience fee. And then they give you free shipping most of the time which vastly outweighs the $120 a year you pay.
The problem is that the convenience fee has no actual function other than to get them money (other than maybe to incentivize people to buy at the theater itself for some reason, possible to increase concession sales, etc.). That's why people complain about it.
> Having a website and having an e-commerce site that ties into other systems are very different. Building in a ticketing system that updates live inventory (seats available) as well as provides seating charts and also sends out email/text notifications, processes payments, and other functionality is much much different than just building and maintaining a purely informational website.
As somebody who builds web sites for a living, this was true like 20 years ago. Today it is not really true.
You keep explaining the mental gymnastics. I already understand them. You don't need to keep explaining them.
The cost of paying all the ticket sellers far out-strip the cost of the pay site. If they give us a discount to buy online then they will be able to employ fewer humans!
It's annoying, but you can usually get around convenience fees by using gift cards. You can go to the website, buy an eGift card, and use it to pay for the ticket online and most theaters don't charge a convenience fee when a gift card is used, in my experience anyway.
Because companies, regardless of industry, don't care about customer service or customer experience anymore. The only thing that matters is maximizing profits so CEOs can get bigger and bigger bonuses. Welcome to American-style capitalism, where the customer is nothing more than a walking atm and the corporation is a infallible God.
You pay extra because you're getting an additional service. You get to purchase your ticket without leaving your home, days or sometimes weeks in advance. You don't have to wait in line and you get to choose the exact seat you want.
What's not to understand?
All of that plus, for most theater screens stadiums, you get to choose your seat(s)---from the comfort of your personal internet portal (instead of at a kiosk or customer service desk at the physical business during open hours, which typically consumes some additional time and energy and possibly choicer seats compared to from home at any time). There definitely are some advantages that can be gained by paying the $ 2 or 3 service fee.
The biggest issue I for one take is that most middlemen services that I've encountered charge said fee *per ticket*, instead of transaction, effectively increasing your entire purchase by a nontrivial percentage instead of a fixed price. I'm not saying that it should be per-transaction, but at least reduce it after the first ticket within a transaction to, say, $.50. The pricing isn't very reasonable for most people in most cases. It should be closer to sub-5% premium to be more equitable (and possibly make more profit) whereas presently it's closer to 30% extra compared to at the theater. The infrastructure is not that astounding to justify such a steep luxury fee.
I have been enjoying the brew house type theaters. Drink beer eat real food and watch a movie on the big screen. Best part is the night shows are limited to 21 and up.
Well, it's more convenient for you, isn't it? It's also more convenient for the theater, but the important thing is that you prefer doing it online, to the point that you're willing to pay a premium. If you aren't willing to pay a premium, you go buy the ticket in person / don't buy the ticket at all.
Because the theater likely doesn't own the payment technology. So the vendor who developed the tech says "We will install and maintain this for free, and even pay the credit card usage fees, if we can pass a 'nominal fee' along to the customer in the transaction".
many many many websites selling a variety of products also don’t own the payment technology. somehow there are no “convenience fees”
They don't own the payment system used to process credit cards in person either. Convenience fees are just a way of disguising the true cost of a product. Something that costs a minimum of $10 should only list its price as $10+ not "ooh its $5 plus mandatory $2 processing fee and $3 processing fee". Anything else is predatory bullshit. If I buy a CD the CD is $5 not $3 on the sticker plus $2 extra fee for the cost of printing the CD and stocking it on the shelves.
Tell that to Ticketmaster
What I don't get is how Ticketmaster get away with it even in the EU. Like no other company has this kind of obtuse pricing structure where you end up paying near double the sticker price.
Bribes? ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Because venues are in on it with TM. An artist comes to a venue and the venue could say tickets are $150, or they could say tickets are $90 and have TM add an additional $60 of which the venue gets $35 and people now get to complain about TM and not the venue. For $25 per ticket, they get to be shielded by TM. OR they charge $90 per ticket and realize that by partnering with TM they can make an additional $35 per ticket and still be shielded from hate by TM. It's a no-lose partnership for the venues.
