# Event Surges -- No Longer Worth It



## DriverMark (Jan 22, 2018)

I know this doesn't come as a surprise as it's been discussed prior. I was however willing to give it the good ol "that a boy" try with summer concert season in full swing.

One of the main concert venues here in Salt Lake is the USANA Amphitheater. It's in a God awful location with 1 road that drives past the bulk of the parking lots. As such, it's a nightmare to get in and out at concert end. To make matters more interesting, the Uber/Lyft parking lot for pickup is a good little distance from the gates, and uphill to boot. Cars can only go in OR out of the lot. The slight win is you don't have to fight all the way down past all the parking lots. Traffic folk have to alternate letting drivers in and out of the lot. From downtown it's about a 20-25 minute 15 mile drive. And because it's a little hike folks often can't find the dang spot, wasting more time when you get there telling them how to get to the pickup lot. Like last night even after I sent them a text 15 min prior to my arrival they need to go to that spot.

My strategy last year, which doesn't matter now as it's nowhere near as profitable, was to head that way about 10:00. Arriving before 10:30. Concerts HAVE to end at 11:00 due to city noise ordinances. They will cut the power to the stage at 11:00! The VIP and other lots have no monitors at that time so I would just roll into the VIP lot and park right next to the main gate. Catching the last 30 minutes or so of music and await the surge! PAX come out front gate, right into my car, and off we go! Easy peasy.

Last year I would run $50-100 using this strat. If lucky and able to get 2-3 rides could spike $150-200. Getting this nice 4-6x surge. Well worth an 1 to 1.5 hours. Even 2 hours of time was worth it. Sometimes grab food on the way to eat while chilling to some toons.

Last night with Slipknot playing. I didn't stage, but at 10:55 with it surging hard and spending 10 minutes in the airport queue without that moving I headed that way. Sure enough, soon as I left the queue the amphitheater XL ping came through (16 minutes away). Was only $3.50 surge and I debate waiting to see if a higher surge comes through. I decide to take it anyway as I had a prior concert in the year that I missed the peak surge waiting for something better. Ended up $27 total. That is with the surge multiplying out to $6.40 and a $7.11 tip. 45ish minutes of time. Last year I would have gone back for hopefully a 2nd smaller surge run. This year, I said screw it, not with worth the deadhead back. Make it more interesting, they left a cell in the 3rd row seat where I couldn't see it during my "get the hell out back seat check". Ends up they couldn't go where I dropped them off as it was +21 and they had 1 member not old enough. So I ended up taking them to another spot for $10 and I got the $15 return item fee. 1 hour 20ish with going back ended up w/ $51.64. Not really how I would have liked to get to that figure, but gotta do what you gotta do. 

Concerts this year fares have run in the $15-25 range. No more big paydays. And unless in the area, no where near as profitable. Certainly not worth a 20-25 minute deadhead ride there. Maybe if it's X and also get the "Long Pickup Fee" on top to compensate the time getting there. Maybe I'll try that strat and leave the XL at home on those days. 

In a couple weeks the DAS Energy Festival (EDM Festival) will be at the Great Salt Air. Another HORRIBLE venue for getting in and out of. Only bonus is it's right off I-80 and 15 minutes from downtown. Last year was easy raking $50-75/hr. I'll probably work it see what can be gained. But know it's not going to be anywhere near as profitable. 

Sad times.......


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## mrpjfresh (Aug 16, 2016)

One of results of new surge has been large numbers of riders unable to get rides after concerts, sporting events, rodeos, etc in bigger cities. Some drivers still work them but most realize this is a huge L for profit and generally a huge time sink. Yes, Uber will most likely adjust your dollar amount surge after the ride but in my experience with new surge, they still always take over *half* on these surged rides.

I had a couple in town from Raleigh a month or so ago worried they would be able to get an Uber after their concert downtown as it happened to them a few weeks earlier at home. My city is too small to worry about that and most music venues I am in and out in 10 minutes tops. The only place remotely like bigger city venues is the Biltmore - one way in and out and typically 15-20 minutes to get to the rider for a paltry LPU fee and low fare. I treat this like the strip club - drop off there all day but rarely, if ever, pick up from there. I commend you for trying it out and seeing for yourself but I would probably avoid those events if it were me. My snowy driving dipped way down after new surge came to my city. It is simple risk/reward and minimizing frustration. Also a reason I don't drive daylight hours with traffic.

As an aside, sometimes when those big events suck up ants, other, easier to access areas will surge and you can clean up. Just my experience.


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## uberdriverfornow (Jan 10, 2016)

events are no longer worth it after flat rate surge

i don't work just to make Uber money


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## sidemouse (Apr 2, 2017)

All rides have dead legs, and there is a better way but you won't catch these companies doing it.


