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Can you provide a source that Ticketmaster keeps extra money? I would find that unlikely.

by ethagknight 4y ago

boringg 4y ago
Is this a serious comment? I can't believe that this is a serious comment.
- function_seven 4y ago
  No artist is going to price their tickets at $50 face value, then shrug when TM sells them for $500 and keeps the additional $450 for themselves. Of course Ticketmaster isn't just keeping all the extra money. They're probably splitting that with the performer as well.
  - boringg 4y ago
    You do understand that Ticketmaster has an effective monopoly and has a past history of sketchy business practices. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if they pocketed it themselves or a large majority of it. It would be completely congruent with their business practices.
    - function_seven 4y ago
      Yeah I know TM is sketchy and monopolistic. That doesn't mean they have the leverage to take 90% of the money for themselves. The artists would raise the face value of their tickets to recapture it if it were as simple as that. We don't know what the details are on how the money is divvied up, but I do know that artists must be getting upside on this dynamic pricing.
      - Jgrubb 4y ago
        > That doesn't mean they have the leverage to take 90% of the money for themselves Listen, that's exactly what they have. The music business mostly exists to screw artists out of money made from their work, probably more now than ever. The artist signs a contract to pay for X dollars, that's what they get and they have no leverage whatsoever to go after that upside. Ticketmaster would have to share the data about the dynamic pricing in the first place and they are NOT doing that.
      - boringg 4y ago
        Actually thats exactly whats this means. Monopolistic/monopoly allows them to capture what they want without risk.
  - citilife 4y ago
    Depends how it works, just as an example (not what they are doing) if ticket master guarantees X seats for Y price. Then the band might be fine with ticket master doing what every they wish -- there's no risk to the band. Granted the band probably negotiated minimums and a cut. Remember, you also have the venue, security, traffic, marketing, etc. There's a lot involved with these kind of events.
    - executive 4y ago
      there is risk to the band. die hard poor fans cannot attend.
  - FireBeyond 4y ago
    If an artist wants to play a big venue and make money by volume, then they need to grin and bear it. Because TicketMaster/LiveNation own most of the large music venues in the country. And if you don't use them in a "vertical stack" you don't get to play those venues. And even at $50/ticket, you make money a lot faster in a 25,000 seat arena than you do trying to play 15 nights at an "intimate" theater (hey, guess what, TM/LN own a huge swathe of those too). We complain on HN about tech "monopolies" (or debate their existence, at least). TM/LN is a much larger effective monopoly that, to my knowledge, has not had any real investigation.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > If an artist wants to play a big venue and make money by volume, then they need to grin and bear it Blink-182 is not in this category.
      - FireBeyond 4y ago
        Why? Because they're "too big"? Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen will tell you a similar story.
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen will tell you a similar story Springsteen's team is defending dynamic pricing [1], with Ticketmaster claiming "promoters and artist representatives set pricing strategy and price range parameters on all tickets, including dynamic and fixed price points." [1] https://www.ticketnews.com/2022/07/springsteen-manager-fires-back-against-ticket-price-complaints/ https://www.ticketnews.com/2022/07/springsteen-manager-fires...
TYPE_FASTER 4y ago
From what I can tell, using Ticketmaster's dynamic pricing is a choice the artist can make (or the artist's company, or some business entity), and assuming the artist's contract is such that they get a percentage of ticket sales, the ticket price is the dynamically calculated price, so the artist does get more money for a dynamically priced seat.
- thescriptkiddie 4y ago
  If the artist chooses not to partner with ticketmaster, they will just buy the tickets at retail and scalp them. This is why you hear about so many shows selling out in the first five minutes. It's not real people buying them, it's ticketmaster bots.
- pbreit 4y ago
  That seems pretty obvious. I don't know why anyone would think differently.
adastra22 4y ago
Knowing Ticketmaster’s past actions, I find it highly likely. But I would appreciate a source too.
chucksta 4y ago
Ticket Master charged you to print out your own tickets and you think it's unlikely they are keeping more profits? I'm sure the artist is getting more this way through their standard percentage so they see it as win too either way
- quietbritishjim 4y ago
  The parent comment is obviously asking for evidence that Ticketmaster keeps all the extra profit
  - Animats 4y ago
    So what are performers saying? Assuming they're allowed to say anything. Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (ticker symbol LYV) often acts as the artist's agent, as well as the venue's agent and the ticketing service. Performers are now contract employees of Live Nation. So they may not be allowed to criticize Live Nation. The funny thing is, LYV, having achieved a near monopoly over ticketing, venues, and performers, loses money.
skeeter2020 4y ago
1. the tickets are sold by TicketMaster using dynamic pricing to extract the maximum price per ticket 2. the concerts are held in almost exclusively TM venues, leading to #1 3. the concerts are produced by LiveNation, which is TM, leading to #2 4. the bands are more and more often signed to LN for their tours, leading to #3 if you need more info you can do your own research.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  0. The tickets not sold by TicketMaster dynamics pricing are resold on StubHub. (Aka TicketMaster) TicketMaster can extort the performer for a bigger cut because if the performer takes no action, TicketMaster gets the resale, and the performer gets nothing. TicketMaster owns the data, so they can negotiate the dynamic royalty more efficiently and get a yield better than resale.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ethagknight 4y ago
Why do artists sign with TM / Live Nation? Because they know Live Nation will make them the most money for the least hassle and risk. Artists may also lack a little creativity on what a fan experience looks like. more on that below. I dislike Ticketmaster as much as the next person, but no one is holding a gun to Blink-182 to come out and perform in a nationwide tour with TM taking all the upside. I just can't fathom that negotiation taking place, unless TM was also guaranteeing revenue to the band, i.e. taking downside risk. Theres no point to that. Also, yes, LiveNation controls an impressive number of venues, but they dont control all the venues, not be a long shot. If the TM deal was such a raw deal for artists, nothing prevents artists from just hosting their own concerts in publicly owned venues, setting up longer term performance residences in interesting locations, or expanding the fan experience from the tired formula of "opener act, 2x 1-hour sets, and an encore" to something better like a collaborative fan experience over a whole weekend. Plenty of opportunity for creativity on the artist's part that would make the artist less money in a night but yield a potentially waaaay better lifestyle and creative process. At the end of it, Live Nation is a publicly traded company, but not a very attractive one. Lots of debt, rapidly increasing labor costs on the event hosting side, household budgets getting a major squeeze which will impact entertainment spend.
- relaxing 4y ago
  Ticketmaster has exclusive deals with the venues.