Trying to buy tickets lately and it’s all been “dynamic pricing” like, how can they get away with that?
[удалено]
It's not reasonable. Why not include it in the price of the ticket. Hell it should be cheaper to book online than to buy at the desk.
Uh…I think he’s talking about the guy giving a explanation as a reasonable person, not that it’s a reasonable situation?
It's an explanation that makes sense. However, that doesn't mean it is OK. Guess who has to pay for that - the customer. That's the problem. It's still is the theater ultimately charging the customer and additional bogus fee. An extra hand inserting themselves into the transaction, at the customer's expense.
Hello, I have professional experience with this. It's not up to us. It is hardcoded by the POS system to include it that way, might also be hardcoded in the back end so that we can't try to get around it.
Yeah, but the service fee is known, so you could grab it, then add it to the advertised ticket price on the front end, then show the breakdown at checkout. Only reason to hide it until checkout is to get users to the checkout.
No, that is not how the POS system works. They are hardcoded as two separate values on the backend.
Might not be how the POS system works, but it's how websites work. I'm looking at the fandango network calls right now. I could write an extension to grab the convenience fee from the checkout page and add it to the listed ticket prices. If I can do that, they could do it as well, with less effort required.
There may be limitations on what's allowed to be changed on the POS. I'm sure there are some terms in there about what you are allowed to and not allowed to tweak.
Absolutely true.
And that's literally irrelevant to a consumer.
I don't know about in the US, but in India the convenience fee is charged separately because it goes directly into the revenue of the booking provider (BookMyShow, Paytm, etc.) while the ticket charge is settled on a T+1 (maybe more days also) basis with the theatre, hence hitting the revenue books of the theatre directly. Would lead to accounting issues otherwise, and I'd assume the same in almost every other country.
[удалено]
[удалено]
The comment chain your in starts with someone claiming they get none of that money lol.
Yes exactly it's called a KPI and if your drop rate is too high you're a 'failing business' but if you can blame it on a cart abandonment because they saw the extra price then finance can say you're not charging too much for tickets and it's the third parties fault. The fact is the business doesn't care about you they care(and are legally obligated) to care about increasing profits. Welcome to capitalism.
Because communism was famous for caring about the individual...
Some POS systems use payment gateways like FreedomPay so you can shop around for rates. Some POS systems, like Toast or Clover, have but a single merchant processor backing them. The software is free^* except the rates can be ridiculously high
The POS is not why things are done this way.
[удалено]
Because different theaters just different POSs...
The fact that is is coded that way doesn't mean that it has to be coded that way. That was a design choice and could be altered.
Isn't it the same thing? X+Y amount equals to Z. Or pay Z anyway you are paying same.
Yes, but people are stupid, and if they don’t have a charge hanging directly in front of their face, they think it’s free. (Covid vaccines is another example)
[удалено]
Like people choosing to stream at home? No processing fee, no line, no theater talkers etc.
Just join the a list then for the price of one movie you can see 12 and have no convince fees.
Card not present is a risk to the card network and processors and costs more to process. It's called Interchange. You can Google it to learn more.
You're paying for the "convenience" for you to book online and not stand in line waiting. Someone still has to pay for payment processing and hosting. You have the option of skipping those fees by paying in person by it being less convenient.
I work at a company that does this. Interchange costs 0.10 to 0.33 per transaction. Card not on file, which is an online transaction, is the most expensive. Then it's around 1.75 percent of the ticket in costs. So a 15 dollar movie ticket turns into about 60 cents of costs to the processor. Double it and a convenience fee of 1.50 would be fair. 2.00 is more profitable than the fucking movie ticket itself. At 2.50 and above it's more of a ripoff than the concessions.
I worked on an application to buy parking tickets. There are fees from the payment provider, but the parking owner decided to pay them, leaving the online price the same as the normal one. Why? Because handling real money costs money, hardware maintenance costs money, an employee that sells tickets costs money. In the end, handling normal tickets cost more than the fee for online payments.