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## Jason15215 (Jul 16, 2019)

I had a pickup after the Queen concert in downtown Pittsburgh. Took absolutely forever to pick them up and the flat rate surge was $1.50. Took an extra 25 mins with all the traffic and was totally not worth under $2 extra. Last year for the same.ride I would of made at least $40 total and the other day made $16

You also cant say that it was from alot of drivers in the area. I came from 7 miles away and the pax said it was 8-10 minutes aearching for a driver before I accepted


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## Iann (Oct 17, 2017)

We have the County Fair going on where I live.
A pax told me it took them about a hour to get a ride.
Said about 5 drivers canceled on them so they had to walk to a gas station nearby to try and got me in 5 minutes. 
Told them since we no longer get paid surge most won't drive into large venues to do pickups.


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## SFOspeedracer (Jun 25, 2019)

Idk how people still do the crowds, relentless pax, horrid traffic and intoxication at flat surge and current per mile/minute

It took at least 4.0x back then to get me _to think _about going out there


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## Another Uber Driver (May 27, 2015)

If I am going to work an event, I do it in the cab.

No trying to find my customers; my customers are the people with their hands in the air.

If I do get an Uber Taxi ping, the users are smart enough to submit their request from somewhere to which I actually can fetch them.

I do not get surge pricing, but I get more than does an UberX/Lyft driver on that *whole two-fifty "*surge". The customers pay more to Uber/Lyft than they would pay to me. Many people in my market realise this.


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## Cdub2k (Nov 22, 2017)

It's not worth it on the back end. Leading up to the event is worth it because everyone is either prepping to go or getting rides to the event. 

Thanks to Driver over saturation, reduced rate, and flat surge pricing after the event is over it is not worth picking them up. Thanks to traffic you will probably only get 1 trip from the event regardless maybe 2 depending on how long it takes you to pickup, leave, drop off and get back to the event. The math just doesn't add up to being profitable or even desirable.


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## charmer37 (Nov 18, 2016)

Let the pax wait, Ilf Uber don’t want to pay drivers a real surge when it’s busy it’s not worth dealing with traffic and drunks. A $1.50 surge at busy times is ridiculous.


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## ABQuber (Jan 30, 2019)

Yeah I don’t even bother with the big events anymore. Even at a small concert a $15 ride could turn into a $60 ride pretty easy. Lot of pax even expected it. Now that $15 might turn into $23. Not worth fighting traffic for. Might as well stay on the other side of the city and take everything else while the others are stuck in traffic. Honestly don’t bother with any surges anymore. Not even weekend 2 am bar crowds getting out.


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## Jo3030 (Jan 2, 2016)

Let the ants take these crap rides.


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## Mr. Yuck (Jul 31, 2017)

Chicago played Biltmore last night. 15 min in, longer out. It did suck up ants and I'm pretty sure I did better sticking to my Tuesday routines.


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## Stevie The magic Unicorn (Apr 3, 2018)

Another Uber Driver said:


> If I am going to work an event, I do it in the cab.
> 
> No trying to find my customers; my customers are the people with their hands in the air.
> 
> ...


That's my game plan...

dang great minds think alike I guess...

Reality....

For taxi rates it's worth the time to get *Close* and take the first people i find who want a ride at $2.40 a mile.

$2.50 extra for 53c?

Then playing the after event scavenger hunt?

LOL

Sure..

And they wonder why it takes so long to get picked up.


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## losiglow (Dec 4, 2018)

Fellow Utahn here and know exactly what you mean. I drive nearly every Friday and Saturday night but almost never work events unless they're city wide like conferences. But single events - almost never. And definitely NEVER anything at USANA or the Saltair. Very rarely Energy Solutions area or the Real stadium but usually not even that. I avoid it like the plague. I've been stung too many times sitting in traffic only to get a measly $4 surge when I could have given 3 rides during that time and made $20 more that way. Before, you were getting surge on the _time_ as well. At even a 2.5X surge, that's $0.15 x 2.5 = about $0.38 a minute or so. I'm ok with that. But now that's even gone - all incentive is pretty much out the window.

Lyft is even worse. I very rarely get their "personal" power zone bonus. They can light everything up dark orange all they want. Uber surge might suck compared to what it was but in Lyft's case it's not even guaranteed. At least with Uber you can see what you're going to get.

Not sure if you were driving Saturday night DriverMark, but do you remember the $15 surges coming out of USANA? I was looking at it and just lol'ing.


