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treepunch | 3 years ago

That's because most of the major venues are owned by LiveNation... which is the same company. When they merged in 2010 everyone saw this coming.

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fuzzylightbulb|3 years ago

Tickemaster was terrible even before the Live Nation merger. The issue is that everyone is making money hand over fist at the expense of the consumer, while Ticketmaster is absorbing all the negative attention. Artists love selling out shows at a particular ticket price; it doesn't matter to them if the venue is full of true believers or if the true believers paid extra to be there so long as the "extra" is still within the price people are begrudgingly willing to pay. The venues love it because they get a portion of the ticket sales and the fees, and they don't need to manage the sale of tickets or employ folks to do so. No one in the chain is going to stick their neck out to kill the golden goose for the sake of the consumer. It's a mess.

bena|3 years ago

Ticketmaster was just as bad and just as monopolistic in the 80s and 90s.

chitowneats|3 years ago

Yes and they used the insane amounts of money they made in those days to close a potential vector of attack by purchasing LiveNation. Feds still should have prevented that merger.

rchaud|3 years ago

How did they do algorithmic pricing then? Send updated price lists every morning to all ticket vendors via fax?

Ticketmaster today is significantly worse than even the entity I remember in the 2000s. The worst they'd do is charge 20% out of thin air for a "processing fee", and in any case, there were alternatives available, like buying paper tickets from record stores or directly at the venue.