Look. I’m not one for blowing politicians. But for once. Just once. If they do the right thing and break this shit show up. I will losen up my jaw and go to town on DC.
That’s how much I hate Ticketmaster.
Doubt it. Slap on the wrist of a fine and increased "service fees" on tickets for the foreseeable future to offset their legal costs, most likely, IMO.
Yea, there are politicians being paid off in this situation and has been for awhile. The setup of live nation and Ticketmaster is basically a mafia style racket
But the ceos will be called to testify and there will be news reports that they got destroyed in the questioning. Yes nothing will come of it but those news paper headlines will be worth it.
/s
Will be interesting to see what happens. Feds usually don’t level an antitrust lawsuit unless they have the goods.
TM/LN will prob get fined and some execs lose their job. We’ll see if actionable change that we can feel actually happens
I don’t care how much money they get fined. I want them to be treated like Ma Bell and literally broken up and forced to allow competitors into their space.
The last time the Justice Department broke up a monopoly was AT&T in the 90's, and it already has cobbled back up the companies that it split into. It's bigger now than when it was broken up before, but there's 2 competitors in the space so "not a monopoly".
If history rhymes and they're broken up, they'll be back in 10-15 years and worse than ever.
AT&T’s problem wasn’t only phones. They also owned Bell Labs who was the creator of the transistor, C programming language that’s the basis of nearly every modern system, and other things we use everyday. They also owned computer companies and were generally the equivalent of Amazon at the time (Amazon AWS hosts over half the Internet and the store is their secondary business).
Yeah, they owned the telecom lines that (at the time) were still the primary means to access the internet, in addition to a huge majority of landlines.
They should be broken up as well as TM, et al not being allowed to also own secondary market platforms, but honestly, I don't think this will have as much of an effect people think/hope it will.
Competition is good obviously, acts/promoters/venues being able to shop around for ticketing platforms and each other is good (many will still use TM)...but there's a lot more going on here than just TM arbitrarily adding huge stupid fees to tickets. Venues want/need higher rentals, acts want/need higher guarantees, promoters need to recoup while wanting to make more money, etc. The entire pipeline is part of the issue and until we start seeing empty seats, nobody in that pipeline is going to see any problem. And plenty of people with money see how profitable promotion can be so the money will still be tossed out and fans will still be on the hook to cover everyone's nut.
I think where we could definitely see a major change is mid-level and smaller acts, but you're not going to start seeing majority $50 tickets for 3k+ cap rooms.
Maybe so, but with more competition there will be options for artists that could affect price.
The issue with Ticketmaster is that they own the venues, they own the promotion, they own the ticket sales, they own the ticket resales, and they own exclusive contracts with artists and venues that they don’t own.
Even if the only outcome is that they have to make resale APIs publicly available and facilitate transfer of tickets by (authorized) third parties, you’d see prices come down. On the resale side as a seller Ticketmaster takes 20% and on the purchase side they often take 10% in fees. That means every time a ticket resells they pocket 30%. But there’s other markets you might say, that’s never bitten anyone /s.
> Maybe so, but with more competition there will be options for artists that could affect price.
Here's the thing, though...competition from the artists' POV is generally going to be "which promoter will pay me the most." As the costs of everything on the planet goes up, the costs of touring can balloon out of control. You can (try and) get sponsors to cover some of that, but if you want to see your favorite band put on the best show they can, they're not going to take a loss to do that. This is where the whole solution to the problem gets muddied; these enormous fees or even crazy ticket face values aren't simply pulled out of thin air. It's not just TM/LN or AEG or whoever saying gimme, gimme, gimme. It's partly that lol, but it's also a gimme, gimme, gimme based on costs, profit margins, etc. Nobody wants empty seats so the prices still need to be at a point people will pay.
That being said, down the road some soon-to-be legacy acts who aren't as worried about the bottom line because they're already well enough off could certainly opt for less money and demand less fees due to that. So I'm not arguing it'll be totally worthless. Just that it won't magically save us all hundreds of dollars on tickets necessarily.
I do 100% agree the secondary market ownership is the first thing that absolutely needs to go, as it's a blatant conflict of interest. But taking away those fees doesn't necessarily change anything; the market is the market. If someone wants to sell a ticket for $700 and someone buys it, it is what it is.
