116 replies
1d4h
One important thing to know is that the venues/artists often get a kickback of part of the Ticketmaster fees. In other words, the artists, venues, producers, and Ticketmaster are in cahoots to fleece fans for as much money as possible, and Ticketmaster is willing to play the 'bad guy' and take the blame for high prices, and they get to keep a bigger slice of the overall pie than they would in a highly competitive market for ticketing services because they provide that "service".
Take away this dynamic, and the face price of tickets is going to go up, and the total price is unlikely to change substantially.
Personally, I think this would still be a net plus for society. In order for market forces to work well, you need pricing transparency.
If I understand correctly Ticketmaster is still the one creating this problem, they demand exclusivity in their contracts which often means the venue has no choice if they want to participate in a large enough market to continue operating. Similarly artists have trouble securing large venues if not participating in their scheme.
This is the problem with most 'monopolies', they reach a certain critical mass where they can no longer be dealt with on even footing. You are at their mercy as a vendor and as a customer. You can often argue that 'choice' exists, but what choice is it really? Taylor Swift isn't going to come play at our local music house/bar.
Taylor swift is big enough that she could build a venue in each location if she wanted, so that not an issue. If Taylor and a few other large artists gave the middle finger to ticketmaster and basically created their own ticket system, i promise you that they would have enough pull to basically solve this. However, like you said, thats not in their or their labels interest.
stadiums are multibillion dollar affairs that take years and lots of public financing. SoFi stadium was $5.5B. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_stadium...
Just being devil's advocate since I also don't necessarily agree that TSwift could build a venue in every market, but there are plenty of large-scale events that use open fields and tents and aren't going to cost billions to setup.
That's how I took it, if she wanted to rent out a field and import equipment, she'd still sell out, and at whatever price she wanted to charge.
Of course, then it also falls to her and her team to handle permits, hiring employees for the concert (and this would be a one time thing for those employees?), training, arranging materials, foods, and anything else, figure out parking and transportation, manage any necessary insurance, and whatever else is needed.
A venue is more than having a place, it's having everything necessary to handle an immense volume of people gathering, acting, and dispersing from a single location in a safe and orderly fashion.
Cirque du Soleil does this. They always setup their own venue on an open ground, but I think that's more for consistency of their layout and apparatus.
Again though, there are plenty of events that already do this and have people for handling logistics. And indeed people with temporary jobs involved.
With Tay’s wealth she could buy/build a stadium or two for sure! Maybe 10 smaller ones.
But to build / buy thousands with a real estate value in the 100s of billions you would need something like a EFT.
That's a 70,000-seat stadium [1][2]. Arenas (5 to 20k) can be built for a few hundred million [3].
Unfortunately, that would mean either nosebleed ticket prices or rationing tickets to fans. The former would earn the fans' ire. The latter reduce the artist's revenue.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoFi_Stadium
[2] https://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/5174...
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/business/concert-halls-li...
Then you'd get into lobbying, I'm sure.
Ticketmaster: oh the tragedy, our shareholders..they might not get as much profit! housing! think of the homeless! if you build this arena, it will sit dormant 95% of the year, this space could be used to house homeless, so VOTE NO! on question 45 to protect $CITY's homeless!
Just a FYI, "nosebleed" means the cheapest tickets - ie. the highest up/furthest away from the stage. It's a mountain climbing term related to suffering literal nosebleeds at high altitude.
SoFi was entirely privately funded, as far as I know. Public funding for private stadiums is less popular than it used to be
Yeah why does Taylor Swift not simply build multi-billion dollar stadiums in the middle of hundreds of cities across the country? Is she stupid?
They obviously don't need to be multi-billion dollar stadiums. They can be temporary structures or outdoor areas. 120k people watched Elton John on the main stage at Glastonbury last year, twice as many as attended most of the dates for the Eras tour. While not everywhere will have a space that's suitable for a 40-60k outdoor stage, a good number will.
Out of anyone, anywhere, Taylor Swift should be able to bring in a full stadium crowd even in the middle of absolutely nowhere.
ABBA actually built their own venue for their ongoing "ABBA Voyage" shows in London[1]. That's a residency, though. I'm not sure about the viability of doing it for a world tour!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABBA_Voyage
I think Pearl Jam did something very similar to that IIRC with regards to ticketing and re-selling.
It was a hit with their fans, but the problem is that only so many acts have the ability to do so (and as you say - it's actually not in their best fiscal interest, so you're going to self-select even further).
