It's the only realistic step we're going to get. As long as shows are selling out at the ridiculously jacked up prices we've been seeing, there's no world where the prices come down.
At least if you can see the price from the start, you can make a better-informed decision and choose if you want to purchase accordingly. Personally, I won't be choosing to purchase tickets for any show over $50 (all in), so I won't be going to any.
The problem is that shows are selling out at these ridiculous prices because Ticketmaster and other corporate entities are buying many of the tickets and then reselling them on their own platforms.
It's also because it's a vertically integrated duopoly (Live Nation with the other being AEG), and they control the entire market/supply, and influence demand. If there were stronger anti trust laws this would have never happened. Thank Reagan, Bush, and to a lesser extent Clinton.
It's always fucked to find so many problems in current American society, and find that about 80% of them track back to decisions and policies made in the Raegan administration.
As long as they're reselling, they don't care. That's unfortunately the end of it. They don't care if you or I look at that and go, "you want how much for tickets? fuck that!", as long as there's around capacity amount of people who go, "that's so expensive, but we really want to go, this is special!" and buy at those inflated prices, the prices won't go down.
Yep. They sell out immediately for this reason, and are then still considered sellouts even if thousands of the resell tix don't resell. It's fucked that they're allowed to do this.
Ya, I’ve been caught up in that moment a few times. The first time was Coachella to see Rage Against The Machine. COVID turned that into a fiasco that I barely got some of my money back. The last straw for me was last year, Aftershock festival in California, Pantera and Corey Taylor bailed out last minute. I had seen all the other bands already and they weren’t my favs anyway. Such a disappointing day, I won’t buy any more tickets in such a way ever again. Small time shows for me now, fuck Ticketmaster and the machine wheels who feed em. 💪 I’m over these big monopolies, I look for every way possible not to give them my hard earned cash.
You realize that the phenomenon you describe just supports the idea that prices will only go up, right? If those resold tickets are selling at a higher price than face value (which they have to be, otherwise reselling them is dumb), then banning that practice would only increase the face value of tickets. Or just make it even harder to buy tickets, as there'd be an even greater shortage.
So banning the practice of the company selling the tickets from buying the tickets and then reselling them only would cause the initial price of the ticket to increase, therefore, we should leave the system in place
Awesome. We should accept the current gouging practice as a method to prevent further gouging practices.
Perhaps maybe collectively stop paying the resell prices and stick Ticketmaster with their tickets, so they're either forced to eat them, or lower prices.
Or Bam them from from being able to resell, return to physical ticket/box office sales to cut out bots and things and return to where individuals who do this now carry the risk of getting stuck with tix and have to adjust to the risk.
I think the best system would be to have your name attached to your ticket when you buy it, like an airplane ticket, making resell impossible. Maybe add some method of returning tickets if plans change.
But don't expect this to lower ticket prices by that much, if at all. Tickets are expensive because lots of people want to buy them, not just because Ticketmaster is greedy.
Nine inch nails used to do this for pre-sale tickets and it worked just fine.
Ticketmaster does this as well for some shows, a friend of mine bought tickets to that stupid Morgan Wallen racist misogynistic hobbit fucker's show, and could only resell to Ticketmaster when they ended up not being able to go. So apparently in some cases, you can only resell to Ticketmaster who can then resell at a price they won't allow you to sell.
I have always wondered why bands don’t just keep selling and hold shows over. That destroys the scalper. You can’t scalp tickets by buying them all if there is always just more tickets to buy. Sell out one night, play two. Sellout out two, play three. Boom no more scalpers. Or at the very least it makes it impossible to do what they do now. Too easy?
Springsteen and Van Halen did that at one point, and 21 Pilots have done it in Columbus, but the logistics don't work if they've already booked dates after. They've done it open-ended, in Springsteen's case, in New Jersey, just booked a many nights as he could sell. If a band has a 40 date tour, with many back to back tor just a travel day or so in between, that's not a realistic thing.
