Ticketmaster is a bit of a monopoly I think, I mean for the most part if you want to see a concert, you have to buy your ticket from them, there is no choice, you can't shop around because Ticketmaster is the only one who sells tickets to 95% of the concerts and other big events that come around.
  I agree with you, I have never in all my years of going to concerts ever got a good seat from them, even if you are waiting in line the morning tickets go on sale, all the good seats have already been sold somehow, you've heard of 20,000 seat arenas selling out in 12 minutes.
What's up with that?
  The best seats I have ever got have been tickets I've bought on Ebay, from dealers who somehow always end up with the best seats, and yes, I paid a pretty penny for them.
  Sucks, but what are you gonna do?

I'm with Poly on this. I've always got my tickets for gigs either from the venue itself, or a reputable dealer.
Sounds like Ticketmaster have a rather unhealthy monopoly, and we all know what happens to those sort of people sooner or later.....

Ozzy

Ps. Poly we didn't shoot them, we put them on boats and sent them to your neck of the woods

I avoid TM whenever possible, which is easy to do in NYC.  Going to the venue itself to get a ticket beforehand is usually only a 30 minute endeavor.

Unfortunately there are times when you just can't do that.  What gets me is the cut TM takes.  A last minute ticket to the Boss's show at Giant's stadium on Sunday night cost me 72.98 . . . for a $55 seat!  To add to that TM had only 4 willcall windows open for the WHOLE 50,000 seat show!  Good thing I show up early.

The auction idea is rank.  There will always be a fool out there willing to pay more than you can for a good seat.