Ticketmaster willingly plays the bad guy role, and makes a fuck ton of money in the process.
That said, the vertical integration it has with Live Nation should be considered a monopoly, and trust-busted as such.
a) She could not and b) that leaves the exclusive contracts TM already has in place as the barrier.
The artists are not generally the ones who select who to sell tickets through; its the venues.
To be sure, Live Nation owns and / or operates many of the venues. They also provide management services to artists. So it’s not that TicketMaster demands exclusivity from the venue, they #are# the venue.
And in court they will probably argue that this is vertical integration that creates savings they pass along to the consumer. DOJ will likely argue they are pocketing it.
Has the DOJ ever won an argument against just vertical integration in the entire history of the US?
If isn’t just vertical integration. It’s also abuse of monopoly power. I’m sure the DoJ won’t have any trouble showing how much market share TM/LN have.
I think the real issue is the limited supply of tickets to the most popular shows. Supply and demand dictates that the prices for these limited goods be very high, yet social norms discourage artists from charging the true market value for their tickets (fans will rebel against their favourite artist for perceived greed). So TM provides an effective reputation-laundering service to the artists and collects a hefty fee for it. If the DoJ were to win their case and succeed in breaking up the TM monopoly then I bet the extra revenue would go to some other ticket brokers, not to the artist or into consumers’ pockets.
It’s partly this but also the artists benefit in other ways from large strata of their fan base being able to attend live shows, but merch in person and mingle with each other. The venue and Ticketmaster only benefit from the ticket sales.
Scalpers are also a source of guaranteed sales, so you're diluting the risk of a concert because someone is already buying up all seats already for you and running the risk of not being able to sell them at a higher price later.
The Paramount Decrees way back in the 1940s/1950s: that's why Hollywood studios cannot produce movies and own the theaters which exhibit them. It's also similar to the (much more complex) reasons TV Service Providers (DirectTV, Spectrum, XFinity et. al) are separate from TV Networks, and why you don't see Disney trying to buy, say, DirectTV. Of course, streaming upended almost all of that.
You seem to be correct about the studio/theater bit, but Comcast owns both NBC and Xfinity, so clearly that bit of intended separation ain't working.
Tell me more about how the “TV Service Provider” Xfinity (a subsidiary of Comcast) is separate from the various TV networks run by NBC Universal, LLC (a subsidiary of Comcast).
This is a most beautiful question. Perhaps the baby bells? That’s about all I can think of
The baby bells were split horizontally by region so I wouldn’t count that.
That was splitting one level of the vertical integration, really.
Yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System
Ah yes, that one[0].
[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/lcy7zc/a...
DOJ won against Paramount et al. in 1949. Consent decrees were in place for over 70 years.
https://www.justice.gov/atr/paramount-decree-review
It is a very different world than the world of 1949.
Yes, against Hollywood. Before then you could only see a Fox movie at a Fox theater
DOJ won against A&P in 1946 and again on appeal in 1949.
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1473571/united-states-...
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2311543/united-states-...
Then perform smaller venues and ration tickets to your most-devoted fans. Unfortunately, if you do that, it's tough to become a billionaire. (Analogy: wineries. On the 4 x 4 of size and price point, you have wines positioned in each quadrant.)
TicketMaster is, or more accurately its exclusivity requirements are, the root of the problem. But everyone around them--from the municipalities that publicly finance and permit exclusivity deals by these stadiums to the artists who perform at them--are profiting from and complicit in the market failure. (Ethically, not legally.)
Companies end up bankrupt with your line of thinking. Assuming infrastructure is sufficient for each situation to be profitable is magical thinking.
The point is artists want to have their cake and eat it too. Any artist performing at a stadium could make a solid profit performing at non-TM 5 to 20k-seat arena while charging a similar (or lower) price. They don't because it's more lucrative to perform at a 70,000-seat stadium.
LiveNation is a monopolist. But they also give many market participants cover to charge more without offending their fans.
It would probably need to be a different show. Playing to a large stadium means you can afford more trucks and a bigger spectacle. If you're playing for 5,000 people, you've got to tone it down, or you won't make a profit.
who determines what is "a solid profit"? If an artist can sell 70,000 tickets, why should they limit themselves to 20,000? Do you work for 2/7 of your potential salary? And what about the 50,000 fans shut out of the show?