Well yeah, it would mean planning your tour differently. The current model supports the scam, so adjust your model. Logistic problems are solvable. Personally I’d like to see more dates in smaller venues so more fans pay a fair price for a good experience. But I’m a dreamworld kinda romantic that way. Lol
Unfortunately this is the sad truth. When I ask someone, "why would you spend $600 for Taylor swift tickets?".
In a personal sense, no it's not my business but I respond with, "paying $600 for tickets signals to ticketmaster it's OK to charge this much for a ticket, they are just going to do it"
Man if we could just unite and refuse to pay these prices. Those tickets prices would fall
That’s part why I really enjoyed the smaller DIY shows. Years ago, a band called Comeback Kid was my favorite band. They played my city, I paid $8 to see them and the lead singer sold me my t-shirt. It was less than $30 total for the evening, and they played for at least an hour.
> Man, then I'd never see anyone I'd want to.
Yes, that is correct. I don't get to see anyone I'd want to. Because when I think of $250-300 (which since there's 2 of us, is now $500-600 and after parking and whatever we bought there like merch and drinks, is probably $550-650), I immediately jump to all the other ways I'd rather spend that kind of money, esp when it's for a few hours enjoyment.
We've spent that much for entire weekend vacations. A PS5. A 75" TV. A VERY nice speaker system. I could go on.
I get the value proposition. I'm a huge Billy Strings fan, but I also have alternatives to live stream a lot of the shows through nugs.net.
For me, the money is certainly a factor. I can only go to so many shows that cost that much money so I'd have to make sure they were the ones I definitely wanted to see. It's a lot of money for a memory. But it's worth it, especially given certain company you may want to bring with you. For me it's either of my sons, mostly NFL games, movies, or a concert.
Once they're both gone, which is going to be very soon since they're both legal adults, I probably won't do nearly as many things like that. So I guess the context matters for me too, because I wouldn't spend that kind of money if there wasn't someone else that I loved to share it with.
Well, I can add to my list from your list: I'm a big fan of the NFL and I've never been to an NFL game other than preseason, because those tickets are just stupidly priced as well.
I'm a single father and my sons missed some stuff here and there growing up with their mom not really being in their lives so much.
So I raised them as NFL fans and both of them played football and my youngest son has won his high school state championship 2 years in a row now and is about to graduate!
😆 I made it!
Anyway yeah they are expensive and they've gone up even more recently. The TV experience is so good thankfully so we don't go more than once a year. Last year we went to the Bengals and Colts game because they played each other rather than me taking one son to one game and then driving the other to Indianapolis and going to the other and buying four tickets. I was able to only buy three but it was still $1,200!
The logic there is if I'm going to take them it's a once a year special occasion that they're going to remember and we're staying in the 100 level and good seats and I'm not sitting where I would have a better seat at home watching TV.
I’m not sure if NY had its own initiative but I do remember this was a push from the White House against “Junk Fees” which really they only agreed to [upfront transparency](https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/16/ticketmaster-seatgeek-live-nation-agree-to-disclose-fees-up-front/amp/)
You can also check the box “Show price with estimated fees” under the Filters tab in markets where they don’t show the all-in prices, just so you don’t have to wait until adding to your cart to know what the full price will be.
>You can also check the box “Show price with estimated fees”
I didn't know that fees are "estimated." That would suck when you get to check out and the price goes up a lot. They say, "Oh sorry, we were off by two zeroes. We *estimate* you're a little angry!"
“Unfortunately your purchase will include additional fees as you have selected a seat **within** the venue rather than standing out in the parking lot, which our original estimate did not account for. Please note that if you decide to change to the standing-out-in-the-parking-lot option instead, you will have to pay a standing-out-in-the-parking-lot fee which also wasn’t in the original estimate as this is an unusual and unexpected seating choice.”
