15 ms·
US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster
- toomuchtodo 2y agohttps://archive.today/eGuHC https://archive.today/eGuHC
- xenospn 2y agoFinally. As someone who is active in the local music scene, I’ve spent thousands on junk fees over the years. Not sure why it has taken this long.
- vundercind 2y agoBecause we all but entirely stopped enforcing anti-trust in the 80s :-(
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago> Because we all but entirely stopped enforcing anti-trust in the 80s My kids have never known a time without the DoJ rubber-stamping every monopoly-building merger it could.
- vundercind 2y agoYeah, it’s not just failing to break up monopolies, it’s allowing mergers to go through that would’ve been laughably doomed to fail to pass regulatory muster in earlier decades.
- ethbr1 2y agoWell, there was arguably a point to be had in the 90s for relaxing standards. The web was new. It was allowing over the top and disruption of a lot of legacy businesses. It wasn't clear what constituted a market in those times. However, by 2009, standards should have been reimposed. That largely didn't happen. Regulators simply got used to letting things go through, and so they kept doing that.
- vundercind 2y agoIf that was the reason, they should have restricted it to tech companies. Instead, things like traditional media and food became harmfully consolidated over the same time.
- ethbr1 2y agoThe thinking was, and IMHO there's some merit to this, "giant new tech companies are going to be created by this thing called the web, so maybe legacy companies need to divest / merge to meet the competition." And I'd argue a lot of non-defense government philosophy was also following DoD's "the Cold War is over, budgets will shrink, so defense companies need to merge to survive."
- thfuran 2y agoStock buybacks didn't used to be allowed either, but trillions of dollars have been pulled out of companies to pump stocks in the last several years.
- dylan604 2y agoI can offer this napkin to wipe off the trickle down if you need it
- theogravity 2y agoWould the Adobe + Figma merge failure count?
- eric-hu 2y ago> Sources familiar with the matter said that while the two companies had been in constant touch with antitrust agencies in the UK, EU, and United States to work out a path to close the deal, the UK regulators have in recent weeks indicated that it would require remedies for Adobe to divest Figma design, a core asset of the acquisition. https://www.reuters.com/technology/adobe-figma-terminate-20-bln-deal-2023-12-18/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/adobe-figma-terminate-20-... > On December 18, 2023, Figma and Adobe both announced they were mutually agreeing to abandon their merger,[17][18] with Adobe citing that there was "no clear path to receive necessary regulatory approvals from the European Commission and the UK Competition and Markets Authority." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figma#Attempted_acquisition_by_Adobe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figma#Attempted_acquisition_by... Only if you count UK/EU regulators.
- fngjdflmdflg 2y agohere's one landmark case in 1992. There have been more since. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak_Co._v._Image_Technical_Services,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak_Co._v._Image_Tec....
- bell-cot 2y agoif( $Voters_Apathetic && ( $Political_Donations_From_Monopolists > $Political_Donations_From_Antimonopolists ) ) then { ...
- xenospn 2y agoHonestly, I don’t think they had to do a lot of political maneuvering. They were just allowed to grow unchecked, and no one was bothered. Until now.
- candiddevmike 2y agoLYV has grown enough, politicians are ready to short and harvest it.
- zeroonetwothree 2y agoIt’s true but that first condition does have a lot of weight behind it
- cbsmith 2y agoParticularly for the local music scene, where Live Nation usually isn't the promoter, the junk fees aren't coming from them. Gotta remember Ticketmaster's margins are actually pretty thin.
- aodin 2y agoIn Live Nation's latest 10-Q filing they listed the operating margin of their ticketing segment at 32%, with a non-GAAP AOI margin of 39%. [1] https://investors.livenationentertainment.com/sec-filings/all-sec-filings/content/0001335258-24-000071/0001335258-24-000071.pdf https://investors.livenationentertainment.com/sec-filings/al...