Can you provide a source that Ticketmaster keeps extra money? I would find that unlikely.

boringg 4y ago

Is this a serious comment? I can't believe that this is a serious comment.

function_seven 4y ago
No artist is going to price their tickets at $50 face value, then shrug when TM sells them for $500 and keeps the additional $450 for themselves. Of course Ticketmaster isn't just keeping all the extra money. They're probably splitting that with the performer as well.
- boringg 4y ago
  You do understand that Ticketmaster has an effective monopoly and has a past history of sketchy business practices. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if they pocketed it themselves or a large majority of it. It would be completely congruent with their business practices.
  - function_seven 4y ago
    Yeah I know TM is sketchy and monopolistic. That doesn't mean they have the leverage to take 90% of the money for themselves. The artists would raise the face value of their tickets to recapture it if it were as simple as that. We don't know what the details are on how the money is divvied up, but I do know that artists must be getting upside on this dynamic pricing.
    - Jgrubb 4y ago
      > That doesn't mean they have the leverage to take 90% of the money for themselves Listen, that's exactly what they have. The music business mostly exists to screw artists out of money made from their work, probably more now than ever. The artist signs a contract to pay for X dollars, that's what they get and they have no leverage whatsoever to go after that upside. Ticketmaster would have to share the data about the dynamic pricing in the first place and they are NOT doing that.
    - boringg 4y ago
      Actually thats exactly whats this means. Monopolistic/monopoly allows them to capture what they want without risk.
- citilife 4y ago
  Depends how it works, just as an example (not what they are doing) if ticket master guarantees X seats for Y price. Then the band might be fine with ticket master doing what every they wish -- there's no risk to the band. Granted the band probably negotiated minimums and a cut. Remember, you also have the venue, security, traffic, marketing, etc. There's a lot involved with these kind of events.
  - executive 4y ago
    there is risk to the band. die hard poor fans cannot attend.
- FireBeyond 4y ago
  If an artist wants to play a big venue and make money by volume, then they need to grin and bear it. Because TicketMaster/LiveNation own most of the large music venues in the country. And if you don't use them in a "vertical stack" you don't get to play those venues. And even at $50/ticket, you make money a lot faster in a 25,000 seat arena than you do trying to play 15 nights at an "intimate" theater (hey, guess what, TM/LN own a huge swathe of those too). We complain on HN about tech "monopolies" (or debate their existence, at least). TM/LN is a much larger effective monopoly that, to my knowledge, has not had any real investigation.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > If an artist wants to play a big venue and make money by volume, then they need to grin and bear it Blink-182 is not in this category.
    - FireBeyond 4y ago
      Why? Because they're "too big"? Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen will tell you a similar story.
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen will tell you a similar story Springsteen's team is defending dynamic pricing [1], with Ticketmaster claiming "promoters and artist representatives set pricing strategy and price range parameters on all tickets, including dynamic and fixed price points." [1] https://www.ticketnews.com/2022/07/springsteen-manager-fires-back-against-ticket-price-complaints/ https://www.ticketnews.com/2022/07/springsteen-manager-fires...