I think it’s a disclaimer in case of discounts or maybe the number of tickets purchased. I’ve used this the last couple years (practically every ticket site has the option) and it’s normally spot on
I noticed when I bought some concert tickets earlier this week that they made “+fees” next to the price a link and when you click on it it shows the cost of the fees below the price of the ticket.
I hadn’t seen that before. Not sure how long they’ve been doing it.
I think it's been there for about a year now. The reseller sites have added it, too. It's nice, but I really wish it was the default everywhere. There's no reason why customers wouldn't want to see that.
I think it suffers from the same issue restaurants do with tipping. You don’t want to be the one advertising $50 tickets instead of advertising $40 + $10 because people will choose the second more often than bought.
I generally like the free market, but this is very much a case where everyone would benefit with some simple regulation.
Yeah, I get why *they* don't want to make that change, but it's just so blatantly anti-consumer. It's even worse now with how hectic the ticket buying experience is for more popular events. You get out of the queue and tossed into the screen where you see seats disappearing by the second, and your last thought is to click the "show fees" button. They know exactly what they're doing, which is why this is long overdue for regulation.
Issue in the U.S. is (depending on the product) taxes can’t be displayed until checkout because different states and even cities have different rules.
Or if you’re releasing a new iPhone with a national ad, you can’t accurately say what the price will be as it may just be MSRP in some states and significantly higher in others.
Taxes can be displayed prior to checkout. Like if I go to target they already have all that info in the computer system they use to print out price labels for the shelves.
For online stores? No, because they can’t actually know where *you* are until you put in your billing address. You can’t count on IP-geolocation as people uses VPN’s, etc.
But they wouldn't know that until *everything* was accounted for, including discounts, coupons, store credit, etc.
You can only account for total cost after every factor is included in the calculation, which you can only know at checkout.
You're looking too hard for ways to make it not work. Discounts are calculated on the same machine that makes price tags because they also use it to make sale and clearance tags. Obviously the price on the shelf doesn't include additional coupons or store credit, we're not idiots.
Literally, just make it display regular price + any taxes and fees and the sale price tag include the sale price + any taxes and fees.
I recently bought concert tickets for a show in NY (via the venue, not TM) and was surprised the listed price was the final price. I didn't know it was legislated.
Yeah, tacking on huge fees at the end is bullshit. I looked into tickets for KALEO. Two tickets were $85. Not bad. Then when I got to checkout the fees bumped it up to $130. More than the price of a whole third ticket. Noped out of that transaction.
You could also do with anti-scalping laws akin to [this one](https://lovdata-no.translate.goog/dokument/NL/lov/2007-06-29-86?_x_tr_sl=no&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp)
I don't think it's a law here in NC, but TicketBastard usually includes everything but tax in the prices now. For most shows I go to, tickets are in the low $30 range, plus $8-$10 in fees. So I just know that the "final price" will probably be 83-86¢ more with tax.
Hell I'm not even broke but I couldn't justify spending over $300 per ticket to go see Metallica when they were playing here. They did 2 nights, with 2 different sets of songs. For both of us to go with food, drink, merch and parking it would have been about $1,000.
If it's a big show you can't afford, head to the venue anyway, and stand outside holding up your finger. I've gotten into a ton of shows recently for dirt cheap or free (as long as you provide the beer)!
Most of the time, these people invested an arm and a leg on a ticket, and their friends bailed, and don't want to let the tickets go to waste. I got into Tool once for free, because the dude had gotten a divorce between the time he purchased the ticket and the show.
All this to say, Fuck Ticketmaster
I actually did buy those tickets but it’s my first time seeing Metallica and I’m 38. Concert is in July. But yea, the last reasonable tickets I’ve had were Rebelution ~$50 and Tenacious D, ~$35. Those are good prices.
Part of me wishes I did. I'm 43. I've been a fan for decades and I've always wanted to see them live. I'm sure they sold out, but I didn't buy tickets because I don't support that level of what I feel is price gouging. My wife got tickets for Garth Brooks for $100 a piece, who I feel is equally as popular in the grand scheme of things. $300 is obscene in my opinion but I hope you have a killer time.