- cbsmith 2y agoWhich is on the low side for an entertainment software company. Also worth noting that most of their Ticketing growth is coming from international markets, where they aren't at all a monopoly, and yet the margins there are the same... and it is even more misleading than that, the denominator for that margin isn't including the bulk of the price people are paying for the ticket, which flows through to venues (where the margins are even lower). Per said same report, if you add Ticketing & Converts --and Ticketmaster sells tickets for a lot of other customers who aren't Live Nation, so if anything that is under-counting the total value of the tickets sold by Ticketmaster-- the combined margin is around 8%. So that's ~8% of the money you spend on a ticket that is going to Live Nation. In fairness though, I did misspeak. The margins on ticket resale are quite big (and that's a driver of much of the profit margin in that report). That's usually not what people are referring to when they say "junk fees". When people refer to "junk fees", they're normally talking about the fees associated with primary ticket sales, which have much lower margins (closer to 7-8%), because most of the money for those fees flows through to the other parties involved in the event. This has all been documented on several occasions. TM's blog actually recently put out a decent article walking people through it: https://blog.ticketmaster.com/the-truth-about-ticket-prices/ https://blog.ticketmaster.com/the-truth-about-ticket-prices/. The primary ticket sales service game is largely about volume. You've got an absurd amount of money being exchanged, so taking a small bit of it can work out to significant revenue, but it doesn't dramatically change the price people end up paying for their tickets. To me, worse than the fees, is all the crap "promotions" that Ticketmaster tries to get you in on after you decide to buy your ticket from the venue... and it's a pretty good signal about the low margins on those sales. It's super annoying, but it makes sense for them to do it because any lost sales at the end of the funnel there are comparatively a small price to pay for the money they're getting from the promotions (which generate about half as much revenue for Live Nation as ticketing, but at less than a third of the cost). No question that people are getting a raw deal when they buy tickets on Ticketmaster, but the perception of the problem is really different from the reality. [For transparency: I spent 7 years in the live events industry. I now have nothing to do with it.]
- knappe 2y agoI am so hopeful that this happens. I was comparing the fees to see a band in the US or EU recently based on their tour dates and it was insane what US ticket prices came out to be. It was ~$54 for a ticket in the US because of all the junk fees and just 8 euros for other places in the EU.
- hedora 2y agoRecently, I bought tickets through their web page, and the seat hold timed out prematurely, making me reselect seats. The tickets had been on sale for weeks, but in that 60 second window, scalpers just happened to buy the exact block I wanted out of 100’s of available seats. Of course, ticket master owns some of the scalper companies. Despite the blatant false advertising / auction fixing, I have no way to prove the above happened. Anyway, a breakup of that company can’t come soon enough.
- jzent 2y ago"Ticketmaster and Stubhub Caught Colluding With Scalpers" https://kslnewsradio.com/1891544/opinion-ticketmaster-isnt-company-colluding-scalpers-stubhub/ https://kslnewsradio.com/1891544/opinion-ticketmaster-isnt-c... "Ticketmaster Has Secretly Been Cheating You With Its Own Scalpers" https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/ticketmaster-cheating-scalpers-726353/ https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/ticketmaster-cheating-...
- subpixel 2y agoI’ve posted this before but I was fooled by a StubHub setup that looked like it was the venue itself - and not accidentally. So when I bought a ticket I was shocked to get an email from StubHub. When I double checked and found the venue I had overpaid by 100% and StubHub refused to refund me.
- excalibur 2y agoI can't speak to your particular case, but my ticketmaster transactions often fail to complete for various reasons. After one falls through, if I wish to purchase the same seats again, they're often unavailable. This isn't because some scalper swooped in and bought them, the person who has dibs on them is me, in my previous defunct transaction. I usually find that if I wait ~ 15 minutes the hold will be released, and the tickets will be available for me to try again.
- dylan604 2y agoWhat's the typical turn time for a case like this from the time it is filed to the time it is actually in front of a judge/jury? This particular administration only has a guaranteed relevance of about 7 months. It could get extended, or it could get replaced and then cases like this would most likely get dropped. So, why bring it now?
