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Chobble Tickets vs Ticketmaster

Ticketmaster dominates large venue ticketing, but here's when Chobble Tickets is the better choice.

Completely different scale

Let's be upfront: Ticketmaster and Chobble Tickets serve very different markets. Ticketmaster is built for stadiums, arenas, and massive tours, whereas Chobble Tickets is built for community events, independent venues, and organisations that want control over their ticketing.

If you're booking a 50,000-seat stadium, Ticketmaster is probably unavoidable, but if you're running a 200-capacity gig, a charity quiz night, or a community workshop, you don't need (or want) Ticketmaster.

Fees and control

Ticketmaster's fees are notoriously high and opaque, and as an organiser you often have little control over the fees charged to your attendees.

Chobble Tickets charges a flat £50/year, and payment processing fees from Stripe or Square are the only other cost (which go directly to the payment processor, not to us).

Interactive cost calculator

Drag the sliders to see how costs compare at different volumes:

Total takings £2,000.00
Chobble Tickets Ticketmaster
Annual fee £50.00 £0.00
Platform fees £0.00 £0.00
Payment processing £0.00 £0.00
Total cost per year £0.00 £0.00
Cost per ticket £0.00 £0.00

Ticketmaster fees vary by event and venue — this estimate uses approximately 10% + £2.50 per ticket (bundled). Actual fees may be higher or lower. Chobble Tickets: £50/year flat + Stripe processing (1.5% + 20p).

Feature comparison

Ticketmaster is built for a completely different market, but if you're considering whether you actually need it, here's what each platform offers:

Both sites share some features:

  • Online ticket sales with payment processing
  • QR code or barcode scanning for entry
  • Email confirmations to ticket holders
  • Capacity management to prevent overselling
  • Refund processing
  • Mobile-friendly booking experience

Ticketmaster has features Chobble Tickets doesn't:

  • Massive distribution network — Ticketmaster reaches millions of buyers through its website, mobile app, retail outlets, and call centres across 30+ countries
  • Reserved seating with interactive venue maps — detailed 3D seat selection for stadiums, arenas, and theatres showing exact views from each seat
  • Verified fan / presale systems — manage presales, fan club access, artist presales, and access codes for high-demand events to control who can buy first
  • Dynamic pricing — automatically adjust ticket prices in real time based on demand, similar to airline pricing
  • Ticket resale marketplace — official face-value and open-market resale platform for sold-out events with guaranteed authenticity
  • Ticket transfer — official ticket transfer between fans with new barcode generation
  • Insurance and refund protection — optional ticket insurance for attendees covering illness, travel disruption, and other reasons
  • Box office and retail POS — sell tickets at physical box offices, retail outlets, and call centres
  • Mobile fan app — dedicated consumer app for ticket management, transfers, upgrades, and event discovery
  • VIP and upgrade packages — offer premium experiences, meet and greets, hospitality packages, and seat upgrades
  • Large-scale analytics — enterprise reporting across multiple venues, tours, and seasons with audience demographics and sales-by-location data
  • Exclusive venue contracts — many large venues are contractually locked to Ticketmaster, making it the only option
  • Multi-currency and international sales — sell across 30+ countries with local currency and language support
  • Accessibility seating — dedicated accessible seating management with companion tickets and specific access requirements
  • Season tickets and memberships — manage recurring subscriptions, season passes, and deposit collection programmes
  • Queue and virtual waiting room — managed queuing system for high-demand on-sales handling millions of concurrent users
  • SafeTix encrypted barcodes — dynamically refreshing encrypted barcodes that can't be screenshotted or counterfeited
  • AI-powered fraud detection — device reputation scoring and threat detection to block bots and scalpers
  • TikTok integration — sell tickets directly through TikTok in 20+ countries
  • Event templates and bulk edits — reusable templates for floor plans and pricing, with bulk editing across up to 300 events
  • On-platform advertising — promoted ads within Ticketmaster's marketplace to boost event visibility
  • All-in pricing — FTC-compliant pricing showing the total cost upfront with no surprise fees at checkout

Chobble Tickets has features Ticketmaster doesn't offer small organisers:

  • End-to-end encryption — attendee data is encrypted at rest with hybrid RSA-OAEP + AES-256-GCM
  • Open source — every line of code is public under AGPLv3
  • Self-hosting option — run the platform on your own servers for free
  • Flat annual pricing — £50/year with no per-ticket fees, compared to Ticketmaster's ~10% + £2.50 per ticket
  • Full data ownership — you control your attendee data, not Ticketmaster
  • No exclusive contracts — use Chobble Tickets alongside any other platform
  • Apple & Google Wallet tickets — attendees can add tickets to their phone wallet
  • ICS calendar and RSS feeds — subscribers get automatic updates
  • Pay-what-you-want pricing — let attendees choose their own price
  • Daily/recurring events — per-date capacity with calendar picker
  • Event groups with tiered ticketing — organise related events into collections for multi-event bookings with a single checkout, and create ticket tiers (VIP, general admission, etc.) sharing a venue capacity cap
  • Custom questions — add multiple-choice questions to events and collect answers at checkout
  • Public & admin API and webhooks — build custom integrations
  • Custom email providers — use Resend, Postmark, SendGrid, or Mailgun so emails come from your domain, not the platform's
  • Customisable email templates — full control over confirmation emails with Liquid syntax
  • Custom domain — your ticketing at your own web address
  • Apple Pay and Google Pay — accept wallet payments at checkout via Stripe
  • Transparent pricing — no hidden fees, no negotiations
  • Community Interest Company — run by a CIC, not a monopoly

An independent, no-fee alternative

Using Chobble Tickets means you own your ticketing infrastructure - your data, your domain, your rules - with no exclusive contracts, no platform lock-in, and no corporate middleman between you and your audience.

When Ticketmaster makes sense

  • You're running events at large venues that require Ticketmaster (contractual obligation)
  • You need reserved seating for thousands of seats with interactive maps
  • You want access to Ticketmaster's massive buyer network
  • You need dynamic pricing or verified fan presales for high-demand events

When Chobble Tickets is the better choice

  • You're an independent venue, community group, or small organiser
  • You want to keep your ticket revenue instead of losing 10%+ per sale
  • Privacy and encryption matter to you
  • You value open source and data ownership
  • You're a charity or school (£25/year)
  • You want Apple/Google Wallet, calendar feeds, or a public API
  • You don't want a platform marketing competing events to your audience

Who owns Ticketmaster?

Ticketmaster was founded in 1976 in Phoenix, Arizona. In 2010, it merged with Live Nation to form Live Nation Entertainment (NYSE: LYV), an American multinational that promotes over 50,000 events and handles 600+ million tickets annually. Live Nation's largest shareholder is Liberty Media, which holds approximately 30% of the company's shares.

In May 2024, the US Department of Justice and 40 states filed an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation, alleging monopolistic practices in ticketing. A settlement was reached in March 2026 — Live Nation agreed to a $280 million fine, a 15% cap on service fees at owned venues, divestiture of 13 amphitheatres, and opening parts of its technology to competitors. However, 26 states rejected the settlement and are continuing the lawsuit independently.

Chobble Tickets is run by one person as a Community Interest Company (CIC) — a UK legal structure that locks the company's assets for community benefit. All of Chobble's code is public under AGPLv3, and the platform can be self-hosted by anyone without depending on Chobble as a company.

Pricing sources

Ticketmaster does not publish a standard public fee schedule for organisers — fees vary by event, venue, and contract. The pricing estimate used on this page is approximate. Check the link below for the latest information.