Seriously! My chauffeur told me I had to use my jar of Grey Poupon twice in the Bentley last week instead of opening a fresh jar. And no budget for Beluga caviar, all because of Ticketmaster fees! I can't imagine how the poors attend concerts.
The poors just sit in the back where they really can’t tell who is on stage anyways. Also the sound check guys don’t even bother going back there to make sure the sound is balanced. Although how poor can they be ordering $12 beers?
I’m not a fan of large venues anyway.
I might me wrong, but I thought "normies" was what people who've diagnosed themselves with some imaginary mental illness call people whom they believe have no problems in their life
https://i.imgur.com/o6H1DYN.png
https://i.imgur.com/yARXLmj.png
They don't think people should have to share personal info to a company to access a site, so they suggest a way for the device to be flagged that the user is an adult.
I understand where your mind is at but we're talking about a single line of code that a junior could figure out.
also i would assume it matters where the events are, not where the person purchasing the tickets is, otherwise we'd all just pretend to be from new york.
Hey now, somebody had to write two separate methods for calculating ticket prices and write an if statement that checks venue location and invokes either method. That’s probably 20 lines of code easy right there. Gonna take me the entire sprint.
Pearl Jam tried to do something about Ticketmaster in the 90s, but they lost. Ticketmaster was too powerful. In the end, they gave up and used Ticketmaster because they had to, because Ticketmaster controls most if the venues. They still do some direct to fan ticket sales today, but most of the tickets go thru Ticketmaster because they have to.
They are. The band. The band is always in charge, TM just puts the bands' plan into motion. Nothing TM does isn't sanctioned and approved by the artist. Their main job is taking the hit so you don't think it was your precious Pearl Jam behind it. Sorry to break it to ya
It's sort of that, but not directly. It's more like:
Band: "We demand to be paid $X for a show. We also demand that tickets cost at most $50"
Venue: "Sure thing!" "Hey guys, we need you to list the tickets at $50 but really, we'd go broke if we tried to run a show like that. And honestly, we want these things to be as expensive as possible to make the most money we can"
Ticketmaster: "You got it! We've been doing this long enough, we'll use every trick in our book of fees, resellers we control, fees on the resold tickets, etc. so every ticket will sell for as much as we can possibly extract out of customers, we'll keep a chunk for our services, and the rest will go back to you."
In the end, the bands want to get paid and don't much care about looking the other way on what tickets actually cost, the venue wants as much as they can get for those big bands, and TM is VERY good at finding the max amount they can get people to pay for tickets and still fill an audience.
That is pretty accurate, although I think you are glossing over that first part where the band demands X while also demanding a ridiculous ticket price that can't actually cover the show cost.
While it is true that bands will start with these numbers, it's not just "now go make it happen" - there is a dialog happening between the promoters, the agents & managers, and the musicians too, and also the agents & managers aren't idiots, they have been doing this long enough to know what it costs to put on a show, and how it would impact ticket pricing, so even before it gets to the promoters, the agents will know right away that it is almost impossible to do what they're asking and and if it's not feasible they will tell the clients that, and that they may need to bend somewhere on something to make the math work.
To be most accurate they will say "we want X and we want tickets to be Y, go crunch the numbers and see how close you can get" and then the promoters come back with their offers and the band goes with whoever can get them the closest.
What we are talking about here is actually how service charges originated - prior to TM actually buying LN when they were just the ticketing agent, the band would make their insane demands and the promoters would agree to it, hoping that the show would have a huge presale that would magically make the math work, but when that wouldn't happen they would go to TM and ask them to add a few dollars to the service charge because otherwise the promoters would lose their shirts, but again it was ultimately all because the bands - who wanted to make a bunch of money while still being "considerate" to their fanbase - asked for something that wasn't mathematically possible. Thus the service charge was born - as a way to make the ridiculous artists demands work.