- cbsmith 2y agoI'm theory, prosecutions are a civil service function, not a political function. Changes in administration might change the leadership and what areas are prioritized, but once you have a case, it really shouldn't matter who is in office. In theory.
- nickff 2y agoWhat theory is this from, some sort of administrative state theory? This has never been the case in any executive branch that I'm aware of.
- dylan604 2y agoExactly this. The first few days in office, a new POTUS will typically use executive orders specifically to reverse policies the previous administration put in place.
- cbsmith 2y agoYes, the administration can change policies, but dropping cases is another matter. Certainly policy changes can have an effect on cases, but it's not like cases get dropped at some dramatic rate when a new administration comes in.
- zeroonetwothree 2y agoEO cannot be used to drop pending litigation. It would require a different mechanism
- keane 2y agoSeems like high public interest – the (snarky) Adam Conover half-hour lay-person overview of the Live Nation-Ticketmaster background has 1.6 million views and over 8,000 comments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayrVYwoe-DY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayrVYwoe-DY
- julianeon 2y agoIf Live Nation-Ticketmaster is not a monopoly then there is no such thing as a monopoly.
- paulddraper 2y agoBut monopolies are not illegal. Violating antitrust law is illegal. --- You don't violate federal law just by being the only company to sell canine banana hammocks.
- fngjdflmdflg 2y agoI agree that is what is the law is and even that that is what the law should be. It is also important to note however that the actual title of the Sherman Antitrust Act is "An Act to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies." So it isn't fair to say that anti-competitive practices and monopolies are completely orthogonal (although strictly speaking they are) because monopolies are a perfect tool with which to engage in anti-competitive practices. In my opinion I don't think protecting entertainment from anti-competitive practices even matters that much anyway though. Your ability to watch your favorite singer live is really not the same as something like oil or trains which are actually important to the economy.
- paulddraper 2y agoYour quote itself presents the question of lawful monopoly vs unlawful monopoly.
- fngjdflmdflg 2y agoI don't think I implied otherwise.
- EasyMark 2y agoAre you arguing that they aren't hurting consumers? Just look at ticket prices over the years as more and more competition was eliminated, as well as the tactics they use to control artists. You aren't going to have much luck I suspect.
- plussed_reader 2y agoWhat are the distortions of the market they hope to correct by performing a 'Ma Bell of Live Entertainment' to coalesce into a new 'At&t' a few decades down the line?
- op00to 2y agoA few decades of things being slightly less shitty?
- bnjms 2y agoAgreements forcing artists to only use LN locations and TM ticketing in markets where possible. Ticketing is relatively easy since the early days so competition should help. We also need better laws defining what can and cannot be a fee. Fees should only be for things which are truly optional and declinable.
- fragmede 2y agoThe AT&T breakup was a lie. Dividing the country into regions so as to not compete is what collusion looks like. Hopefully they don't do that this time.
- bnjms 2y agoNo doubt but land ownership doesn’t have the same network effects as telecom. Assuming there is a clean cut between ticketing and venues it would also be helpful to see breakups of LN property between regions.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- sitkack 2y agoI would like to fund the justice department’s GoFundMe
- supportengineer 2y agoHere is their site - treasurydirect.gov
- ceejayoz 2y agoTreasury Direct is for stuff like savings bonds. If you want to donate, it's https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/public/gifts-to-government.html https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/public/gifts-to-government.h..., but they're not directed donations.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoToo bad you can't write conditionals in the memo area: Not for war, over-criminalization, or tax breaks for megacorps, REITs, or billionaires.
- freedomben 2y agoHeh, a statement probably most people agree with, but which would render a large amount of "business as usual" unfunded :-D
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoWell, if you think about it, mass withholding of paying individual income taxes until specific political reforms are made could be an interesting way to cut the MIC, campaign corruption (finance reform), and address the lack of universal single-payer health-care (not Medicare but not quite UK NHS). We're funding horrible shit but voting for the red flavor or the blue flavor of the property party doesn't make a damn bit of difference.