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## Ltred71 (Aug 4, 2019)

losiglow said:


> Fellow Utahn here and know exactly what you mean. I drive nearly every Friday and Saturday night but almost never work events unless they're city wide like conferences. But single events - almost never. And definitely NEVER anything at USANA or the Saltair. Very rarely Energy Solutions area or the Real stadium but usually not even that. I avoid it like the plague. I've been stung too many times sitting in traffic only to get a measly $4 surge when I could have given 3 rides during that time and made $20 more that way. Before, you were getting surge on the _time_ as well. At even a 2.5X surge, that's $0.15 x 2.5 = about $0.38 a minute or so. I'm ok with that. But now that's even gone - all incentive is pretty much out the window.
> 
> Lyft is even worse. I very rarely get their "personal" power zone bonus. They can light everything up dark orange all they want. Uber surge might suck compared to what it was but in Lyft's case it's not even guaranteed. At least with Uber you can see what you're going to get.
> 
> Not sure if you were driving Saturday night DriverMark, but do you remember the $15 surges coming out of USANA? I was looking at it and just lol'ing.


If you get it! Have had a surge due about 6 times now that it shows surge $ and they dont pay. Uber customer service sucks. Even had screen shots to prove it. Still no money to me.


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## DriverMark (Jan 22, 2018)

losiglow said:


> Fellow Utahn here and know exactly what you mean. I drive nearly every Friday and Saturday night but almost never work events unless they're city wide like conferences. But single events - almost never. And definitely NEVER anything at USANA or the Saltair. Very rarely Energy Solutions area or the Real stadium but usually not even that. I avoid it like the plague. I've been stung too many times sitting in traffic only to get a measly $4 surge when I could have given 3 rides during that time and made $20 more that way. Before, you were getting surge on the _time_ as well. At even a 2.5X surge, that's $0.15 x 2.5 = about $0.38 a minute or so. I'm ok with that. But now that's even gone - all incentive is pretty much out the window.
> 
> Lyft is even worse. I very rarely get their "personal" power zone bonus. They can light everything up dark orange all they want. Uber surge might suck compared to what it was but in Lyft's case it's not even guaranteed. At least with Uber you can see what you're going to get.
> 
> Not sure if you were driving Saturday night DriverMark, but do you remember the $15 surges coming out of USANA? I was looking at it and just lol'ing.


The RioT is horrible as there is no pickup location and difficult to find your PAX. And surge usually non existent. Had 2 rides there last weekend and they weren't worth it.

USANA I've done 2 concerts the last week. If you roll up the new Mountain View Corridor from where it ends now at 4100 S, getting in isn't bad. And if the traffic dweebs are good you can get out pretty quick. Your PAX being at Lot 6 a total different story. Both events I made $70-90 in less than 2 hours. So it was decent. And luckily I ended up downtown with my last ride Saturday night at 12:30. So the stars aligned.

Salt Air..... uuuuggghhhhhh..... and they have tons of land out there. No reason they can't invest a bit and make getting in and out of there better.


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## pizzaladee (May 23, 2018)

Sometimes it is still worth it.


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## TomTheAnt (Jan 1, 2019)

pizzaladee said:


> Sometimes it is still worth it.
> View attachment 342448


Nice! :thumbup:

There's once again the one thing I haven't been able to grasp yet. What in the world makes a pax give such a large tip? That's almost 50% of the fare. You must've provided water, candy, cords, Bluetooth foot rubs, the whole nine yards! LOL!!! :biggrin:


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## pizzaladee (May 23, 2018)

TomTheAnt said:


> Nice! :thumbup:
> 
> There's once again the one thing I haven't been able to grasp yet. What in the world makes a pax give such a large tip? That's almost 50% of the fare. You must've provided water, candy, cords, Bluetooth foot rubs, the whole nine yards! LOL!!! :biggrin:


?
It was after a concert at an amphitheater where the pax have to walk about a mile to the road to be picked up. I always call/text to make sure they are aware of this. (There is a rideshare area near the gate but they close off the parking lot to incoming traffic pretty early, so I would have to go and sit for an hour).

The reception is very spotty there as well. They had been trying to get a ride for a while but couldn't connect. When I told them they had a 20 minute walk they begged me to wait for them and promised a big tip. I waited because it had the 45+ on the ping and I knew they were charging 3x at the time.

They ran most of the way to get to me.

When I was dropping them off she did the tip in the car. She asked me to calculate 30%. Her pre-tip amount was $156, so $46 for me.

BTW, no water, candy, or massages were given ?


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## Another Uber Driver (May 27, 2015)

Stevie The magic Unicorn said:


> For taxi rates it's worth the time to get *Close* and take the first people i find who want a ride at $2.40 a mile.


...............and sometimes you do not need to get near the venue. You get these people who wandered up the street, see a cab and up goes the hand. You miss the traffic, miss the cab queue and get a job just the same.

If I go to a night game at Nationals Park, if GF does not go with me, I park the cab on Capitol Hill and walk to the park. After the game, I walk back up to the Hill, start the cab and start to fish stuff out of the trunk. It is rare that someone who has walked out of and away from the post-game [aggregate intercourse] does not approach me and ask for a ride.


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