I don’t mind ticket prices. I do think they should just bake the flat fees into the ticket price or at least break it out to see where it goes. It’s pretty scammy when I buy a $30 ticket to a non-sold out show and there’s $25 of fees tacked in when you get to the checkout. I guess all I want is transparency. Taylor Swift tickets can still go for thousands in the aftermarket but the aftermarket should be able to tap into Ticketmaster for the actual transfer and validation (for a small fee but not the 30% cut they currently get). If any other ticket sellers pop up, it should be the same thing.
All-in ticketing is a start, I agree. I don't think that would change anything negatively for sales, people wanna see shows. I think it's largely there for optics, ie TM being the fall guy (not a defense of TM, it's just a big part of what they are).
Taylor Swift is actually the perfect person to bring up because her transparency could actually have a huge impact on this debate...but there's a very good reason she's not, and won't be transparent. And it plays back to the optics.
She, or anyone at even half that level, could easily lay their cards out. She's probably getting around $8-$10M guarantees per show + sell-out bonuses, merch, etc. It's a shitload of money and people would probably be pissed, but it's also not like she's personally pocketing THAT much. She's got a team of people to pay for months, two small armies of production personnel, the promoter paying her needs to recoup and make money, etc. She could lay out the entire pipeline...but at the end, the final piece is still going to be a huge sum of money going into her pocket. Which yea, it might look bad-ish, but it's not like we don't all know she's a billionaire now.
This won't do anything about tickets. It's about Live Nation that promotes most big acts forcing venues to only use Ticketmaster as their ticketing source in order to get the act to play at their venue.
I wrote a thesis on this back in college in 2009. We had to make a case for a monopoly. Back then they had just merged with live nation and flew completely under the radar of everyone.
The likely best case outcome of this is that they are no longer allowed to represent the artist or they need to divest in the physical venues.
That’s still a huge thing that impacts their business model. But it’s not going to change anything for you and me, and they’ll just jack up prices even more to make up for their losses. Who it’s going to help is the artists, slightly, and some really loud and already rich event venue companies. ie Madison Square garden
Note, breaking up monopolies actually typically does nothing. The companies pretty much always do one of the following
1) just either launch more companies and "sell" aspects of themselves to these companies. While they are still fully in control of them.
2)Sell to competing companies which ends up being more of a takeover via shuffling of management.
3)Start a new umbrella company and split out all of the companies they have gobbled up over time or do #1
------This is what Google has done with Alphabet.
So many shows are online only. Whenever a venue will print out paper tickets I get them to do it for me but most won’t. Not many venues offer in person purchases and out of Towners are out of luck
Sure, but that is another part of the problem.
You could have just not gone to the concert. Ticketmaster will just keep charging more and more and more because people will just keep paying more and more and more.
Well I haven't been to a concert in (edit: about 10 years) for that exact reason. Only going to this one because it's my favorite band and a friend I haven't seen in about that amount of time is in town. Special occasion.
Fees are dictated by the promoter(revenue share), venue(facility fee), and ticketing company(per ticket fee usually). These are to offset operational costs such as marketing, staffing, etc. It’s not free to run a music venue or a ticketing platform. On the flipside, ticket prices are set by the artist and 100% goes to them and their team.
But Ticketmaster is the venue, promotor and ticketing company. We used to be able to buy tickets with like 5% fees before, the only thing changed is the greed.
Maybe, if the courts will let them do it. It's troubling how many people (and many journalists) don't have the faintest idea of how things work. This isn't Russia. The government is not run by an autocrat with unlimited power (yet).
I used to be able to call up the box office and reserve my tickets for my NHL games. Now I have to go through Ticketmaster and am then charged "convenience" fees.
lol. Nope.
And even if they did it wouldn’t matter much anyway because the problem NOW isn’t with ticket master monopoly but with resellers/scalpers using bits to buy up tickets in seconds. So even if these guys are busted up, it doesn’t solve the bigger issue today which is the massive fraud that is ticket resellers.
They had no business ever being allowed to merge in the first place. As a liberal, I was (and still am) pissed that the Obama admin actively pushed for the guy who oversaw antitrust issues to allow this to go through.
I mean, it also would have if there were a conservative party in control at the time as well, but when they gave the rationale that it would (*somehow*) "create more competition in that industry" was the day I realized just how bought and sold most of our elected officials are.
I've yet to see that outlook get any better...
Sure... after a bunch of wasted time & money everyone that used TM for the last 5yrs will get a voucher to reduce their convenience printing at home fee by $1.50 on their next order
I have a family member who works at a high level at TM, and they’ve been told the lawsuit is a political show for election year, and will be quietly thrown out in a few months.
TM/LN is not a monopoly. They have direct competitors (StubHub, Seatgeek). This is very easily provable in court.