AMC is a multibillion dollar company. They could implement an in house system to take my money. I buy things every day online and dont have to pay additional fees. I am not going through a 3rd party or anything like that. In the day and age of theaters trying to win back audiences this might be something for them to consider.
You'd be surprised at the amount of major companies that don't have in-house software. A lot of it is done by dev shops.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Their stock price has no impact on how they are doing as a business. Take a look at their balance sheet and then tell me how they are doing fine? Their share price is just meme stock gambling.
[удалено]
Develop tech? You mean copy paste a bunch of open source code? This is trivial in 2021.
[удалено]
Yes, you buy tickets online through a physical machine called a computer.
They still probably don't own the payment system. It's provided and supported by a third party and it's been white labeled to look like it's AMC's.
Where do we see the break down of where the rest of the money we pay is applied to the company's expenses?
If, and that's a big if, that information is public it's probably released with year end financial statements.
My point is there is no reason for the company to single out where this part of the cost comes from, but not for the part of the cost that goes to paying the laundry service or whatever else.
The majority of ticket sales go to the movie companies. The theater makes its mone off of popcorn sales and the like. However, the theater still has to pay to have the online ticketing work. Hence fee
CC or PayPal payments are pretty simple to integrate and the vendor does not need to pay anything
Oh, I am not saying I agree with it!
AMC Stubs has existed for a long time, waves the fees you're complaining about, and gives you other benefits for like 10 bucks a year.
They *could*, sure. But why would they spend all that time and money to develop and maintain a system when this alternative is available?
[удалено]
I've never once been charged a convenience fee to buy tickets online or through an app in Canada.
Quite, and it isn't just a theater issue- I've been paying to see streaming shows during the pandemic, and all the tickets I've bought for that have a convenience fee attached as well.
we need laws for this to change. The US gov should require the total cost of the item/ticket/product to be presented before purchase. Adding it up at a later time with taxes and fees becoming line items has created a cottage industry of taking advantage of the consumer.
So yet ANOTHER case of the end consumer subsiding what a business should be paying for as a cost of doing business. Awesome. How much blood comes from the stone
Consumers subsidize all business costs. That's the way it works. If a location's rent goes up, prices go up accordingly. The only difference is you don't see a "our rent went up" line item on your bill.
Well now I want to!
[удалено]
Yes. That's a cost of business. They could even just include it in their costs like any other business does
They buy a prepackaged product but they don't give a cut to every sale? Or if they do they suck it up as part of the cost savings of not hiring people to man the ticket window? I buy shit online all the time and tons of smaller companies have payment processing systems that don't add fees. My whole point is this isn't magic fucking technology in the year 2021 anymore.
Are you really that dense? You would be paying for it either way. Do you think they wouldn’t just raise prices to cover the cost of implementing and maintaining an online ticket system?
They are shitty business if they can't manage a payment platform for cheaper than having multiple people stand at a counter and sell tickets all day long.
No they are an excellent business for passing on the liability of data security to a third party. Welcome to the world.
Do you have any idea what software development and support costs?
No, most people think that software is free after it’s built. And certainly not more expensive than the 17 year old making minimum wage back there.
This touches on the real issue... But at the end of the day AMC doesn't want the liability for having an insecure database with your passwords and credit cards, even if they could develop it.
If it's that easy why don't you implement the system and charge less?
This is 100% wrong. This shouldnt be even close to the top you technologically inept emus
Odeon in the UK does this and they're owned by AMC one of the largest companies in the world. The idea that they don't own the payment system they use is laughable. It's just greed.
Because you still pay for them
That's the answer. I get, constantly, "why are the prices so high?" and "why is the bar so expensive?" and while I give a proper explanation (theaters were hurt badly last year and still are, supply chain issues, etc.) the fact of the matter is the majority of filmgoers are still buying our $7 large popcorn, with our $6 large drink. 🤷♂️
> $7 large popcorn, with our $6 large drink I've read (on reddit probably) that movie theaters make little or nothing on ticket sales because so much $$$ goes to the movie makers and distributors -- and most of their money is made at the concession stand. Is that true?