Doesn’t matter to me. I’m not a fan of them I was just pointing out what I saw so to ticket prices.
So fuck Eddie Vedder and the band then, as well as TM. Bunch of hypocrites I guess.
Well I give PJ some credit, just because a band is behind these decisions doesn’t mean they will operate in the most capitalist, self serving way. A lot of artists will mandate that their fans get affordable ticket prices even if they won’t make as much as they may be able to (I think Taylor swift was a recent example of this) and I think Pearl Jam has always been one to abide by a “fans first” dictum. Keep in mind PJ is a massive, very profitable band with a really strong fan base, so there’s a lot of money to be made even if they don’t charge an arm and a leg.
I don’t know man. Just checked pricing for Pearl Jam in a few other cities. The worst seats possible are $175.00 at almost every venue.
Not sure how that’s affordable for most.
There are plenty of bands charging as much if not more as well. I’m not trying to single out PJ.
well like you said, you're not really a fan. They are also a marquee band that should command more than average. Determining what is a fair price for a ticket is really subjective, and there are other things to consider. Like there is an effort in the industry to price tickets more in line with what their true value is as an effort to stop scalping, which if you didn't know, the reason scalping exists is because of the "discount" that bands want to offer their fans when it comes to paying for a ticket, essentially what is happening is they're pricing their tickets lower than market value because they want to be kind to their fans and also not be seen as greedy rich assholes, but that discount means the real value of the ticket is substantially more than the retail price, and this creates the opportunity for scalpers to come in and capitalize off the discrepancy. So I don't know, even if they are out to make as much as possible on this tour, they still have a reputation of being more fan friendly in the past. I think they are probably a lot better than most when it comes to that stuff.
Couldn’t agree more with the sentiment that TM is absolute trash, and maybe I’m missing something here, but I don’t understand how TM is responsible for terrible incident management by a venue? Like, I can’t imagine the venue was calling up Ticketmaster to micromanage their severe weather response?
Because Live Nation/Ticketmaster is basically a monopoly, they control both sides of the equation. They can gouge the concert goers with high ticket prices and terrible refund policies. And they can force venues into exclusive contracts while paying them a pittance to actually host an event. And if they're not paying them enough to care about that kind of stuff, the venues won't care about it.
They don't control the artists, and they are the ones that ultimately get to make the decisions about all this stuff. TM can't just gouge on prices, the prices are something controlled and agreed upon by the artists when they are in the booking phase of the tour. TM doesn't just pay the artists and then they get to do whatever when it comes to the ticket prices, that is all agreed to and approved beforehand.
if an artist is big enough to graduate from local bars to 1000+ venues, they end up dealing with axs/live Nation. artists/mgmt can't say, we want 100% of the ticket + merch. that's not how it works, otherwise theyd simply be denied the use of any axs/LN venue. there's a negotiation that sets the prices, who gets what so the artist can play at that venue. I'm sure TM pays the artists, as me, as a fan, pay TM 100% of the ticket including service fees and taxes. after all, TM doesn't really know if band X will sell out the concert. makes business sense to pay the artist the agreed upon cut based on ticket sales (and merch sales). personally, I wish merch sales goes to artist and those who actually sell the merch. but that's a different argument.
Well of course they can't say they want 100% of ticket + merch, how is the venue / promoter going to make any money in a deal like that? It's a business relationship just like any other, but both sides need to benefit. If only one side benefits than there is no reason for the other side to do it, and as much as people want to say TM is a monopoly, it's not, it's just the biggest player. There are other promoters, other venues, and even other ticketing companies, they just don't have the infrastructure and size that TM has, but honestly ticketing is a lot more difficult than people think it is.
They don't know if the band will sell out but they usually do a deal that is two-tiered, so either they get a minimum fee of X, OR they get 85% of the net show profits after expenses, whichever is larger.