- janalsncm 2y ago
- IamLoading 2y agoJeez, How did Govt take this long to break up Live Nation. How?
- akira2501 2y agoThe Administration is bound by the Due Care clause, but that's a huge window, so you can just intentionally create a dysfunctional and incompetent group of people and give them the responsibility for enforcing this nations laws. This Administration, although it would hate to actually admit it out loud, actually put someone competent in charge of the agency with this enforcement responsibility and then.. to everyone's absolute surprise.. let them do their job effectively.
- roughly 2y agoIt’s been noted by a few folks that anything the administration says out loud immediately becomes gristle for the Fox News-o-verse and therefore something for Congress to yell loudly at and try to block. The Biden administration has consequently become very good at being very quiet about the things it’s doing well, with the distinct drawback in an election year that everyone seems to be quite surprised when they discover the administration has been rather good, actually.
- laidoffamazon 2y agoThe Biden administration is a textbook example of how to not control any narratives whatsoever and never be able to get any credit. They lost the narrative after Kabul and then just never got it back, despite being one of the most legislatively successful and executively impactful administrations in the last 50 years. Case in point - recent poll that had 50% of voters that listed "climate" as their top priority didn't think this administration has done anything on climate change.
- roughly 2y agoYes. It's _incredibly_ frustrating. I was not a Biden supporter, but he's gotten some absolutely incredible things accomplished - the IRA alone is so far outside what I thought would've been possible. The word from the actual people actually doing climate work is that, as far as they're concerned, the IRA solves the financing problem and the rest is implementation now, but the average voter apparently has no idea what's been done in that space. Antitrust is another area where the administration is reshaping how the economy works - they're getting a bit more credit here, but it's still widely underappreciated. I think there was strategic value in keeping things close to the vest, and I'm not sure how much is in their hands and how much is how the media's reporting on all of this, but you're right, their inability to do messaging is going to lead the most economically progressive administration in half a century to be a one-term affair because their own voters haven't updated their priors.
- jgalt212 2y agoDid DOJ make a shout-out to Pearl Jam? https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pearl-jam-taking-on-ticketmaster-67440/ https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pearl-jam-taki... (1995)
- gotoeleven 2y agoDOJ agrees to settle suit in exchange for Live Nation no longer referring to Merrick Garland as 'daughter'.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agohttps://donotcall.gov https://donotcall.gov does inadvertently.
- bdw5204 2y agoThere are plenty of web sites where you can (legally) scalp tickets. I don't see how you can argue that Ticketmaster is a monopoly when you can also buy tickets on StubHub, SeatGeek, Vivid Seats and several other sites I don't remember off the top of my head. All of them use the same shady pricing practices as far as I know. If Ticketmaster is the original seller, you do have to go through them to transfer the digital ticket but many venues still have physical ticket options.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> don't see how you can argue that Ticketmaster is a monopoly The monopoly is on the supply side. "Obama’s Justice Department reviewed the [Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger] and allowed it to move forward as part of a settlement in which the company promised it wouldn’t retaliate against concert venues that opted against using Ticketmaster." Most (all?) large venues in the country are exclusively contracted to use Live Nation, which means performers are locked into using Live Nation, which means fans are obligated to pay its fees, directly or indirectly.
- wizardforhire 2y agoAs someone who predominately works in music and has for two and half decades… Please and hurry up and do it too totality! I’ve watched the rise, domination and effects first hand as to what live nation has done. Hell, I’ve lived it! It’s an utter disaster hell scape. Only lessoned because its “entertainment.” Regardless if it was a more strategically important industry it would have already been broken up standard oil style. Once upon a time payolla was a crime. Live nation is worse than payolla ever was and I don’t say that lightly. At least with payolla it was a simple quid pro quo pay to play. Live nation has the radio stations, it has the venues, it has the ticketing, it has the booking agents, it has the labels, it has the artists, and it has the vast majority of the personal. When theyre in a city they region lock it , which is to say if you’re not live nation you’re priced out or just playing black listed. Think the opposite of net-neutrality only physical and literally every facet of the industry up and down. The ticket prices may be what triggered the doj because it effects the public, behind the scenes its even worse.