If you do that, it's tough to make any money at all. If you're, say, Dave Matthews Band and you have 50,000 people who want to come to each show, and you start saying you'll only play to 1,000 people at a time, the economics start going sideways. The size of the band has to shrink and/or the cost per ticket has to go way up. The secondhand/scalper market sends tickets sky high.
Ticketmaster/LiveNation allows big acts to fill big venues, which (despite how it may feel sometimes) actually makes the show available to more people at a lower price.
There are plenty of 5 to 20k-seat venues that would be fine.
I don't know about your city, but Live Nation has been eating those up around here. I go to these kinds of venues exclusively, and over the last decade have gone from zero shows sold through Ticketmaster to maybe 50/50. At least the bar shows are safe, but those economics are obviously not fine.
That's still not a reason for the government to not bust up their rackets. It's about time someone stepped up and did something. I was hoping would be state based like Texas or California, but I'll take action from the feds I guess.
Nobody in this thread has argued against enforcement.
Perhaps not, but your comment was a bit ambiguous as written. Telling an artist "tough luck" if they can't book a larger venue without TM/LN feels like saying there isn't really a problem to be solved here.
It’s tough to pay your rent only playing smaller venues, let alone becoming a billionaire.
Right off the bat, exclusivity clauses shouldn't be legal, it's the definition of anti-competitive.
I don't know where you live, but since this is about US law, this has no basis. This goes against the very 1st amendment of the US constitution.
Freedom of association is an essential part of freedom of speech because, in many cases, and as the US Supreme Court has stated, people can engage in effective speech only when they join with others.
The only way you can take this position is IF one of the parties is subject to antitrust action. Which in this case, it is. So we have to trust antitrust!
That being said, I think that is certainly valid to argue for antitrust action to be automatic - so enforcement is not wholly dependent on subjective criteria.
I'd like to see what you think is viable.
Your comment seems to contradict itself. Freedom of association is constitutionally protected... but it's ok to strip it away if someone is subject to anti-trust action?
I'm not the person you're replying to, but I do live in the US, and unenforceable/illegal contract provisions are pretty common. What is fundamentally different between banning non-compete agreements, and banning exclusivity clauses?
Also I feel like you kinda have it backwards: an exclusivity clause restricts someone's freedom of association. While that's not automatically illegal (since 1A only applies to the government), exclusivity agreements like the ones we're talking about go against the spirit of the idea of freedom of association.
So yes, I'm totally fine with banning exclusivity clauses in contracts (maybe not in all cases; I'm sure there are times when they might be appropriate), and I don't think there's really any conflict with 1A. IANAL, of course.
The 1st amendment is not absolute if there's competing laws against it. Which i believe is your point, or at least helps your argument as you will see below.
Agreed, for the same reason that it is illegal to sell your body parts. This is because the illegal provisions (freely entered between consenting adults) would be in direct conflict with another established law, and the constitutionality of said law would have been brought up in front of (higher) courts to debate whether X type of association does not run afoul of other rights.
There's nothing fundamentally different except the former is now law, under the 13th amendment [1]. The latter has yet to do so. So you could be correct. The 13th amendment is a better pillar vs going strictly against the 1st amendment for (reasons).
[1] https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2023/02/rebecca-zietlow-13...
Freedom of association like... an exclusivity clause?
Yes, I think they have leveraged their power to keep the situation in their favor and not let a competitor come up. I don't really see a reason we couldn't have 4-5 ticketmaster type companies that still do some of the BS stuff we all hate. The whole thing where Ticketmaster will refuse other artists if your venue doesn't use them is very monopolistic.
Yeah every large venue, even if they were 100% independent, by default has a monopoly within some distance. And their management can access granular population density, income, etc…, data too, so they would all just price roughly the same modulo venue quality and expected demographic within X travel time. Regardless of where the artist chose to perform.
I think that exclusivities are a huge source of market problems in general. They are often used in these ways to create sorts of monopolies and drive prices artificially high.
Beatport, a service that sells music for DJs, has started doing exactly this sort of nonsense. They now have "exclusive" tracks for twice the price, and I would guess that the artists also get a portion of the increased profits. However, for consumers the only change is less choice and DOUBLE the price. Seems very similar to what ticketmaster is doing. I have no idea if they force artists to make all their tracks exclusive if one is, but no doubt that is the next step.