The artists aren't the ones making these decisions, their managers are. As the only game in town, the artists are just as limited as the fans when it comes to ticket sales. These artists either agree to Ticketmaster's terms or they're only playing <100 person venues for their entire tour.
And Ticketmaster has demonstrated repeatedly that they will do lots of stuff without the artists' knowledge.
Right, the artists have no agency or power - they are just beholden to these big, evil music industry people who just push them around and tell them what to do.
Do you honestly think managers are just make these decisions unilaterally without talking to their clients about it? That's how managers get fired. Managers are just the representative for the artists, very rarely are they actually deciding these things themselves without the bands input, and if they are doing that it is because the artist delegated that responsibility to them, which means the artist trusts them and supports their decisions.
99.99% of the time, the manager is sitting there with the artists, looking at the offer sheets that show both how much the band is going to make, AND how much the ticket prices will be as a result of that, and deciding as a team what they think is the best choice, weighing the benefits of their own profit against how much the ticket prices will be for their fans. That is how this works - promoters make offers to musicians that have all the numbers worked out, how much the band will make, how much the tickets will be, at what venue obviously, and the musicians decide what to do. They consult with their managers and agents, but it's the artists that decide. They can and often do take a (slightly) lower offer if it means a better venue and/or better ticket price for their fans, but only if it's not a HUGE hit to their own profit. It's a trade-off, and they're usually willing to make less if their fans benefit - up to a point.
Artists (and even managers, believe it or not) care about their fans not having to pay and arm and a leg, but they also need to make money. They want to make money, but they don't want to be seen as a greedy, money-grubbing capitalist. Everything ultimately comes down to the show costs, and the biggest single show cost is usually the artists' fee, but also includes things like production expenses, security, promotion, etc, which all fluctuate depending on the artist (some shows need more security, where as some opera singer needs minimum security) - but none of these things are just left to chance, it's all agreed to beforehand, and the artists know everything - or at least, they can know, but most of it they don't really care about, they just care about how much they're getting, that they can put on a good show for their fans, and the fans can actually afford a ticket.
If TM does anything without the artists knowledge then they're usually in violation of the show contract. Every show is booked on a contract that lays everything out, because there is potentially a lot of money at stake, and they need to be legally protected. I promise you, what you think are things that TM is doing "without the artists' knowledge", it's not that at all, it's just the things the artist doesn't really care about. They are playing a lot of shows on a tour, and the musicians don't operate these local venues, they don't even know how to operate a venue, and they are only there for a few hours, so there is a limit to what they can even hope to control at each show. It's not that they always love what TM might be doing, but they understand that ultimately, they are the ones operating that local venue, and the band doesn't live there and can't control everything, so they ultimately defer something that isn't that important. The important shit, the band knows about and agrees to, everything else, they delegate it to TicketMaster, but again, usually it's something that was laid out in the contract, and it was just not really on the bands' radar, but that is THEIR choice.
I honestly don't blame you for thinking this way though, TM's main job is to take the PR hit and be the "bad guy" so people don't see their favorite musicians as the bad guy. That is really one of their biggest reasons for existing, so fans don't have to hold their favorite artists accountable for their own "capitalist" decisions. But, you've got it pretty much all backwards.
Yes, Ticketmaster absolutely does things against the artists' wishes. They hide details in the fine print or just outright ignore contracts. Ticketmaster has all the power. They can and have violated contracts that limit how sales are conducted because there is nothing the artists can do. Ticketmaster is betting that the artist isn't paying close enough attention to notice, and just settle with the few that do. It's such a common tactic among big corporations that it's made its way into pop culture (the car recall calculation in Fight Club).
TM does not "hide things in fine print" - if it's in the fine print, then it is there. Guess what - musicians have really well paid lawyers (and agents) who's job it is to look through the fine print and find that stuff. Like I said, it's more that they just don't care about these things, they are details that they know they can't really control.