- xyst 2y agoHow long until JD green lights the re-re-merger between Live Nation and Ticketmaster?
- EasyMark 2y agoThe FTC and DoJ have been hitting it out of the park recently, unfortunately, there are a lot of judges out there that think corps should be able to do anything they want.
- klyrs 2y agoIt's an election year, don't hold your breath.
- laidoffamazon 2y agoElection year is 25% of a single administration's term, why should events be ignored 25% of the time?
- mapt 2y agoIt's also not like they're not campaigning for the other 3 years of the term.
- Loughla 2y agoYes, but the public memory is increasingly short.
- dclowd9901 2y agoHell, anymore it’s more like 50%.
- lesuorac 2y agowell at least 50%. I guess everybody forgot there are mid term elections which affect what the administration can do with help of congress.
- klyrs 2y agoIn this case, because I don't expect Biden to win another term and I expect the prosecution of this case to take longer than a year. The last several administrations have opened their term by tearing down everything that the prior administration had done. To be specific: I'm not confident the prosecutor behind this will have a job at the end of the year.
- seatac76 2y agoFinally. This will be great for indie artists and venues. Hopefully all the local older venues we have here in the US can have a cheaper option to help them flourish.
- poikroequ 2y agoI hope they can break the stranglehold they have on the venues as well, open up the market to other ticket sellers, kill the exclusivity deals between Ticketmaster and the venues.
- throwawaylikeme 2y agoJay Zzzzzzzz
- ryandrake 2y agoThis is great news but: Please also stop giving Ticketmaster your money. Every dollar you voluntarily give them (for a totally optional product, I might add) encourages them to continue their horrible practices. "Ticketmaster is such a terrible company!" he says as he buys more concert tickets from them.
- portpecos 2y agoWhat's the alternative? There's no competition.
- throwaway5959 2y agoNot going to live music, at least in the US.
- ajdude 2y agoThat's just not feasible for people who don't have the means to simply fly to Europe to see a band. Sometimes it's a once in a lifetime chance that your favorite band happens to be in your city
- throwaway5959 2y agoI didn’t say you should do it or that it’s ideal, it’s just the reality of the circumstance.
- bigstrat2003 2y agoOf course it's feasible. Nobody is saying "go to Europe", they are saying to not go to concerts. To effect change, you have to make sacrifices.
- ryandrake 2y agoExactly. This is not a food company. We're talking about a product (live event tickets) that is totally optional and which nobody has to buy. This should be the simplest "vote with your wallet" scenario ever. If everyone collectively stopped buying the tickets, they'd either be out of business or be forced to change their practices. People like their bands more than they dislike Ticketmaster, so TM is not going to voluntarily change.
- atlgator 2y agoI don’t have a dog in this fight but I’m curious why Live Nation-Ticketmaster and not Meta, Google, or Amazon?
- datadrivenangel 2y agoWe boil the ocean one pot at a time.
- the_gastropod 2y agoMeta, Google, and Amazon have all been sued for illegally maintaining monopolies. [1] [2] [3] [1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2020/12/ftc-sues-facebook-illegal-monopolization https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2020/12/... [2] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-google-monopolizing-digital-advertising-technologies https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-googl... [3] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/09/ftc-sues-amazon-illegally-maintaining-monopoly-power https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/09/...
- foobarian 2y agoI can't wait for the Taylor Swift Arena where TS Inc. hires the staff, the security, the concessions, and with a TS Radio station broadcasting nearby. Not being sarcastic! :-)
- caf 2y agoYou forgot the on-site accommodation!
- mjevans 2y agoIt would be nice to have competition among sellers within a given venue. Even give the venue the option to sell single seats (rather than large blocks at some bulk rate). For security reasons the ticket format should probably be the venue's choice, the bulk/block rate would probably include a specific time window for the bulk buyer to have their bonded agent print off the tickets on the venue's hardware.
