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.
Much of the legal community at the time was convinced there was no way in hell the original merger would be approved. Even at that time LiveNation controlled an astonishing percentage of the live music venue market - which when paired with ticket master's near total dominance of live music ticket sales... this was one of the seemingly simplest competition law cases in years. Then the deal was approved, of course.
I am not surprised in the least it's finally getting anti-trust attention.
I've gotten smaller clubs and comics to hop over, and got one big tour to join, but when it comes to the well-known artists, they are contractually bound to go with the big companies. I'm very happy someone is taking action.
> On January 25, 2010, the U.S. Justice Department approved the merger pending certain conditions.
Just make all sales final. Check IDs at the door, or use technology to speed up identity verification (mail out rfids, etc). Sucks if you get sick or whatever, just like many things in life where you cancel last minute. It’ll substantially decrease cost due to these bottom feeders.
https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2018/01/31.html (HN referers banned, so cut & paste into a fresh tab)
Don't these suits usually result in a fine and an agreement to stop doing XYZ while both parties wink and nod, then the government lawyers go work in lucrative private practice a few years later?
I reached out to support for assistance, and after several days of wasted time and run-around, they finally sent my issue to their engineering team saying they'd get back to me in 5 business days. Keep in mind I said I bought these tickets a week before the event, and they'd already wasted a few days giving me the run-around, functionally meaning I wouldn't be able to sell my tickets.
I attempted to charge back the purchase since they did not provide what I paid for (tickets I could sell), and they fought me and won somehow.
So thanks Ticketmaster, for sucking me out of hundreds of dollars for nothing more than bytes in your database that I couldn't do anything with. I hope they go bankrupt.
For anyone who is in my shoes and hasn't used Ticketmaster yet and might be tempted to give them a chance thinking all of these horror stories are just unlucky people- don't. I was naive to think that all of those companies with bad reputations are just the loud minority but Ticketmaster is the only one I've had the misfortune of finding out is seriously awful. Use SeatGeek or countless other platforms instead. Gun to my head to use Ticketmaster again I'd probably take the lead instead.
Everyone is complaining about Ticketmaster but they're still giving them their money, so how are they supposed to respond? They are not being financially incentivized to change their ways. This feels a lot like the video gamer who hates Video Game Company XYZ with the passion of a thousand suns, yet like clockwork buys their video games again and again.
Show tickets aren't even a necessity. They're not like food and water--nobody has to buy them. Each and every dollar Ticketmaster collects is from a fan making a voluntary purchase of a luxury. Purchasing from a company that abuses them.
In the past year, I've tried this a few times and there is simply nobody selling tickets near the venues at all.
IE/Netscape bad or this apparently.
The Justice Department is preparing to sue Live Nation
The specific claims the department would allege couldn’t be learned.
The whole ticketing space is run by narcissistic assholes who should be in jail.
(Seriously though, we have so many olig/monopolies I’ve lost count. Sad.)
one of my favourite songs
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/clydelawrence/falsealarms.ht...
- ticket sale - ticket secondary markets - they own most of the venues - they run the security (showsec) - they run the tour buses and logistics
And so on. So when they raise ticket prices and claim costs are going up, it is their own costs.
They're criminals. No more. No less.
the biggest problem in the industry is not necessarily ticketmaster; it's ticketmaster combined with the gigantic, largely-hidden world of ticket brokers who have an entire ecosystem of tools and tactics (as well as relationships with promoters) that allow them to buy tickets to high demand events with greater rates of success than real customers and then jack up the prices astronomically with literally no oversight. breaking up ticketmaster will do little to stop the insanity of the ever-increasing prices of tickets, nor will it make it any easier to get tickets to an event you want to go to. it will just change the balance of who is likely to screw you.
all the secondary marketplaces basically sell the same inventory and mask that fact by pretending they don't. tons of the inventory that exists on them is just arbitrage (or zone) inventory designed to trap you into paying way more than face value for a seat you can't even choose. there's an entire cottage industry (enabled by a little-known player called ticketnetwork) of websites that walk a fine line of pretending to be the official box offices for venues trying to confuse and trap consumers into paying over face value for tickets. the pricing models on the secondary markets (and this includes ticketmaster) are basically designed to obfuscate the fact that they're all selling the same inventory and either boost the upfront cost and reduce fees or show you a cut-rate price for the ticket and then make it up with fees.
