So our last show in Ohio was the Album Release show on November 13, 2009. While it’s convenient to have Ticketmaster handle the tickets for such an event, I was more than troubled by the fact that so many of our fans would have to pay exhorbent amounts in fees.

(sidenote: exhorbent is not actually a word. please don’t use it. Neither is “alot” “Irregardless” or even “alright” alright? )

My solution to this obstacle was to offer a FEE FREE option to our fans by selling tickets through PayPal at no charge to them. Quickly after I realized my mistake. While PayPal is inexpensive to use, it isn’t free, and we ended up paying $0.60 per ticket that we sold through PayPal. This wasn’t a huge problem, but in the long term we could very easily go broke selling tickets to our own shows.

I thought to myself, “What can we do to fix this conundrum? If we start charging exhorbent (there’s that word again) fees ourselves to cover our costs, aren’t we no better an option than ticketmaster? Should we just give up, and offer no solution to our fans outside of the $4-$6 sur charges. No, we can’t give up so easily.” It was then that the inner math nerd in me decided to make an appearance.

I think many of you would be thoroughly surprised to know that before my endeavors into the great business of music, it was my initial plan to go into the field of Mechanical Engineering, and that I actually enjoyed math class all through school, so I put my good old Algebra Skills to the test. You see kids, there is a reason for learning all that boring Algebra. So here goes nothin . . .

Paypal charges 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. For a $10.

If we charge only $10 to use paypal. then we only get $9.41 per transaction and still owe the venue $10, thus fronting $.59 per ticket.

We want to charge the least amount possible to cover the transaction fee, and offer the cheapest option for purchasing tickets to our fans.

At first look, one might mistakenly take 2.9% of $10 at $0.29 add $0.30 and charge $10.59 per ticket, but this would be mistaken since the 2.9% is a percentage of the final price, and 2.9% of $10.59 is approximately $0.31. At this price you would lose $0.02 per transaction, and again slowly put yourself out of business. This is where the algebra becomes useful.

Let x= the final price of the ticket through paypal

Let y= the cost of the ticket

The cost of the ticket = $10

Paypal transaction fee = 2.9% + $0.30

x – (.029x + .30) = $10

x is approximately 10.61

So what we must conclude from this, besides myself being a total nerd, is that from now on we will charge a $0.61 transaction fee on ticket sales through our site, but we feel that it still accomplishes our goal of saving you as much $$ as possible and no longer letting the exhorbent fee monster get the best of us.

And remember kids, stay in school, cause you never know when that boring math class might come in handy.

Sincerely,

Andy

P.S. If you want to purchase tickets for our show at Musica on February 18, with Green River Ordinance, we urge you to pre-order your tickets, and save yourself some money, so CLICK HERE for a safe, easy, and by far the cheapest way to pre-order your tickets.

P.P.S. To clear up any confusion. We owe $10 per ticket to the venue whether they are sold through paypal, ticketmaster, or for cash. Fronting $.59 per ticket adds up quick, and that’s money lost that we never see. If we don’t charge the $.61 per ticket then it makes more sense for us to point you to ticketmaster, which will cost you 5 to 6 times as much in fees.