TYPE_FASTER 4y ago

From what I can tell, using Ticketmaster's dynamic pricing is a choice the artist can make (or the artist's company, or some business entity), and assuming the artist's contract is such that they get a percentage of ticket sales, the ticket price is the dynamically calculated price, so the artist does get more money for a dynamically priced seat.

thescriptkiddie 4y ago
If the artist chooses not to partner with ticketmaster, they will just buy the tickets at retail and scalp them. This is why you hear about so many shows selling out in the first five minutes. It's not real people buying them, it's ticketmaster bots.
pbreit 4y ago
That seems pretty obvious. I don't know why anyone would think differently.

adastra22 4y ago

Knowing Ticketmaster’s past actions, I find it highly likely. But I would appreciate a source too.

chucksta 4y ago

Ticket Master charged you to print out your own tickets and you think it's unlikely they are keeping more profits? I'm sure the artist is getting more this way through their standard percentage so they see it as win too either way

quietbritishjim 4y ago
The parent comment is obviously asking for evidence that Ticketmaster keeps all the extra profit
- Animats 4y ago
  So what are performers saying? Assuming they're allowed to say anything. Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (ticker symbol LYV) often acts as the artist's agent, as well as the venue's agent and the ticketing service. Performers are now contract employees of Live Nation. So they may not be allowed to criticize Live Nation. The funny thing is, LYV, having achieved a near monopoly over ticketing, venues, and performers, loses money.

skeeter2020 4y ago

1. the tickets are sold by TicketMaster using dynamic pricing to extract the maximum price per ticket 2. the concerts are held in almost exclusively TM venues, leading to #1 3. the concerts are produced by LiveNation, which is TM, leading to #2 4. the bands are more and more often signed to LN for their tours, leading to #3 if you need more info you can do your own research.

Spooky23 4y ago
0. The tickets not sold by TicketMaster dynamics pricing are resold on StubHub. (Aka TicketMaster) TicketMaster can extort the performer for a bigger cut because if the performer takes no action, TicketMaster gets the resale, and the performer gets nothing. TicketMaster owns the data, so they can negotiate the dynamic royalty more efficiently and get a yield better than resale.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ethagknight 4y ago

Why do artists sign with TM / Live Nation? Because they know Live Nation will make them the most money for the least hassle and risk. Artists may also lack a little creativity on what a fan experience looks like. more on that below. I dislike Ticketmaster as much as the next person, but no one is holding a gun to Blink-182 to come out and perform in a nationwide tour with TM taking all the upside. I just can't fathom that negotiation taking place, unless TM was also guaranteeing revenue to the band, i.e. taking downside risk. Theres no point to that. Also, yes, LiveNation controls an impressive number of venues, but they dont control all the venues, not be a long shot. If the TM deal was such a raw deal for artists, nothing prevents artists from just hosting their own concerts in publicly owned venues, setting up longer term performance residences in interesting locations, or expanding the fan experience from the tired formula of "opener act, 2x 1-hour sets, and an encore" to something better like a collaborative fan experience over a whole weekend. Plenty of opportunity for creativity on the artist's part that would make the artist less money in a night but yield a potentially waaaay better lifestyle and creative process. At the end of it, Live Nation is a publicly traded company, but not a very attractive one. Lots of debt, rapidly increasing labor costs on the event hosting side, household budgets getting a major squeeze which will impact entertainment spend.

relaxing 4y ago
Ticketmaster has exclusive deals with the venues.