i totally agree that it is a Net Good that ticketmaster does not control the venue, the promoter, and the primary sale of the ticket. making it easier for venues to shop around for ticket providers is a Good Thing. but without broader market regulation, the fundamental problem won't get any better.
edit: just to explain this a little further, the fact that the secondary marketplaces aren't the sellers is really the thing that makes everything so complex. the people who control the prices of the tickets on the secondary marketplace aren't the big players (stubhub, seatgeek, etc.) but the brokers who then broadcast their inventory at prices _they_ set to all the marketplaces simultaneously. there's not really an opportunity for competition in this space - brokers actively collude (there's a big paid forum called shows on sale where they all talk about upcoming ticket onsales and trade presale codes and intel for getting tickets.) because of this, "enabling more competition" won't change prices past the time that the primaries sell through their inventory, and the brokers will always have an edge when it comes to gobbling that up.
First, you have the venue. The venue has an owner. This may be the owner of the sports team who plays there, a company that's entirely unrelated to the venue, a city or other government entity, or whoever else. *
Then you have the show you are buying a ticket for. This show may be a sports team, or it may be a concert or other live act. If a sports team it's probably got the same owner as the venue, but if a concert or other live act you have...
Promoters. Promoters rent the venue, pay for the show (i.e. they pay the band their fee to come play), sell the tickets, staff all the parts the venue doesn't, and pocket the difference. The promoter takes a risk, in that if they pay Major Act $1m and spend $500k on marketing/the venue/staffing and nobody shows up, they lose $1.5m. The band and venue still get paid.
The ticket platform. This platform sells the tickets for the event and adds their service fee. That service fee is generally used in part to pay the venue for the exclusive rights to sell tickets at the venue to the venue owner. That is both obviously valuable (fans can either pay your fee whatever it is or not go) and an obvious monopoly (if there were two ticket platforms selling for the same event the same seat would likely get sold twice sometimes).
Where this gets dicey: Live Nation (which owns Ticket Master) is both the biggest promoter and a ticket selling platform. Both by far. In fact they pay for exclusive rights to more than 80% of large venues. Most states only have a few venues that can do major acts (20,000+ seats), and a major act has essentially no alternative but to either play Live Nation venues, or play smaller evenues where independent promoters will pay them smaller fees.
Artists hate this system because it gouges their fans and arguably reduces their rates (there isn't a thriving market of promotors because most of them can't even use most big venues) but since Pearl Jam lost trying to break it up 30 years ago (when they were separate entities and TicketMaster had just as big a monopoly as now) they've not bothered to sue. Fans hate this system because they get gouged coming and going. It works well for Live Nation and the venues, obviously, though the venues still would be fine as they have very little competition. In my area there are two viable venues in the summer for a 25,000 person concert and one in the winter, and we're bigger than most.
Live Nation can use the vertical integration (they get both the promoter's share of the ticket revenue and the ticketing fee) to buy up most venues. And by buy up I mean either pay for exclusive contracts too, or just purchase outright.
It's been pretty clearly in violation of anti-trust laws for decades. TicketMaster before the merger and the combined entity now. I don't know how they've gotten away with it for so long, and they should undo the merger they never should have allowed to begin with.
*Unrelated but interesting: the venue also sells the rights to services inside the venue, like merchandise and, most lucratively, food and beverage. Third parties buy the rights to sell all of the food and drinks for very large sums. So a venue owner is responsible for relatively little of the work that goes on inside the venue. Someone else sets up the shows, pays for everything, sells the tickets, sells the food and drinks, etc.
edit: it's a joke y'all, obviously they got great tickets with those family and Ivy League connections
If the DOJ breaks up live nation the only group who gets screwed is the consumer. The sort of artist who is big enough to use live nation also wants a pay day for going on tour. They want the door, they want to sell their merch, they want a cut of the 20$ beer you buy. There might be 1 or 2 artist left who dont want to see you gouged on the ticket but that might not even be true any more.
Liven nation goes away. The venues are going to remain as a single company, the concessions are going to cost just as much. Ticketing might be phone/app only.
Every concert will turn into an auction. Want to get in front of the line. Pay 100 bucks to join a fan club. Want to cut that line, pay a 1000' bucks for a meet and greet and decent seats. Other wise wait, and bid. And that bidding is going to be ugly...
Fans are an interesting group of people. They tend to think with their heart and not with their head.... Dont believe me, we were selling hats and shirts at concerts long before video games. If you're willing to pay 5 bucks for a virtual good then 50 for a tshrit doesn't seem bad.