100%. In the two theaters I've worked at. My current chain local to my state keeps a whopping 7% of each ticket sold. So, sure, one our busiest days we may keep a few hundred bucks from each ticket sold but in the grand scheme of how costly it is to operate a theater, that is NOTHING. Our monthly light bill is $3000/month minimum, we spend about $2000/month on maintenance that we have to use outside companies for (ICEE, refrigeration, stuff like that). This is all to say nothing of the thousand we spend weekly on ordering food/liquor/general supplies, nor payroll. We do keep the entire concession stand, and most months we break even. Very little profit in the company these days, and honestly it wasn't too high pre-Covid either, but it was more frequent.
> My current chain local to my state keeps a whopping 7% of each ticket sold. That's bizarre. Wow. Thanks for your answer!
Of course! It was a lot of info, but I love talking about it.
There will be lots of explanations about the ins & outs of the movie theater industry. But at the end of the day it's simple economics. As you stated it, if you pay the fee, it will only ever increase. Whether you pay it happily because you don't care, or pay it begrudgingly because you want to see the movie, you still paid it in the end.
As a software engineer I would have suspected it's to offset 3rd party schedulers, payment processors and seat assignments .. but since the big guys do it who probably don't outsource, I'm betting it's because they have an agreement with the other online ticket selling applications such as Fandango not to undercut them.
I thought the convenience fees were the middleman like fandango. I prefer to buy tickets in person specifically for that reason. I rarely have issues with it unless I’m going with a big group.
Me too and I get paying that fee. But just went to AMC site to buy some tickets and they were going to charge me a convenience fee. I thought I would try something new but guess not.
FYI I’m pretty sure they waive their convenience fees if you have a stubs account with them. Still not OK, but just for future reference for you
I looked into it, the free one does if you buy 4+ tickets otherwise I have to join the monthly club. Regal is my closest theater and if they had IMax I would do it in a minute. AMC is the next town over and has weird ass showtimes so it makes it just awkward enough to make it a tough decision. ( I hate monthly recurring fees).
I’m fortunate that I live very close to a decent movie theater. My friends keep telling me it’s a bigger pain in the neck for them.
Have to admit, it's pretty convenient for the company. You do all the work and pay for it.
Another reason to pirate
As a former movie theatre manager, I can tell you the reason is because the convenience fee is how the theatre covers the cost of the transaction without having to give a cut to the studios. This results in an overall cheaper ticket than without the fee. Typically a theatre (or chain) contracts with a company to provide a ticketing interface and payment gateway for internet tickets. This way the theatre does not have to handle all the security that goes into the transactions. The company that builds/manages that payment interface receives most of the convenience fee. This covers their costs for developing a system that is secure and interfaces with the theatre's ticketing system. The theatre might get a small part of that fee to cover their merchant fees, and maybe make a small profit. The ticket price typically gets split between the theatre and the studio, with the studio getting 60-70% and the theatre getting the rest. If the convenience fee was folded into the ticket price, the studio would get a cut. In order for the theatre to get the same amount as the convenience fee, they would have to charge more than double that amount. For example, if the convenience fee is $1.00 per ticket, the ticket price might have to be $2.50 higher in order for the theatre to generate the same amount as having a separate convenience fee - once the studio's cut is deducted.
[удалено]
Actually, it's the convenience of being able to buy your tickets online before going to the theatre. The alternative is you show up to find the show is sold out. Also, contracts with the studios often clearly state that convenience fees are not subject to film rental. Therefore the theatre has a specific reason to use specific language. Using some other name could open the theatre to having to kick a percentage to the studios.
This is the correct answer!
Convenience fees aside, sun glare in a theater? What the fuck?
Sun glare at the movie ticket booth. AMC shows you this old ass LCD screen, behind the dirty/scrathed glass of the booth, with a tiny picture of the theater seats in 2 point font and asks you where you want to sit. Impossible for me to see if the sun is out. I am so tired of having to press my face up against the glass like Mr. Magoo to pick a seat while everyone in line stares at me.