There has got to be a better solution here as it doesn't seem very reasonable to literally be doubling and tripling prices like this. And at the least, if an artist is going to do that, it should be transparent and not hidden under the guise of an exclusivity.
You know LiveNation owns TicketMaster right?
An artist might want to opt out of this, though. They might think, and reasonably so, that the optics of having affordable tickets - even if they make less overall - is better for their brand identity and long—term benefit.
That LiveNation has created a de facto system where they cannot opt out of their price setting is at the heart of the entire matter.
Affordable tickets requires a way to combat scalping, which in turn butts up against freedom to resell/transfer tickets after purchase. It's a hard game to win whenever scarcity and economics are involved.
Radiohead does this, banning scalping and limiting prices/supply. It seems to work out pretty well with the fan base. May be due to the band having obsessive and largely left-wing fans
How did they stop scalping?
They have tried a bunch of methods like demand based pricing, ID verification, electronic tickets, and lotteries. I suspect these things only work a little and each has its own problem side-effects.
Bands with the clout and fans lined up down the block the day before ticket sales open (e.g. Radiohead, The Cure, Pearl Jam) can do these things, and I'm glad they do. For the vast majority of acts– even well-known ones– it's absolutely not an option.
I think pretty much any act popular enough to headline at a large LiveNation venue can do this. Not even all that is necessary: just ID verification. Require each ticket to be associated with a real person's name at the time of purchase (and the ticketing platform should make it easier for people to find tickets next to or at least near their friends when they have to buy in separate orders).
Tickets aren't transferable. Ticket purchasing platform has a marketplace where people can resell tickets to others if they can't attend, and sale price is capped at whatever they paid in the first place. (Or the ticket issuers can partner with something that already exists, like StubHub, and contractually require the price caps.)
Each attendee must present their ID to enter the event. Names must match, no exceptions. I don't love the idea that you can't anonymously attend a concert (by walking up to the ticket counter and paying in cash, assuming any large venues even have box offices anymore), but I think the benefits of this scheme for the majority of purchasers far outweigh that negative.
This isn't hard. It's almost as if someone in the chain likes scalpers...
Indeed, the problem would not be difficult for LiveNation to solve.
Those acts are still the minority of things they book. Within maybe 30 miles of where I live, there are probably 15 big venues that house huge acts like that, but hundreds of smaller clubs, event spaces, halls, theaters, etc that use LiveNation. I used to work at a bouncer at a little rock club with like a 250 person capacity and they used them for ticketing.
Most venues in NYC seem to use an app called dice for ticket distribution. You can only resell on the app and only at or below the original price. Not foolproof, but seems to work pretty well in nyc, but in a less populated area might be hard if people cant sell the tickets and start complaining.
Lol most NYC venues do not use dice.
most of the ones I go to :shrug:
Robert Smith also came down hard on this, and as a glorious result, we saw The Cure for like $30/head last summer.
Combatting scalping is the easiest thing ever. Just put the name of the attendee on each ticket and if you want to be nice you can have a buyback period until a certain date before the show, where the venue purchases back your ticket if you can't go.
And then what, check the ID of 50k people at the door?
Why not? They check hand bags anyway. Even if you don't check everybody it is a huge deterrent to scalpers if the buyer can not be sure that they will be allowed in. Imagine paying for expensive tickets, travelling a long distance, paying for a hotel room etc. And then you're not getting in to see the show.
Would it have to be more or less speedy than an airport's TSA line?
nope, they would check like 20% to 30% of them. i’ve done work for a few non-profit performance organizations and this seems to be fairly effective in putting a large dent in reseller markets for non-transferable tickets.
resellers really don’t enjoy cc charge backs to pile up on their accounts.
They already check IDs of every entrant.
Also, in the US, your driver's license has a 2D barcode on the back which encodes your name.
The venue ticket has a QR code or similar which could also encode your name.
They already scan the venue ticket QR code. They could also scan your ID barcode, and beep differently if the names do not match.
This is what Comic Con does but it's more like 130,000 people
Yes, absolutely. Adding an ID check to a ticket check and often a bag check and sometimes metal-detector wand check seems pretty minimal to me. Or have people scan their IDs themselves when they scan their tickets; pretty much every driver's license and state ID in the US has a barcode thing on the back. Of course have enough staff at the gates to deal with the exceptions or when things don't work right.