- dathery 2y agoI'm very interested to see what that kind of competition would do to ticket prices. I've often seen Ticketmaster painted as the "designated fall-guy" for consumers to hate instead of the venues and acts which are (according to this argument) the source of a lot of the junk fees. This is also the position that Ticketmaster claims as a defense [1], so it's hard to know what to believe in the absence of competition. [1] https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/ticketmaster-taylor-swift-senate-hearing https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/ticketmaster-taylor-s...
- lenerdenator 2y ago"Listen, if this doesn't make you happy, nothing will." - the DoJ under Biden over the last few months.
- Ylpertnodi 2y agoI replaced Biden's name with any other politician - still works.
- DoodahMan 2y agoPLEASE make this happen Uncle Sam! i am a lover of music, my friends are lovers of music, the circles i run in on the internet are lovers of music. i cannot express in words how much Live Nation sucks. they are ruining concerts. not only do they have a strangle-hold on venues, but why the hell are they "allowed" to run some in-house scalping ops? i cannot wait for the day i see their demise. i will not pour out a beer for them! sorry for the rant HN. Pearl Jam was right decades ago man.
- boringg 2y ago[flagged]
- hnburnsy 2y ago> but why the hell are they "allowed" to run some in-house scalping ops? Because the promoters, talent, and talent management are all in on it, TM just agrees to take the heat for its cut. That is not to say that separating TM from the venues will not help concert goers, but maybe not as much as you might think.
- us0r 2y agoThis. I was a fly on the wall for a conversation with someone who runs a 12k seat venue. They guaranteed Harry Styles $5 million for 2 nights and made it work because.... "secondary". Even the venues are in on the scalping.
- peterlk 2y agoNote that this follows on the heels of the recent (near?) death of California Senate Bill 829 [0] - which is taking aim at the vertical integration of live performance by Live Nation. If you’re in CA, call your representatives! With this in mind, to continue your rant… The anticompetitive behavior of Live Nation is toxic to the music and performing arts industries. It’s the Walmart effect, except consumers end up paying way more because exclusivity contracts prevent competition. Artists sign exclusivity contracts with Live Nation, and onlt play Live Nation Venues. Venues purchased by live nation outbid independent venues until those venues sign exclusivity agreements with Live Nation or die, and then Live Nation pushes up the price. [0] https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB829/id/2796147 https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB829/id/2796147
- dcist 2y agoDo T-Mobile and Sprint next. T-Mobile just announced it's jacking rates up. It's a direct result of the merger.
- strangus 2y agoGood.
- throwaway5959 2y agoIf they don’t my wife and I are just going to stop going to shows that use TicketMaster/Live Nation. Any more a third of the ticket price is fees. Not worth it.
- zeroonetwothree 2y agoWhy haven’t you stopped already then?
- geodel 2y agoA step like this can change the course of history. So it need to be taken with lot of due diligence.
- throwaway5959 2y agoNo need to make snide remarks just because someone is expressing their opinion and consumer choices, that’s the point of message boards.
- throwaway5959 2y agoOver the course of the pandemic we didn’t go to a lot of shows (really any) and we had to deal with some job losses. Now that we have the money we’re re-evaluating.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoWhy aren't concert tickets sold similar to hotel rooms or airline seats? You can buy an airline seat or hotel room through dozens of online marketplaces because they cooperate via a common and fair system.
- ClassyJacket 2y agoThey should make it illegal for large venues to have exclusivity requirements for these companies. Big stadiums and venues usually had some public assistance, either directly or the public paying for e.g. a train station at the venue - there should be requirements as conditions to that
- JojoFatsani 2y agoThank fucking god
- glimshe 2y agoI'm against most of these government "breakup" actions but there is an exception for every rule. I believe we can all agree that it's okay to disintegrate a company that simultaneously occupies every circle of hell.