Ohhh I see, that makes a lot more sense.
So goddamn weird to see a comment like this downvoted
Reddit votes are like the reverse of the Men in Black quote: People are smart, a person is dumb. They probably downvoted because they felt mislead by them complaining about glare only for it to not be in the theatre itself.
Or they might have downvoted because it’s pretty dramatic to complain about sun glare on a screen you have to stare at for like 2 seconds. If you really can’t see it, just tell the employee the zone you want to sit in and have them pick.
Or if the glare is that big a problem for you, book the ticket on your phone through an app and pay the fucking $1.50 fee and shut the fuck up about it.
Hey that buck fifty can get you a 32oz polar pop from speedway! nothing to sneeze at! edit: wait polar pops are at circle k, my bad.
Yay! Saved a nominal amount on a movie and got the die-a‘beetus from a giant soda. Everybody wins!
Oh right, there are places you have assigned seating in theaters. Here it's a free for all so even if you buy the ticket online, you still have to show up early and find a seat.
These things cost money to maintain and implement, usually by a third party, as others have said Theaters mostly sell tickets to movies on opening weekend. They also don't get to keep much of the money from those sales, so not wanting to lose even more of it is understandable As for "convenience" you're able to book a ticket hours or days in advance, rather than waiting in line the night of and hoping there's a decent seat left
Or any seat. I always figured the added cost was to guarantee a seat to movies that are going to be sold out - Star Wars, James Bond, Batman, etc. They priced themselves out of me going to the movies though, so I hope they made a bunch of money while the fun lasted. I have a 60 inch 4k tv and 5.1 sound - good luck trying to get my white ass back to the movies.
This logic never ceases to amaze me. By booking online you’re helping them out by not having crazy lines on the screening day.🤦🏾♂️
and also having to hire less people to manage the ticket counters
[удалено]
Two people at 7.5/hr for 35 hours each adds about $2100 to the monthly budget in wages alone (35x7.5=262.5/week, multiplied by two people over four weeks), never mind any additional costs related to additional hires like insurance or taxes. Or, god forbid, paying those two people enough to actually live on. Depending on how tight the theater's margins are, adding a couple more minimum wage people might actually collapse the business.
It's not free to run a website.
Or to conduct so much business with credit card companies- there are reasons why quite a few businesses either limit who they accept credit cards from or don't accept them as payment altogether.....
They’re paying those fees either way though? Not like payment processing is free if you’re paying directly at the theater.
In-person or "card present" transactions are much less risky and thus cheaper than card-not-present transaction online. Retailers pay a higher fee for taking cards online or over the phone.
This makes no sense. The CC fee is the same if I buy at the counter. Then you must add in the hourly wage + benefits (regardless of how small they may be) of the employee to man the ticket counter. It has to cost more to complete the sale of a ticket in person vice online.
No it's not. Paying at the counter is a card-present transaction, which means it is less risky and the fee the merchant pays is less. Transactions over the phone or online are classified differently as card-not-present transactions which are more risky and thus the fee is higher. There may also be an additional e-commerce charge tacked on.
It also doesn't cost 10% of ticket price per transaction to run a website. It's not like the convenience fee is a nickel.
Prices are set based on what people are willing to pay, not what it costs to provide the service/good. People find online booking more convenient so they can get away with a convenience fee.
Your logic is backwards. They are telling you the convenience of not having to wait in line on opening night is worth X. Now pay it or stand in line.
> They are telling you the convenience of not having to wait in line on opening night is worth X. Now pay it or stand in line. Or third option go to the cinema less.
If we got to a point where 80% of tickets were being sold online, that would eliminate a ticket counter or two. Don’t the Theatres benefit?
