14 ms·

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 cho

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.

calgoo 2y ago
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.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  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_stadiums https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_stadium...
  - tomjakubowski 2y ago
    SoFi was entirely privately funded, as far as I know. Public funding for private stadiums is less popular than it used to be
  - TheGRS 2y ago
    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.
    - bombcar 2y ago
      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.
      - ysavir 2y ago
        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.
        TheGRS 2y ago
        Again though, there are plenty of events that already do this and have people for handling logistics. And indeed people with temporary jobs involved.
        xarope 2y ago
        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.
        amanaplanacanal 2y ago
        They used to do this. They started running at least some of their shows at existing large venues a while ago, sadly.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > stadiums are multibillion dollar affairs that take years and lots of public financing 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoFi_Stadium [2] https://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/51748_CH_17.pdf https://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/5174... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/business/concert-halls-live-entertainment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/business/concert-halls-li...
    - gosub100 2y ago
      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!
    - brandall10 2y ago
      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.
- BillSaysThis 2y ago
  a) She could not and b) that leaves the exclusive contracts TM already has in place as the barrier.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- paxys 2y ago
  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?
  - ascorbic 2y ago
    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.
    - arcticbull 2y ago
      Out of anyone, anywhere, Taylor Swift should be able to bring in a full stadium crowd even in the middle of absolutely nowhere.
- 015a 2y ago
  The artists are not generally the ones who select who to sell tickets through; its the venues.
- Reason077 2y ago
  > "Taylor swift is big enough that she could build a venue in each location if she wanted, so that not an issue." 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABBA_Voyage
- NickC25 2y ago
  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.
davidgh 2y ago
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.
- oldandboring 2y ago
  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.
  - MichaelZuo 2y ago
    Has the DOJ ever won an argument against just vertical integration in the entire history of the US?
    - anonymouse008 2y ago
      This is a most beautiful question. Perhaps the baby bells? That’s about all I can think of
      - MichaelZuo 2y ago
        The baby bells were split horizontally by region so I wouldn’t count that.
        jjtheblunt 2y ago
        That was splitting one level of the vertical integration, really.
    - chongli 2y ago
      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.
tensor 2y ago
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.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> artists have trouble securing large venues 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.)
- oldandboring 2y ago
  > Then perform smaller venues and ration tickets to your most-devoted fans. Unfortunately, if you do that, it's tough to become a billionaire. 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.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > 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 There are plenty of 5 to 20k-seat venues that would be fine.
    - smrq 2y ago
      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.
TheGRS 2y ago
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.
- MichaelZuo 2y ago
  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.
KoftaBob 2y ago
> they demand exclusivity in their contracts Right off the bat, exclusivity clauses shouldn't be legal, it's the definition of anti-competitive.
- IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
  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.
  - kelnos 2y ago
    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.
    - IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
      >>> but it's ok to strip it away if someone is subject to anti-trust action? 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. >>> unenforceable/illegal contract provisions are pretty common. 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. >>> What is fundamentally different between banning non-compete agreements, and banning exclusivity clauses? 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-13th-amendment-non-compete-clauses-ftc/ https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2023/02/rebecca-zietlow-13...
mcmcmc 2y ago
You know LiveNation owns TicketMaster right?

calgoo 2y ago

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.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bobthepanda 2y ago
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_stadiums https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_stadium...
- tomjakubowski 2y ago
  SoFi was entirely privately funded, as far as I know. Public funding for private stadiums is less popular than it used to be
- TheGRS 2y ago
  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.
  - bombcar 2y ago
    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.
    - ysavir 2y ago
      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.
      - TheGRS 2y ago
        Again though, there are plenty of events that already do this and have people for handling logistics. And indeed people with temporary jobs involved.
      - xarope 2y ago
        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.
        amanaplanacanal 2y ago
        They used to do this. They started running at least some of their shows at existing large venues a while ago, sadly.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > stadiums are multibillion dollar affairs that take years and lots of public financing 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoFi_Stadium [2] https://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/51748_CH_17.pdf https://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/5174... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/business/concert-halls-live-entertainment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/business/concert-halls-li...
  - gosub100 2y ago
    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!
  - brandall10 2y ago
    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.
BillSaysThis 2y ago
a) She could not and b) that leaves the exclusive contracts TM already has in place as the barrier.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
paxys 2y ago
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?
- ascorbic 2y ago
  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.
  - arcticbull 2y ago
    Out of anyone, anywhere, Taylor Swift should be able to bring in a full stadium crowd even in the middle of absolutely nowhere.
015a 2y ago
The artists are not generally the ones who select who to sell tickets through; its the venues.
Reason077 2y ago
> "Taylor swift is big enough that she could build a venue in each location if she wanted, so that not an issue." 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABBA_Voyage
NickC25 2y ago
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.

davidgh 2y ago

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.

oldandboring 2y ago
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.
- MichaelZuo 2y ago
  Has the DOJ ever won an argument against just vertical integration in the entire history of the US?
  - anonymouse008 2y ago
    This is a most beautiful question. Perhaps the baby bells? That’s about all I can think of
    - MichaelZuo 2y ago
      The baby bells were split horizontally by region so I wouldn’t count that.
      - jjtheblunt 2y ago
        That was splitting one level of the vertical integration, really.
  - chongli 2y ago
    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.

tensor 2y ago

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.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> artists have trouble securing large venues 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.)

oldandboring 2y ago
> Then perform smaller venues and ration tickets to your most-devoted fans. Unfortunately, if you do that, it's tough to become a billionaire. 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.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > 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 There are plenty of 5 to 20k-seat venues that would be fine.
  - smrq 2y ago
    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.

TheGRS 2y ago

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.

MichaelZuo 2y ago
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.

KoftaBob 2y ago

> they demand exclusivity in their contracts Right off the bat, exclusivity clauses shouldn't be legal, it's the definition of anti-competitive.

IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
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.
- kelnos 2y ago
  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.
  - IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
    >>> but it's ok to strip it away if someone is subject to anti-trust action? 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. >>> unenforceable/illegal contract provisions are pretty common. 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. >>> What is fundamentally different between banning non-compete agreements, and banning exclusivity clauses? 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-13th-amendment-non-compete-clauses-ftc/ https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2023/02/rebecca-zietlow-13...

mcmcmc 2y ago

You know LiveNation owns TicketMaster right?