4 ms·

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 over

by btown 3y ago

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.

BHSPitMonkey 3y ago
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.
- tomjakubowski 3y ago
  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
  - tayo42 3y ago
    How did they stop scalping?
    - codazoda 3y ago
      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.
      - chefandy 3y ago
        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.
        kelnos 3y ago
        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...
        chefandy 3y ago
        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.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - HDThoreaun 3y ago
      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.
      - freejazz 3y ago
        Lol most NYC venues do not use dice.
        HDThoreaun 3y ago
        most of the ones I go to :shrug:
        freejazz 3y ago
        Dice is for smaller venues, generally.
  - teeray 3y ago
    Robert Smith also came down hard on this, and as a glorious result, we saw The Cure for like $30/head last summer.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  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.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    And then what, check the ID of 50k people at the door?
    - carlosjobim 3y ago
      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.
      - ysavir 3y ago
        Would it have to be more or less speedy than an airport's TSA line?
    - idontpost 3y ago
      [dead]
    - cypherpunks01 3y ago
      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.
    - pants2 3y ago
      This is what Comic Con does but it's more like 130,000 people
    - 3y ago
- jrochkind1 3y ago
  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!)
  - bonestamp2 3y ago
    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-vegas-1.4828535 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ticketmaster-resellers-las-...
  - billywhizz 3y ago
    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-tickets-and-fans-cannot/ https://www.404media.co/why-scalpers-can-get-olivia-rodrigo-...
    - rcyeh 3y ago
      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.
- chefandy 3y ago
  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-concert-tickets-directly-on-resale-market-report https://pitchfork.com/news/live-nation-admits-placing-concer...
Kailhus 3y ago
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.

by btown 3y ago

BHSPitMonkey 3y ago

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.

tomjakubowski 3y ago
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
- tayo42 3y ago
  How did they stop scalping?
  - codazoda 3y ago
    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.
    - chefandy 3y ago
      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.
      - kelnos 3y ago
        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...
        chefandy 3y ago
        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.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - HDThoreaun 3y ago
    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.
    - freejazz 3y ago
      Lol most NYC venues do not use dice.
      - HDThoreaun 3y ago
        most of the ones I go to :shrug:
        freejazz 3y ago
        Dice is for smaller venues, generally.
- teeray 3y ago
  Robert Smith also came down hard on this, and as a glorious result, we saw The Cure for like $30/head last summer.
carlosjobim 3y ago
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.
- lolinder 3y ago
  And then what, check the ID of 50k people at the door?
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    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.
    - ysavir 3y ago
      Would it have to be more or less speedy than an airport's TSA line?
  - idontpost 3y ago
    [dead]
  - cypherpunks01 3y ago
    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.
  - pants2 3y ago
    This is what Comic Con does but it's more like 130,000 people
  - 3y ago
jrochkind1 3y ago
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!)
- bonestamp2 3y ago
  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-vegas-1.4828535 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ticketmaster-resellers-las-...
- billywhizz 3y ago
  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-tickets-and-fans-cannot/ https://www.404media.co/why-scalpers-can-get-olivia-rodrigo-...
  - rcyeh 3y ago
    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.
chefandy 3y ago
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-concert-tickets-directly-on-resale-market-report https://pitchfork.com/news/live-nation-admits-placing-concer...

Kailhus 3y ago

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.