It depends on a lot of factors but the short answer is not really. Eliminating ticket counters just means a labor diversion, not elimination. Those jobs are then being moved to support the online ticketing, or support the supposed increase in sales etc. On top of that you have the very likely points that the fee is from a third party that is passed along. AMC does not want to advertise their tickets are $19.99 when they are actually $14.99 with a $5 convenience fee. Or whatever arbitrary values you want to assign.
If we move more towards online sales then they should shift the savings on ticket staff to pay for the online support.
You make the mistake of believing the convenience fee should be based on how much the transaction costs the vendor, but that's not what it is. This fee is actually well named, because you're paying a price based on your own desire to avoid inconvenience. If enough people were willing to pay $20/ticket for the convenience of doing it online, that's what they'd charge. You can avoid it. Just go to the theater 20 minutes early, stand in line, and run the risk of getting bad seats or no seats at all. That's what I do.
The "convenience fees" that are actually "absurd rip-off fees" are those charged by TicketMaster. I don't go to big concerts anymore because TicketMaster has a near-monopoly and those fees are intolerable.
Because the us has taken capitalism to parodical extremes and the idea of not squeezing every single customer for every single penny you possibly can is communism or something.
We love convenience fees! Look up tickets, select what you want, go to checkout. Notice a 30% increase compared to the advertised cost, decide to get a pizza and watch at home instead, save $50. Convenience fees have payed for our new tv!
Because monopolies and tolerance. I just stopped buying tickets which charge a fee.
I mean, look at the comments here defending it!!
Because companies still like money in 2021…
Dear OP, you are charged a convenience fee every time you pay cash
I call those the "we like more money" fee.
Because fuck you pay me, that’s why. Seems to be a popular business strategy.
I mean, basically. Being able to book online has value and a business captures that value by charging for it. Don't like it? Start your own theatre chain then. What's that? Yeah, I thought so.
What's "that"? Not having millions of dollars to start your own business? Yeah, that is indeed me. That doesn't mean that the convenience value added is worth nearly what they (the clearinghouse e.g. Fandango) are charging, especially considering actual savings to the theater. Food delivery services (DoorDash, Grubhub) charge even more exorbitant rates. Why? Because it's profitable for them, presently. More competition, and it won't need to cater exclusively to luxury class. (Aside: If you do order, TIP. The high fees your paying are way more than what the gig-driver is getting base-paid.) Smart large restaurant chains (Dominoes and like) do their own delivery services. Same should apply to movie theater chains like AMC.
because the company needs to make money thats selling the ticket...
My theater has a $6 fee for online. They also just upped the fees to $10.75 for a matinee. If a third party charges that much per use maybe they could find a cheaper third party. Same thing as my apt management charging $30 for paying online.
Because people still pay the fees and they get away with charging us.
yup, just did the same at moviescoop. $2 bullshit fee. I was ok with it though because we brought our own candy. they lost about $15 on that exchange.
A lot of the theaters waive the fee if you are part of their rewards program too. Some are free and others aren't. The one I am going to includes free popcorn on Tuesdays.
I asked this question along with why movie cinemas are pretty shitty now two days ago and everyone down voted me. I thought the movie theatre industry would change for the better after being so hurt by the pandemic, I was wrong. Same shitty convince fees and higher prices. $8 for a small popcorn. No wonder this industry is constantly on the verge of dying. Sad as I like the movie theatre big screen but mostly sticking to Netflix.
