[andjd]

One important thing to know is that the venues/artists often get a kickback of part of the Ticketmaster fees. In other words, the artists, venues, producers, and Ticketmaster are in cahoots to fleece fans for as much money as possible, and Ticketmaster is willing to play the 'bad guy' and take the blame for high prices, and they get to keep a bigger slice of the overall pie than they would in a highly competitive market for ticketing services because they provide that "service".

Take away this dynamic, and the face price of tickets is going to go up, and the total price is unlikely to change substantially.

Personally, I think this would still be a net plus for society. In order for market forces to work well, you need pricing transparency.

[voidwtf]

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.

[davidgh]

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.

[TheGRS]

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.

[tensor]

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.

[KoftaBob]

> they demand exclusivity in their contracts

Right off the bat, exclusivity clauses shouldn't be legal, it's the definition of anti-competitive.

[calgoo]

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.

[mcmcmc]

You know LiveNation owns TicketMaster right?

[JumpCrisscross]

> 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.)

[crabmusket]

This entry in Matt Stoller's newsletter goes into a lot of detail on how this works: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/explosive-new-documents-u...

> It’s easy to believe the worst about Live Nation, they have a bad reputation. But the reason I buy this particular story is because it is consistent with the behavior of many dominant middlemen firms in our economy, from pharmacy benefit managers to Amazon to big banks securitizing mortgages in the financial crisis. As monopoly scholar Kate Judge noted, such dominant middlemen use fees and kickbacks, hidden via a complex maze of subsidiaries and overlapping lines of business, to extract in ways that are hard to see. In Live Nation’s case, it’s clear they are generating a great deal of revenue, but somehow show low margins for many of their products. Hiding the price hikes is important, because monopolization is harder to prove that way.

[zer00eyz]

This is a pretty good write up. It's off the mark on one point.

The artists aren't upset with their take. If they are it's because their own management has their hands deep in pockets, or just plain suck. Live Nation knows dam well who butters the bread.

The history of Live Nation is that it is the decedent of bill graham presents. You might want to go look at the history of bill. There is a statement about his funeral, and it having the longest lines of stretched black limos in SF history. It's probably true. Bill made everyone money, himself included as a "promoter" and every penny of that came from fans.

The music industry has been doing its own version of pay to win / loot boxes since the 70's. When they break up LN (if?) its just going to get worse as the greed is gonna just be right out in the open. The lesson of the last decade is that you dont need LN/TM to cover it up. Artist given choice will make tickets non transferable and just auction them off... the new starting bid will be the same as the current all in price.

It's greedy fucks all the way down.

P.S. As I have said elsewhere in this thread, I speak from having spent a few years working in the industry. Find someone who works in "music" like that and it's the same nonsense as game devs, long hours and shit money cause people are passionate...

[btown]

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]

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.

[Kailhus]

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.

[flightster]

Sounds identical to health insurers. We need a new word for this arrangement. “Cartel” probably comes the closest but doesn’t feel quite right.

It’s like a cartel but it’s lead by one “extractor” (front of house, Ticketmaster in this case).

[hedora]

Fire insurance in California is moving towards control by a government-mandated cartel. All the insurance companies have to take partial ownership of the California FAIR plan company, and they share in its profits.

For what it's worth, they refer to themselves as a "syndicate".

CalFAIR charges 2-3x market rate premiums (for similar houses in the same area insured by the companies that own CalFAIR -- this is on top of charging more due to risk), and then refuses to pay out when your house is damaged, engages in lowballing, etc, etc.

Since all the insurance companies that are "competing" against them own stakes in it, the moral hazard should be obvious. Predictably, CalFAIR's market share has been rapidly increasing in recent years. They're supposed to be temporary insurance of last resort, but they've climbed to over 3% market share.

https://sfstandard.com/2023/10/19/california-insurance-crisi...

https://www.cfpnet.com/about-fair-plan/

[choilive]

Collusion comes to mind. A group of companies colluding likely has a leader.

[jimbokun]

Health insurers tend towards regional monopolies or duopolies.

[voisin]

“Cartel” doesn’t preclude a single leader. See: Escobar et al.

[fsckboy]

>In other words, the artists, venues, producers, and Ticketmaster are in cahoots to fleece fans for as much money as possible

yes, but they are in cahoots with the fans to fleece the fans. Fans are willing to pay big money to see these shows, that's who pays the high prices. If fans didn't pay the high prices, the prices would drop.

Your comment (the word fleece) suggests you are at least somewhat judgmental about "greed": this type of judgment is why bands try to pretend that they sell the tickets for a "fair" price, and that's what creates the 2ndary market, and that's what creates the kickbacks and the need for a scapegoat.

you expect to pay a high price for a Picasso at auction. You should expect also to pay a high price for sellout, SRO, line around the block shows too. Who should collect that money? fans who got in first? fake fans who pretended to be fans to get in first? People who are attracted by the arbitrage price differential? Or, I dunno, how about Picasso? The band.

The biggest fans in football, season ticket holders who slog through all the bad seasons, frequently sell their superbowl tickets when the price gets high enough. They'd rather have the money, that's the nature of money, and people.

[CobrastanJorji]

Yes, but also, many of those venues ARE Ticketmaster. From the Ascend Ampitheatre in Nashville to the Gorge in Washington, Live Nation owns like 150 major and minor concert venues. They're often kicking back to themselves.

[boringg]

No way - get rid of them and there will be more competition in the market better pricing and maybe a less homogenous (and terrible) experience.