- supernova87a 2y agoLet's however not get too caught up in feel-goodism that somehow breaking up Ticketmaster is ridding the live entertainment industry of some external leech that everyone hated. You should realize that venues and artists are equally beneficiaries of what Ticketmaster enables. In a sense they enjoy having Ticketmaster be the hated scapegoat for high prices that they then also enjoy the benefits of. Without Ticketmaster who knows how much less tickets would sell for. And venues get paid a cut by Ticketmaster. Artists get paid a cut by Ticketmaster. Sometimes those parties are glad for that value extraction from the concertgoer to be done on their behalf, and to be blamed on an entity that diverts attention from the fact that they want more $ too. Ticketmaster did not just emerge to prey on an unwilling helpless industry. They occupy a niche that is part of a semi willing ecosystem.
- jjeaff 2y agothe huge upcharge on tickets is usually from scalpers that are allowed to buy and resell on the platform. are artists and venues somehow in on the scalping? I have suspected as much, but I have no evidence.
- mixmastamyk 2y agoYes, good seats are now put to auction to capture scalper profit beforehand.
- bbarn 2y agoA large part of this is there are several companies that are effectively the modernized scalpers using very high dollar pay-per click advertising, and incredibly complex optimization methods to charge the maximum markup they can. Most of them use each other as well, in cooperation via affiliate kickbacks more than competition. Then, add in ticket brokers, with pre-reserved sets and blocks of tickets, feeding into that, and everyone is getting a cut. Not a small cut either. I do have evidence, as I worked for two of the companies for a while.
- acjohnson55 2y agoA lot of artists are not happy about this. Selling seats to the highest bidder to maximize revenue of a given show is not necessarily in the long-term interests of an artist.
- dang 2y agoRecent and related: Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40047094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40047094 - April 2024 (378 comments)
- alsetmusic 2y agoTwice this year, I've paid the highest prices I've ever paid for tickets to shows. First, I paid something like $300 each for tickets to see the band Air. Sure, they're popular (among people who like their genre, at least) and from France and rarely tour. I could justify it cause I've only seen them once and might not get another chance, but holy smokes. Then I bought tickets to see comedian David Cross. Who is American. Playing in America. To get in the tenth row cost over $1000 for four tickets. I know that Ticketmaster's role is to play the bad guys and most artists are in on the scam because they get some of the "fees" without the blame. But this is ridiculous. I found some old tickets that I saved as mementos and some were as low as $20. I saw someone posted pics from a show in the 80s that was $5. This is just absurd. Take them down. As one of my favorite bands would say (Floyd) "cut them into little pieces."
- Symbiote 2y agoFor comparison, Air's next concert with tickets available is in Zurich, for CHF 96.50. About $105. There's a concert in Monaco for about the same price. Neither is using Ticket master.
- mixmastamyk 2y agoAlso would like to see Ticketmaster broken up itself, not just the LN part.
- albertgt 2y agohttps://youtu.be/lR8Uook5Cq0?feature=shared https://youtu.be/lR8Uook5Cq0?feature=shared
- sschueller 2y agoWhat punishment will the executives receive? This will not prevent any future execs from aggressively building another such monopoly, causing years of financial and other harm. They still walk away with their bags of cash. Their names won't even be tarnished so they can go right back to doing the same thing.
- freitzkriesler2 2y agoWants to break up of ticket master/live Nation. Won't break up Google, telecoms, banks ,agriciltural behemoths, and a myriad of other monster corporates that control prices. Color me not surprised.
- fuzzfactor 2y agoThey worked hard to earn this distinction, their poineering efforts have now been well recognized by none other than the US government, in a way that few others have. They really pushed it head & shoulders above the rest, regardless of how much alternative orgs have aspired to this type of pursuit. It couldn't happen to a more deserving bastion of the music industry ! One can only hope they promptly receive their just rewards for everything they have done, and then some, as a shining example to others who might aspire to such a level of accomplishment.
- cjk 2y agoFinally. This merger ought to have been blocked from the get-go, but better late than never. Concert ticket prices and fees are completely out of control.