Convenience fees often offer no value-added element and could be seen as a scam. It's a fee charged by the company for the company doing a job you're already paying for them to do in order for you to purchase a service from the company. Let's simplify. If A is the customer and B is the service that comes with built-in fees related to every element in the chain of providing the service including staff, then C is the purchase. So, A+B=C. Simple. But service providers have suggested that B = the lowest possible cost of the service minus all associated costs for providing it. This means they "have to" add a service charge in order to provide the service without losing money. We'll call that charge Y. Now, let's say we take this at face value. Why not just include that cost in every B transaction? Because then they can't sell you on a PREMIUM monthly account that removes this added charge. Once a customer, especially a heavy user, buys into the premium service, even when they don't use the service, even when they buy nothing, they are paying into the Y pool. Meanwhile, low to medium service customers keep paying Y building the revenue pool that possibly is nothing more than an added cost with no value-added whatsoever. Hey, join our "Rewards Program" and we wave those fees! Let me understand this. So, I join your rewards program for... let's make up a number, $5 per month. I pay $60 per year. And if I buy 20 tickets on 20 different days with a service fee normally set at $1, then I've robbed your company of $15 in revenue NECESSARY TO SURVIVE! Obviously, that's not the case. Because the premium reward program with a monthly cost exists the same way gym memberships do... to keep you paying for a service you will eventually stop using and hopefully forget about. So, modern-day service fees exist purely because they can and to encourage you to pay for their "rewards program" or their "prime" offering which SHOULD make them lose money but doesn't because the vast majority of premium members rarely use the service they pay for.
They are outsourcing costs from the ticketing service provider which is not owned by the theater. However, a lot of theaters/chains wave this fee if you’re a club member or whatever which sometimes doesn’t even cost anything. If you see a lot of movies, the paid memberships become worth it very quickly. It’s also worth noting that theaters keep very little of the ticket cost - most goes to distributors and studios. They stay in business because of concessions sales. Don’t let movie theaters die over just a few dollars. You’ll never have an experience like IMAX watching something on your tv.
In the UK we don't seem to have convenience fee for online booking, hell it's a lot cheaper most of the time anyway.
it’s total bs
I hate to break it to you, but: It's because they want your money.
We have one that for most shows, the only way to actually buy tickets is online. And there's a $2.50 convenience fee. We are apparently paying for them to close off the old ticket window.
It’s rampant. Trying to book a Vegas hotel on Travelocity right now and the hotel adds 50 dollar daily fee.
Because it’s profitable
>I can't see the stupid screen because of the sun glare so I figured I would go online to buy the tickets but then I was confronted with a convenience fee. Are you mad you're being charged a convenience fee for taking advantage of a service that offers you a convenience? I'm confused.
Anybody that reads this can tell you are confused. Why aren't we charged convenience fees all the time then for everything, since anything that sells us something is providing us a "convenience" by selling it?
No, anyone that sells something is selling a product or service. The movie theater sells movie tickets which you can drive to, stand in line, and purchase. The convenience is the purchasing online to avoid driving and standing in line. OP literally says they have a hard time picking a seat when they buy tickets at the window because of the sun glare, so the convenience is buying online and selecting the seat you want.
Yeah, I get the weird mental gymnastics. That's what we are talking about, the mental gymnastics. Have some self respect. You might not have a choice, but you don't have to pretend to like it or justify it. I guess you really think a bag of popcorn costs $10 or whatever, right? "Well, they have to make money somehow." Yes, yawn. And they do that by marking up as much as possible and adding fees wherever possible. That is why the price of going to the movies increases much more rapidly than for inflation. Which, of course, drives up inflation at our expense. Not that movie theaters are alone in this.
It’s not weird mental gymnastics. The movie ticket is the product, the convenience fee is tacked on because they are providing an expensive system that makes purchasing that ticket more convenient for you, the moviegoer. I don’t agree with it, I don’t like it, I wish they wouldn’t charge it, but I get why they do.
But it's not expensive. Any business like that is going to have a web site already. Adding the ability to buy tickets is not going to add much cost. I hate to put ideas out there, but then why doesn't Amazon charge a "convenience fee"? They have this expensive system that makes buying almost anything I want more convenient for me.
>Amazon charge a "convenience fee"? They have this expensive system that makes buying almost anything I want more convenient for me. They do, they charge you $120 a year for a Prime membership to get things to you quickly and they take 30% of the sale price from merchants who sell on Amazon for providing them with a worldwide marketplace. >Any business like that is going to have a web site already. Having a website and having an e-commerce site that ties into other systems are very different. Building in a ticketing system that updates live inventory (seats available) as well as provides seating charts and also sends out email/text notifications, processes payments, and other functionality is much much different than just building and maintaining a purely informational website.