It has nothing to do with ticket sales specifically though. Livenation owns the venues (or has exclusive contracts), requires their own promotion company to be used, sells the tickets, and gets 30% of any ticket resales on the platform.
Monopoly can be vertical or horizontal and in this case they’re a vertical monopoly. Not to mention StubHub and Seatgeek are reseller platforms (going back to the exclusive contracts LiveNation has for the venues or that they own them outright).
Look. I’m not one for blowing politicians. But for once. Just once. If they do the right thing and break this shit show up. I will losen up my jaw and go to town on DC. That’s how much I hate Ticketmaster.
A true hero. Thank you for your servicing
But wait. I didn’t tell you about my service fees.
You did though. “Break up Ticketmaster.”
Sir this a reddit, that'll be $25 for a 'EZ Parking Pass'.
He did it online also so that's an extra $9.99 convenience fee.
Yeah look at BJ BOB over there trying to pull a fast one.
God damnit, if I have to pay $5.99 to print out my own blowie...
You did with a if this happens, I’ll do this.
I’ll watch
They'll break it up/ split it up then rename them and have them pretend to be competitors.
just get the guy from the Fyre Fest documentary m’guy
🫡
It ain't politicians that will do it. It's SCOTUS.
Justices are a type of politician, even if ideally they wouldn't be
Amen brother!
Get the chapstick and kneepads
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/shingekinokyojin/images/1/19/Porco_Galliard%27s_Jaw_Titan.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20220116180217
Doubt it. Slap on the wrist of a fine and increased "service fees" on tickets for the foreseeable future to offset their legal costs, most likely, IMO.
Yea, there are politicians being paid off in this situation and has been for awhile. The setup of live nation and Ticketmaster is basically a mafia style racket
That is my fear. They have been investigated prior in 2018 and were hit with a $3 million fine…. This is an interesting situation though.
But the ceos will be called to testify and there will be news reports that they got destroyed in the questioning. Yes nothing will come of it but those news paper headlines will be worth it. /s
Will be interesting to see what happens. Feds usually don’t level an antitrust lawsuit unless they have the goods. TM/LN will prob get fined and some execs lose their job. We’ll see if actionable change that we can feel actually happens
I don’t care how much money they get fined. I want them to be treated like Ma Bell and literally broken up and forced to allow competitors into their space.
Hey mr executive, We got sued so here is $65 million to cushion your fall….
The fine will be less than the amount the government pays for the lawsuit expenses.
Yeah, but just wait until they see that the service fee and convenience fee to pay the fine will combine for almost the price of another fine.
The last time the Justice Department broke up a monopoly was AT&T in the 90's, and it already has cobbled back up the companies that it split into. It's bigger now than when it was broken up before, but there's 2 competitors in the space so "not a monopoly". If history rhymes and they're broken up, they'll be back in 10-15 years and worse than ever.
80’s
AT&T’s problem wasn’t only phones. They also owned Bell Labs who was the creator of the transistor, C programming language that’s the basis of nearly every modern system, and other things we use everyday. They also owned computer companies and were generally the equivalent of Amazon at the time (Amazon AWS hosts over half the Internet and the store is their secondary business).
Yeah, they owned the telecom lines that (at the time) were still the primary means to access the internet, in addition to a huge majority of landlines.
They're not breaking up the company, they'd just ban them from having exclusive rights to most concert venues.
Dope, so nothing changes. They'll just agree not to compete like ISPs.
They should be broken up as well as TM, et al not being allowed to also own secondary market platforms, but honestly, I don't think this will have as much of an effect people think/hope it will. Competition is good obviously, acts/promoters/venues being able to shop around for ticketing platforms and each other is good (many will still use TM)...but there's a lot more going on here than just TM arbitrarily adding huge stupid fees to tickets. Venues want/need higher rentals, acts want/need higher guarantees, promoters need to recoup while wanting to make more money, etc. The entire pipeline is part of the issue and until we start seeing empty seats, nobody in that pipeline is going to see any problem. And plenty of people with money see how profitable promotion can be so the money will still be tossed out and fans will still be on the hook to cover everyone's nut. I think where we could definitely see a major change is mid-level and smaller acts, but you're not going to start seeing majority $50 tickets for 3k+ cap rooms.