[xp84]

Yes, it seems like in 1985 Ticketmaster and the couple of big competitors they gobbled up (I recall there was at least one other called Bass) could justify their existence decently. The operated brick and mortar locations where you could buy tickets, as well as a call center where you could call in to buy tickets. Today though, arguably without their many tentacles like Live Nation that guarantee them a cut of everything, they have no moat at all. Oh gee, if only we could figure out how to charge credit cards, show a seat map for you to pick your seat, and print barcodes on paper / email a barcode to attendees. So yes, I would expect that relative to verticals where things require actual ingenuity or skill to do a good job, it would be easy for people who operate venues to either just roll their own ticketing systems, or contract with dozens of vendors who would compete on their value. Of course, venue owners who are not themselves part of Live Naton itself could do this today, but the gross agreements where ticketmaster inflates fees and splits them with everybody in order to gain an exclusivity contract makes this uncommon. The whole thing is so corrupt and greedy it's sickening.

[EasyMark]

I would love to see them busted up into 4 or 5 companies

[nrmitchi]

> One important thing to know is that the venues/artists often get a kickback of part of the Ticketmaster fees

Ya, sure, but you also have to remember that Live Nation often owns the venues, and manages the artists.

So what you're kind of saying is "venues(Live Nation)/artists(also Live Nation) get a kickback of part of the Ticketmaster (also Live Nation) fees".

[bjclark]

And if you disbelieve this or want to see proof, check out Live Nations 10-k from 2015.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1335258/000133525816...

"Ticketing. Our Ticketing segment is primarily an agency business that sells tickets for events on behalf of our clients and retains a fee, or “service charge”, for these services. We sell tickets for our events and also for third-party clients across multiple live event categories, providing ticketing services for leading arenas, stadiums, amphitheaters, music clubs, concert promoters, professional sports franchises and leagues, college sports teams, performing arts venues, museums and theaters. We sell tickets through websites, mobile apps, ticket outlets and telephone call centers. During the year ended December 31, 2015, we sold 69%, 21%, 7% and 3% of primary tickets through these channels, respectively. Our Ticketing segment also manages our online activities including enhancements to our websites and bundled product offerings. During 2015, our Ticketing business generated approximately $1.6 billion, or 22.6%, of our total revenue, which excludes the face value of tickets sold. Through all of our ticketing services, we sold 160 million tickets in 2015 on which we were paid fees for our services. In addition, approximately 297 million tickets in total were sold using our Ticketmaster systems, through season seat packages and our venue clients’ box offices, for which we do not receive a fee. Our ticketing sales are impacted by fluctuations in the availability of events for sale to the public, which may vary depending upon event scheduling by our clients. As ticket sales increase, related ticketing operating income generally increases as well."

$1.6b of revenue selling 297m tickets. $5.79 per ticket. So you are paying $20 fees on a ticket, who do you think gets that money if it isn't Ticketmaster?

[deelowe]

Well something is going on. I used to go to concerts all the time when I was younger and they were far far cheaper than what they cost today even when accounting for inflation.

[mixmastamyk]

1/3 to TM, 1/3 to Artist, 1/3 to Venue.

[shiroiushi]

>Take away this dynamic, and the face price of tickets is going to go up, and the total price is unlikely to change substantially.

>Personally, I think this would still be a net plus for society. In order for market forces to work well, you need pricing transparency.

I agree: fair pricing is better than bullshit pricing with hidden fees and surcharges. It's the same with tipping at restaurants: it's better to just have the actual price printed clearly and advertised, and that's the price you pay, instead of advertising a lower price and then having to do mental math to figure out the real price at the register.

[CPLX]

They aren’t just fleecing fans they’re also ripping off other participants in the market especially competitors. Matt Stoller has written a lot of detail about this.

[lokar]

Villainy as a service

[jen729w]

It might have changed in the last 10 years, and it might be different in the USA, but in 2010 when I put on a large theatre production and had to use Ticketmaster, there was no way a ‘kickback’ was part of the equation.

Exactly the opposite, in fact. Did you know that Ticketmaster has two fees? One is the ‘outside’ fee that you, the punter, sees. So you think I’m getting $100 and you’re giving Ticketmaster another $10.

In fact there’s also an ‘inside’ fee that Ticketmaster charges me. So of that $100, they also take $10 from me.

Of course for this you get all sorts of services, right? Tools to manage seating, allocations, reservations, price varieties, and so on? Nope. Not a goddamned thing.

I despised having to work with them.

[SoftTalker]

Concerts aren't a necessity. As much as Ticketmaster/LiveNation "fleece" fans, secondhand sellers a/k/a scalpers do it even more. The demand is there, if the prices were too high the tickets would not sell.

If you don't like what a concert ticket price costs, don't go.

[UncleEntity]

> If you don't like what a concert ticket price costs, don't go.

Yep, that's what I do.

What you are failing to address is the artists being harmed by not participating in this 'fleecing' scheme.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pearl-jam-taki...

[lobsterthief]

So monopolies and oligopolies are okay as long as it isn’t for a life necessity?

[tuututu]

Oh yeah. I remember Trent Reznor writing an angry social media post about this probably ten years ago, more or less explaining it all. Ticketmaster only sells a small portion of a show's tickets through their official website. Most go straight to "aftermarket" outlets that Ticketmaster indirectly controls, and artists know about this and take their share of the markup.

[mattmaroon]

Not artists. Venue owners, yes. Artists, no.

Venue owners have a choice of ticket sellers, artists do not.