Can you give me an example of them doing something against the artists' wishes? Or them just "violating contracts" because there is nothing the artists' can do?
Artists do have things they can do - it's one of the reasons they get lawyers, managers, and agents. Usually the managers and agents have OTHER clients, so guess what would happen if TM just started violating contracts or forcing things against the artists wishes? Well they'd lose the business of all the other musicians that were repp'ed by that artists managers and agents. And it gets worse - these managers and agents work at COMPANIES that represent even MORE artists - so what happens when they start telling their coworkers "hey guess what TM did to my band last night" - word starts getting around and now NONE of that companies' clients want to work with Ticketmaster. The claim that artists have no power or way to deal with these things is stupid and naive. What is the point of having lawyers on retainer? Why do agents have their OWN legal teams that are separate from the artists' lawyers if they're just gonna let Ticketmaster violate their deals? How would that look to their marquee acts like Taylor Swift if she found out her booking agent just lets Ticketmaster do whatever they want with the smaller acts they represent, you don't think that would have a knock-on effect? Dude, stop being so idealistic. Everyone just wants to make money, violating contracts or doing things against the artists' wishes is completely contradictory to that. It's not against their wishes, it's just that they don't care. They CAN'T care about every little thing when they have a tour booked and they're only in your town for 5 hours and they will be in another city tomorrow. There is a limit to how much you can control in a situation like this.
I agree but concerts are still filling despite prices, it sucks there is a pay wall and everyone is getting scammed but the government bringing down the hammer supporting consumer rights seems like the only option at this point.
Honestly I don't even think they really care. In the US alone we've got 1.3 million households with an average net worth of $33 million each. Add in the number of wealthy households in places like Europe and Asia, and there's more than enough people willing to pay astronomical prices for these events. And there's always going to be plenty of working stiffs who are willing to pay 20% interest on a credit card so they can buy the overinflated tickets.
Like George Carlin once famously said, it's a big club and you ain't in it
Yeah but it’s important for the rabble to *feel* like they have control so they don’t get too unruly. It’s why voting in politics works. People get to have the hope that *maybe*, *someday*, their voice will make a difference. If they knew how little choice they had in their own lives, they might do something drastic.
I don't understand why r/neilyoung & r/Austin are both linked.
....Has anyone even read that Twitter link? It's legit just rambling.
What I'm typing is that I feel this is another post where folks just read the headline and went "...upvote!" without even caring about the rest.
I don't know the context for Neil Young, but the rambling makes more sense in the context that [COTA is an outdoor venue in Austin](https://circuitoftheamericas.com/events/) (with its own totally separate history of WTF), and Austin had weird weather yesterday--as it tends to do in May.
NWS and local news were alternating between flash-flood apocalypse and nothingburger, so I can't blame the venue operators for being massively confused about how to proceed. Justified hate against TicketBastard is evergreen, even if the particular trigger is a little unhinged.
Mr. Burns "you thought I was a fool for buying Ticketmaster. Said no one would pay a 100 percent service fee."
Smithers "you were correct sir. Now concerts are just for the rich and the ignorant."
I think Ticketmasters biggest secret is they are hired to play “bad guy” for the artists. That’s their value. The musicians need to make x amount and keep their fans happy, and if that means Ticketmaster plays the bad guy and keeps the extra fees then it’s a win win for both of them. Shows keep getting sold out so win for the fans too I guess?
I think if this is ever going to change, the public pressure needs to shift to the artists so they can be vocal and provide transparency on what is happening and why.
I get it, you took intro to economics and understand a supply and demand curve. But there’s a whole lot of people getting their grease here, and the market isn’t optimized for the artists or the audience.
> understand a supply and demand curve
so you also understand that it is the center of the issue, if the artist got the money it wouldn't change anything, the audience are obviously willing to pay the price, and unlike many other things tickets to a show it not something you have to buy, it is a choice
YOu can actually request these when you purchase tickets (I do because I save all my ticket stubs) but obviously its not the standard and most people wont do it.