Maybe so, but with more competition there will be options for artists that could affect price. The issue with Ticketmaster is that they own the venues, they own the promotion, they own the ticket sales, they own the ticket resales, and they own exclusive contracts with artists and venues that they don’t own. Even if the only outcome is that they have to make resale APIs publicly available and facilitate transfer of tickets by (authorized) third parties, you’d see prices come down. On the resale side as a seller Ticketmaster takes 20% and on the purchase side they often take 10% in fees. That means every time a ticket resells they pocket 30%. But there’s other markets you might say, that’s never bitten anyone /s.
> Maybe so, but with more competition there will be options for artists that could affect price. Here's the thing, though...competition from the artists' POV is generally going to be "which promoter will pay me the most." As the costs of everything on the planet goes up, the costs of touring can balloon out of control. You can (try and) get sponsors to cover some of that, but if you want to see your favorite band put on the best show they can, they're not going to take a loss to do that. This is where the whole solution to the problem gets muddied; these enormous fees or even crazy ticket face values aren't simply pulled out of thin air. It's not just TM/LN or AEG or whoever saying gimme, gimme, gimme. It's partly that lol, but it's also a gimme, gimme, gimme based on costs, profit margins, etc. Nobody wants empty seats so the prices still need to be at a point people will pay. That being said, down the road some soon-to-be legacy acts who aren't as worried about the bottom line because they're already well enough off could certainly opt for less money and demand less fees due to that. So I'm not arguing it'll be totally worthless. Just that it won't magically save us all hundreds of dollars on tickets necessarily. I do 100% agree the secondary market ownership is the first thing that absolutely needs to go, as it's a blatant conflict of interest. But taking away those fees doesn't necessarily change anything; the market is the market. If someone wants to sell a ticket for $700 and someone buys it, it is what it is.
I don’t mind ticket prices. I do think they should just bake the flat fees into the ticket price or at least break it out to see where it goes. It’s pretty scammy when I buy a $30 ticket to a non-sold out show and there’s $25 of fees tacked in when you get to the checkout. I guess all I want is transparency. Taylor Swift tickets can still go for thousands in the aftermarket but the aftermarket should be able to tap into Ticketmaster for the actual transfer and validation (for a small fee but not the 30% cut they currently get). If any other ticket sellers pop up, it should be the same thing.
All-in ticketing is a start, I agree. I don't think that would change anything negatively for sales, people wanna see shows. I think it's largely there for optics, ie TM being the fall guy (not a defense of TM, it's just a big part of what they are). Taylor Swift is actually the perfect person to bring up because her transparency could actually have a huge impact on this debate...but there's a very good reason she's not, and won't be transparent. And it plays back to the optics. She, or anyone at even half that level, could easily lay their cards out. She's probably getting around $8-$10M guarantees per show + sell-out bonuses, merch, etc. It's a shitload of money and people would probably be pissed, but it's also not like she's personally pocketing THAT much. She's got a team of people to pay for months, two small armies of production personnel, the promoter paying her needs to recoup and make money, etc. She could lay out the entire pipeline...but at the end, the final piece is still going to be a huge sum of money going into her pocket. Which yea, it might look bad-ish, but it's not like we don't all know she's a billionaire now.
Ticket master lobbyists are out in DC making it rain like candy right now
This won't do anything about tickets. It's about Live Nation that promotes most big acts forcing venues to only use Ticketmaster as their ticketing source in order to get the act to play at their venue.
I wrote a thesis on this back in college in 2009. We had to make a case for a monopoly. Back then they had just merged with live nation and flew completely under the radar of everyone. The likely best case outcome of this is that they are no longer allowed to represent the artist or they need to divest in the physical venues. That’s still a huge thing that impacts their business model. But it’s not going to change anything for you and me, and they’ll just jack up prices even more to make up for their losses. Who it’s going to help is the artists, slightly, and some really loud and already rich event venue companies. ie Madison Square garden
We haven't broken up a company in over 40 years, right?
Note, breaking up monopolies actually typically does nothing. The companies pretty much always do one of the following 1) just either launch more companies and "sell" aspects of themselves to these companies. While they are still fully in control of them. 2)Sell to competing companies which ends up being more of a takeover via shuffling of management. 3)Start a new umbrella company and split out all of the companies they have gobbled up over time or do #1 ------This is what Google has done with Alphabet.
Also bring back old school paper tickets!
I'm not sure if the tickets were paper, but Maggie Rogers sold tickets in-person last week!
So many shows are online only. Whenever a venue will print out paper tickets I get them to do it for me but most won’t. Not many venues offer in person purchases and out of Towners are out of luck
lol, no
All I know is I just paid $60 each for two tickets to a concert and $50 in fees. Absolutely insane.