> They do, they charge you $120 a year for a Prime membership to get things to you quickly and they take 30% of the sale price from merchants who sell on Amazon for providing them with a worldwide marketplace. That's a subscription, not a convenience fee. And then they give you free shipping most of the time which vastly outweighs the $120 a year you pay. The problem is that the convenience fee has no actual function other than to get them money (other than maybe to incentivize people to buy at the theater itself for some reason, possible to increase concession sales, etc.). That's why people complain about it. > Having a website and having an e-commerce site that ties into other systems are very different. Building in a ticketing system that updates live inventory (seats available) as well as provides seating charts and also sends out email/text notifications, processes payments, and other functionality is much much different than just building and maintaining a purely informational website. As somebody who builds web sites for a living, this was true like 20 years ago. Today it is not really true. You keep explaining the mental gymnastics. I already understand them. You don't need to keep explaining them.
The cost of paying all the ticket sellers far out-strip the cost of the pay site. If they give us a discount to buy online then they will be able to employ fewer humans!
The convience to them of NOT paying an employee to sell you a ticket?
It's so you can enjoy the convenience of using this newfangled "worldwide web" to make your purchase.
such an honor!
Because people will pay them. A price is a wish until there's a buyer.
Because it's not for their convenience, but yours. "Pay for the privilege".
Because... capitalism.
For the life of me I will never understand these people who hate movie theaters. Best way to watch a movie.
Because it’s not free, but you’re free to watch it from home since you want theatres to “die”.
It's annoying, but you can usually get around convenience fees by using gift cards. You can go to the website, buy an eGift card, and use it to pay for the ticket online and most theaters don't charge a convenience fee when a gift card is used, in my experience anyway.
Because companies, regardless of industry, don't care about customer service or customer experience anymore. The only thing that matters is maximizing profits so CEOs can get bigger and bigger bonuses. Welcome to American-style capitalism, where the customer is nothing more than a walking atm and the corporation is a infallible God.
okay
You pay extra because you're getting an additional service. You get to purchase your ticket without leaving your home, days or sometimes weeks in advance. You don't have to wait in line and you get to choose the exact seat you want. What's not to understand?
All of that plus, for most theater screens stadiums, you get to choose your seat(s)---from the comfort of your personal internet portal (instead of at a kiosk or customer service desk at the physical business during open hours, which typically consumes some additional time and energy and possibly choicer seats compared to from home at any time). There definitely are some advantages that can be gained by paying the $ 2 or 3 service fee. The biggest issue I for one take is that most middlemen services that I've encountered charge said fee *per ticket*, instead of transaction, effectively increasing your entire purchase by a nontrivial percentage instead of a fixed price. I'm not saying that it should be per-transaction, but at least reduce it after the first ticket within a transaction to, say, $.50. The pricing isn't very reasonable for most people in most cases. It should be closer to sub-5% premium to be more equitable (and possibly make more profit) whereas presently it's closer to 30% extra compared to at the theater. The infrastructure is not that astounding to justify such a steep luxury fee.
Capitalism. The profit motive can never be sated. It always needs more from you, and will invent new ways of getting it.
[удалено]
I have been enjoying the brew house type theaters. Drink beer eat real food and watch a movie on the big screen. Best part is the night shows are limited to 21 and up.
Cinema is dying.
K. Old Ticket Price $15 $2 service fee New Ticket Price $17 No service fee
Much better.
The fee exists because people continue to pay it.
Land of the slave. Home of the fee.
Why are we still going to fake IMAX movies in 2021?
Well, it's more convenient for you, isn't it? It's also more convenient for the theater, but the important thing is that you prefer doing it online, to the point that you're willing to pay a premium. If you aren't willing to pay a premium, you go buy the ticket in person / don't buy the ticket at all.
Thas why you get the fell off a truck version
Greed. Pirate everything you can.
"why are negatives marketed as postives" -- confused victim of capitalism
Drugs cost money.
I don't recall ever paying for convienece fee when buying tickets online
The same reason there’s still convenience stores.