Regardless, this already happens: I went to a concert at Chase Center last year, and they were checking everyone's IDs, not even just a random sampling of them. When I went to EDC in Vegas last year, they were checking IDs at the shuttle stops on the strip. I believe they were only doing that for age verification, but if the ID is already out, that can easily turn into identity verification.
Yes? They already do this at music venues to card people for putting wristbands or Xs on their hands.
The work of checking IDs is mostly done in US venues already, for 21+ drinking wristbands. It would have to be done differently, for sure, but a good portion of that labor is already being incurred.
More likely, the venues don't have much economic incentive, if any, to reduce ticket reselling and scalping.
Current ticketmaster tickets are electronic and often can be resold only on their system (depending on what the artist/venue has chosen as a restriction). Of course their system could limit the resale prices of the ticket, to the original price or a set percentage above it. They already take a bite of each resale I believe.
They have already built the electronic ticketing and transfer system that would allow them to prevent resale of tickets at a profit, the system is done. They just choose not to use it that way (and I'd guess artists/labels/venus are in on this too -- what the ticketmaster system does make possible is for them all to take a bite of the scalped ticket resale price!)
afaik, scalpers will often be selling tickets that have been bought speculatively in large blocks during pre-sale or when sale starts. this is a whole very complex side industry in itself, and being able to get those large chunks of cash up-front/early is beneficial for the artists/promoters/venues for lots of reasons. obv. this doesn't really apply to a super popular artist who is going to sell out on the first day, but there are very few artists/performers who do that.
so. as mentioned above. it's a hard problem to solve. if you think about it purely as a market/exchange then it's not dissimilar to how market-makers, arbitrageurs and HFT systems keep the market "efficient".
there's a good writeup here. https://www.404media.co/why-scalpers-can-get-olivia-rodrigo-...
Interesting! To translate to the language of stock and bond offerings:
TicketMaster ~ bookrunner/sponsor; scalper ~ underwriter;
The general population cannot participate in IPOs, just like we cannot buy primary-market tickets to popular shows.
Not only does their system make it possible, they teach their "partners" (scalpers) how to buy and sell more tickets, and the fees are usually even higher on those secondary sales, so this is very lucrative for tickermaster (and the scalpers).
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ticketmaster-resellers-las-...
And this is another area they're part of the problem. Not only do they have a resale platform, they've also been caught placing tickets directly on the resale market.
https://pitchfork.com/news/live-nation-admits-placing-concer...
You are correct, the ticket prices will be agreed between the promoter/venue (LN) and artist/manager via the booking agents.
The venue, often LN, will charge a base rate then everything else goes on top.
There are several other factors at play that lead to higher ticket prices which often comes down to the artist and its tour production being very expensive rather than pure greed
More often than not the deals are worked out on a 70/30 or 80/20 in favour of the artist and split after breaking even on most mutually agreed costs (ads etc), or a bigger artist flat fee which is risky for them.
Sounds identical to health insurers. We need a new word for this arrangement. “Cartel” probably comes the closest but doesn’t feel quite right.
It’s like a cartel but it’s lead by one “extractor” (front of house, Ticketmaster in this case).
“Cartel” doesn’t preclude a single leader. See: Escobar et al.
You are right, but in in his "cartel", everyone was working for him. Kind of a monarchy. I feel these cartels are more of an actual oligarchy where each player has a separate role that gives it power instead of just reporting up to Pablo.
Taking the insurance example you have the "suppliers" (doctors, drug companies and device companies), the "venue" (hospital) and the "extractor" (insurer).
Similarly you have the "suppliers" (musicians), the "venue" (the venue I guess) and the "extractor" (Live Nation and Ticketmaster). No obvious mapping to the record labels, recording studios or (biggest of all) streamers but hopefully some similarities are present.
I feel like Escobar, the Sinaloa Cartel, etc, are much more top-down.
I’m not so sure about Escobar, some people have suggested the Ochoa family was really running things behind the show.
Health insurers tend towards regional monopolies or duopolies.
Fire insurance in California is moving towards control by a government-mandated cartel. All the insurance companies have to take partial ownership of the California FAIR plan company, and they share in its profits.
For what it's worth, they refer to themselves as a "syndicate".
CalFAIR charges 2-3x market rate premiums (for similar houses in the same area insured by the companies that own CalFAIR -- this is on top of charging more due to risk), and then refuses to pay out when your house is damaged, engages in lowballing, etc, etc.