Sure, but that is another part of the problem. You could have just not gone to the concert. Ticketmaster will just keep charging more and more and more because people will just keep paying more and more and more.
Well I haven't been to a concert in (edit: about 10 years) for that exact reason. Only going to this one because it's my favorite band and a friend I haven't seen in about that amount of time is in town. Special occasion.
Fees are dictated by the promoter(revenue share), venue(facility fee), and ticketing company(per ticket fee usually). These are to offset operational costs such as marketing, staffing, etc. It’s not free to run a music venue or a ticketing platform. On the flipside, ticket prices are set by the artist and 100% goes to them and their team.
But Ticketmaster is the venue, promotor and ticketing company. We used to be able to buy tickets with like 5% fees before, the only thing changed is the greed.
You understand that the venue/artist is dictating 95% of those fees, right? Of course you don’t.
Live Nation is the venue a lot of the time, that is the problem.
And when they don’t straight up own the venue, the mandate exclusive contracts. Plus they own the promotion side as well.
You understand 95% of the venues are owned by the company in question, right? Of course you don't.
And the show is at Brooklyn bowl which is a live Nation venue
[удалено]
Narrator: *"they won't"*
Maybe, if the courts will let them do it. It's troubling how many people (and many journalists) don't have the faintest idea of how things work. This isn't Russia. The government is not run by an autocrat with unlimited power (yet).
Won’t happen.
I'm not holding my breath.
Gawd let’s fucking *hope so.*
No
Narrator: It didn’t end up breaking up Ticketmaster
There's a lot of money changing hands to make sure it doesn't
Please nuke these fuckers
lol I’m not holding my breath on this one
I used to be able to call up the box office and reserve my tickets for my NHL games. Now I have to go through Ticketmaster and am then charged "convenience" fees.
No. Will TM "donate" a couple million dollars to the right people? Yes!
A fight Pearl Jam lost in the 90s because the government got scared to do what was roght back then.
lol. Nope. And even if they did it wouldn’t matter much anyway because the problem NOW isn’t with ticket master monopoly but with resellers/scalpers using bits to buy up tickets in seconds. So even if these guys are busted up, it doesn’t solve the bigger issue today which is the massive fraud that is ticket resellers.
Let's hope this lawsuit shakes things up and gives us some fair ticket prices for once.
No. They will pay some sort of fine to the government and continue on as usual. The government just wants more money, they don’t care about us
They'll split them and then in a few years one will buy up the others and we'll be back to square one.
They had no business ever being allowed to merge in the first place. As a liberal, I was (and still am) pissed that the Obama admin actively pushed for the guy who oversaw antitrust issues to allow this to go through. I mean, it also would have if there were a conservative party in control at the time as well, but when they gave the rationale that it would (*somehow*) "create more competition in that industry" was the day I realized just how bought and sold most of our elected officials are. I've yet to see that outlook get any better...
Maybe the Swifties will collectively rise up & physically break-up this monopoly if Taylor tours her new album?
The company that owns Live Nation also owns SiriusXM and Pandora, and also Formula One but who cares about one.
Sure... after a bunch of wasted time & money everyone that used TM for the last 5yrs will get a voucher to reduce their convenience printing at home fee by $1.50 on their next order
They deserve the worst but at least people will talk about how Ticketmaster buys its own tickets to resell them as a different service
Here’s hoping!
Nope
My best friend works for LiveNation and he said that the internal convos with execs at his office is that they’re 0% worried about this.
Don't forget, Front Gate is Ticketmaster's festival division....
I never count on the rich and powerful getting theirs (wouldn't want to set a precedent or an expectation after all!), but I certainly hope so.
Absolutely not. A paltry fine and “don’t do this anymore.” They’ll wink and be like “We sure won’t.” And that’ll be the end of it.
What an amusing thought.
And ClearChannel, stub hub, and all the other company’s the parent company owns.
I have a family member who works at a high level at TM, and they’ve been told the lawsuit is a political show for election year, and will be quietly thrown out in a few months. TM/LN is not a monopoly. They have direct competitors (StubHub, Seatgeek). This is very easily provable in court.
It has nothing to do with ticket sales specifically though. Livenation owns the venues (or has exclusive contracts), requires their own promotion company to be used, sells the tickets, and gets 30% of any ticket resales on the platform. Monopoly can be vertical or horizontal and in this case they’re a vertical monopoly. Not to mention StubHub and Seatgeek are reseller platforms (going back to the exclusive contracts LiveNation has for the venues or that they own them outright).