yep, welcome to the horrible conversation. It's a full on monopoly. They control the venues, the ticketing, the marketing, the selling, everything. Unfortunately as a consumer/concertgoer you have two options: Deal with it or never go. Artists who refuse to use them get blacklisted from them and that means they don't get the large venues, or the good locations, so that's about it

Well luckily the FTC sued them for being a monopoly and then the Trump administration settled for a slap on the wrist, so they have no reason to change.

Yeah, I just won't go to the one or two venues in my metro area that use it anymore.

If it's something that I really want to see, there's a couple of other cities nearby that have decent large venues (they operate their own actual box office) so I just have to hope that they play at one of those and I can get off work early enough.

I normally just go to small places where you can pay on the door though - fortunately I'm not too bothered about most of the people in those tb-only, venues.

Missed Jethro Tull recently though because of tb, sucks, more than 'mildly' for me though.

Why bother with big concerts? Unless you're rich you're sitting a half mile away watching them on a jumbo screen next to the stage. I prefer small stage venues. You can get close to the action and often talk to the band at the merch table. Go often enough and you'll see familiar faces. Those are scene-sters that make the rounds and know the up and coming bands worth seeing, local bands too. You might even catch acts before they get big, everybody starts somewhere. Not everyone show is a winner but you won't spend a week's pay