Since all the insurance companies that are "competing" against them own stakes in it, the moral hazard should be obvious. Predictably, CalFAIR's market share has been rapidly increasing in recent years. They're supposed to be temporary insurance of last resort, but they've climbed to over 3% market share.
https://sfstandard.com/2023/10/19/california-insurance-crisi...
https://www.cfpnet.com/about-fair-plan/
Collusion comes to mind. A group of companies colluding likely has a leader.
This entry in Matt Stoller's newsletter goes into a lot of detail on how this works: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/explosive-new-documents-u...
This is a pretty good write up. It's off the mark on one point.
The artists aren't upset with their take. If they are it's because their own management has their hands deep in pockets, or just plain suck. Live Nation knows dam well who butters the bread.
The history of Live Nation is that it is the decedent of bill graham presents. You might want to go look at the history of bill. There is a statement about his funeral, and it having the longest lines of stretched black limos in SF history. It's probably true. Bill made everyone money, himself included as a "promoter" and every penny of that came from fans.
The music industry has been doing its own version of pay to win / loot boxes since the 70's. When they break up LN (if?) its just going to get worse as the greed is gonna just be right out in the open. The lesson of the last decade is that you dont need LN/TM to cover it up. Artist given choice will make tickets non transferable and just auction them off... the new starting bid will be the same as the current all in price.
It's greedy fucks all the way down.
P.S. As I have said elsewhere in this thread, I speak from having spent a few years working in the industry. Find someone who works in "music" like that and it's the same nonsense as game devs, long hours and shit money cause people are passionate...
That's fine, though, and arguably better. Right now the consensus among concert-goers seems to be, "man, this is all expensive, but looks like I'm getting screwed by [TicketMaster | the venue]; I bet $ARTIST thinks this sucks too". For artists who want to charge an arm and a leg to see them perform live, pricing a lot of people out, that ire should be directed at the artists, where it truly belongs.
And maybe that drives some fans away, and that's what artists need to see happen. But I don't believe that all artists who play ball with LN/TM are greedy like that. Certainly some are, and maybe even most are. But those who are not... well, they should be able to play in huge venues across the country and charge less for admission if they want to.
https://harrystylestour.us/vip/
Chris Brown is 1000 bucks too... (you can find that link with ease, and the funny blow back)
I know you're looking at that and thinking "these must not be that popular".
The concert industry has been harpooning whales since the 90's and the internet only made it more lucrative.
Touring, merch, licensing... These are the ways artists make money. Music is basically free. Price is a function of popularity, no one is going to leave money on the table, ever.
This is from 89, from a mid level artist at a small venue: https://archive.is/moWdH
Sometimes the prices are so dam high that you only even care about half the venue and then you paper over the rest... It's kind of common for a large venue to just get asses in seats and sell beer and tshrits if they can.
No way - get rid of them and there will be more competition in the market better pricing and maybe a less homogenous (and terrible) experience.
Yes, it seems like in 1985 Ticketmaster and the couple of big competitors they gobbled up (I recall there was at least one other called Bass) could justify their existence decently. The operated brick and mortar locations where you could buy tickets, as well as a call center where you could call in to buy tickets. Today though, arguably without their many tentacles like Live Nation that guarantee them a cut of everything, they have no moat at all. Oh gee, if only we could figure out how to charge credit cards, show a seat map for you to pick your seat, and print barcodes on paper / email a barcode to attendees. So yes, I would expect that relative to verticals where things require actual ingenuity or skill to do a good job, it would be easy for people who operate venues to either just roll their own ticketing systems, or contract with dozens of vendors who would compete on their value. Of course, venue owners who are not themselves part of Live Naton itself could do this today, but the gross agreements where ticketmaster inflates fees and splits them with everybody in order to gain an exclusivity contract makes this uncommon. The whole thing is so corrupt and greedy it's sickening.
I would love to see them busted up into 4 or 5 companies
And if you disbelieve this or want to see proof, check out Live Nations 10-k from 2015.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1335258/000133525816...
"Ticketing. Our Ticketing segment is primarily an agency business that sells tickets for events on behalf of our clients and retains a fee, or “service charge”, for these services. We sell tickets for our events and also for third-party clients across multiple live event categories, providing ticketing services for leading arenas, stadiums, amphitheaters, music clubs, concert promoters, professional sports franchises and leagues, college sports teams, performing arts venues, museums and theaters. We sell tickets through websites, mobile apps, ticket outlets and telephone call centers. During the year ended December 31, 2015, we sold 69%, 21%, 7% and 3% of primary tickets through these channels, respectively. Our Ticketing segment also manages our online activities including enhancements to our websites and bundled product offerings. During 2015, our Ticketing business generated approximately $1.6 billion, or 22.6%, of our total revenue, which excludes the face value of tickets sold. Through all of our ticketing services, we sold 160 million tickets in 2015 on which we were paid fees for our services. In addition, approximately 297 million tickets in total were sold using our Ticketmaster systems, through season seat packages and our venue clients’ box offices, for which we do not receive a fee. Our ticketing sales are impacted by fluctuations in the availability of events for sale to the public, which may vary depending upon event scheduling by our clients. As ticket sales increase, related ticketing operating income generally increases as well."
$1.6b of revenue selling 297m tickets. $5.79 per ticket. So you are paying $20 fees on a ticket, who do you think gets that money if it isn't Ticketmaster?
1/3 to TM, 1/3 to Artist, 1/3 to Venue.
Well something is going on. I used to go to concerts all the time when I was younger and they were far far cheaper than what they cost today even when accounting for inflation.
Concerts aren't a necessity. As much as Ticketmaster/LiveNation "fleece" fans, secondhand sellers a/k/a scalpers do it even more. The demand is there, if the prices were too high the tickets would not sell.
If you don't like what a concert ticket price costs, don't go.
So monopolies and oligopolies are okay as long as it isn’t for a life necessity?
Yep, that's what I do.
What you are failing to address is the artists being harmed by not participating in this 'fleecing' scheme.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pearl-jam-taki...
Oh yeah. I remember Trent Reznor writing an angry social media post about this probably ten years ago, more or less explaining it all. Ticketmaster only sells a small portion of a show's tickets through their official website. Most go straight to "aftermarket" outlets that Ticketmaster indirectly controls, and artists know about this and take their share of the markup.
I agree: fair pricing is better than bullshit pricing with hidden fees and surcharges. It's the same with tipping at restaurants: it's better to just have the actual price printed clearly and advertised, and that's the price you pay, instead of advertising a lower price and then having to do mental math to figure out the real price at the register.
Ya, sure, but you also have to remember that Live Nation often owns the venues, and manages the artists.
So what you're kind of saying is "venues(Live Nation)/artists(also Live Nation) get a kickback of part of the Ticketmaster (also Live Nation) fees".
Not artists. Venue owners, yes. Artists, no.
Venue owners have a choice of ticket sellers, artists do not.
Villainy as a service
It might have changed in the last 10 years, and it might be different in the USA, but in 2010 when I put on a large theatre production and had to use Ticketmaster, there was no way a ‘kickback’ was part of the equation.
Exactly the opposite, in fact. Did you know that Ticketmaster has two fees? One is the ‘outside’ fee that you, the punter, sees. So you think I’m getting $100 and you’re giving Ticketmaster another $10.
In fact there’s also an ‘inside’ fee that Ticketmaster charges me. So of that $100, they also take $10 from me.
Of course for this you get all sorts of services, right? Tools to manage seating, allocations, reservations, price varieties, and so on? Nope. Not a goddamned thing.
I despised having to work with them.
yes, but they are in cahoots with the fans to fleece the fans. Fans are willing to pay big money to see these shows, that's who pays the high prices. If fans didn't pay the high prices, the prices would drop.
Your comment (the word fleece) suggests you are at least somewhat judgmental about "greed": this type of judgment is why bands try to pretend that they sell the tickets for a "fair" price, and that's what creates the 2ndary market, and that's what creates the kickbacks and the need for a scapegoat.
you expect to pay a high price for a Picasso at auction. You should expect also to pay a high price for sellout, SRO, line around the block shows too. Who should collect that money? fans who got in first? fake fans who pretended to be fans to get in first? People who are attracted by the arbitrage price differential? Or, I dunno, how about Picasso? The band.
The biggest fans in football, season ticket holders who slog through all the bad seasons, frequently sell their superbowl tickets when the price gets high enough. They'd rather have the money, that's the nature of money, and people.
Yes, but also, many of those venues ARE Ticketmaster. From the Ascend Ampitheatre in Nashville to the Gorge in Washington, Live Nation owns like 150 major and minor concert venues. They're often kicking back to themselves.
They aren’t just fleecing fans they’re also ripping off other participants in the market especially competitors. Matt Stoller has written a lot of detail about this.