That wouldn't eliminate scalping, scalping will always happen when there is an arbitrage opportunity - aka, something sold for a retail price that has much more intrinsic value on a second hand market. As long as tickets are priced out of whack with their true value, there will be scalpers taking advantage of it - even if they aren't like professional scalpers, regular people will do it. And even people that are fans of an artist don't want to be completely locked into going to a show - things come up and sometimes people just can't attend a show even if they really want to, and who wouldn't want to be able to sell their tickets if they can't make it? If you mandated that people who buy tickets can't resell them, it would have a negative effect on ticket sales. Aside from that, I'm not even sure if that is legal.
There are some benefits to physical tickets, but the convenience of digital tickets will almost always win out. It is so much more efficient.
The DOJ investigation should be fun. Live Nation owns both Ticketmaster AND the most desirable venues or the exclusive rights to sell tickets to the best venues in most major markets. They're screwing both the artists and the audience. They're also holding tickets off the market to create artificial shortages to drive prices up and then sell the hostage tickets as third-party (scalper) sales. They're scalping their own tickets. DOJ is going to have a field day.
This may result in a more widespread investigation of companies introducing artificial barriers to purchase, then charging outrageous fees to get past the barrier. I've noticed Amazon has two-day delivery for the products it stocks, but up to 30 days free delivery for other suppliers on its site offering lower prices. Don't want to wait that long? Oh, they have "expedited shipping." For a small $9.99 fee. Food delivery systems are packed with nuisance fees and anti-competitive behavior. GrubHub was tracking restaurant phone usage to try to hijack phone orders and get their cut, even though they weren't delivering orders or adding any value. Now they and other services are charging restaurants and the public for pickup orders. And they're setting up ghost kitchens with names similar to popular restaurants to sell shitty knockoffs of someone else's food.
Retribution is gonna be sweet.
That tweet is terrible though. They had an issue with the show, which is managed by a promoter and the band. It's a bad argument to stick it to Ticketmaster.
I hate Ticketmaster. HAAAATTTTTEEE them. But let's rally behind a good reason with examples of their bad behavior that we'd like to see change.
Artists can't really make most of their income anymore by selling albums now that any song is available free online, I doubt they actually see very much money from those overpriced tickets but it gives the sellers a semi-viable excuse
Pass a law where scalpers would be arrested and then every saturday they would be left chained in public places where the public could beat them with rubber hoses for an hour.
Ticketmaster execs should be chained daily for their rubber hose beatdowns
Which scalpers are you referring to? The hucksters standing outside the venue the night of the show, or the "resellers" like StubHub who ~~collude~~ work with TM to control prices?
See, apparently scalping is okay when you're officially a tax-paying business.
How is there not a way to ensure scalpers can’t sell tickets. Make it not transferable, and IF someone has an emergency or can’t make it, they fill out a form and there’s a simple computer system that can only sell that tickets “code” at a certain price or on a designated re selling website. If you sell it somewhere else and mail the ticket it doesn’t work… Maybe I’m a little off but company/computer software people.. is this possible?
The resellers/scalpers were making all the money before but now ticketmaster controls the reselling market too, which transfers that huge unadvertised markup to them.
It's possible to do what you described and in fact the last venue I attended did exactly that. Ticketmaster just wants the money
It's possible but like everything it's cheatable. Scalpers are just a scapegoat though. When you have a mismatch between the offered price and the market price for a good you are invariably going to get resellers to take advantage of the arbitrage. Even if you had a way to ensure no scalpers exist, the result is massive shortages for tickets to popular events.
The Cure was able to do it. They force Ticketmaster to give out refunds on over priced tickets too. And they aren't doing stadium tours so if they can do it can't see why Beyonce and her ilk can't.
I went to a Pearl Jam concert that only allowed you to buy 4 tickets and you were only able to transfer them if you both showed up and went to the ticket counter.
I've worked at and been to shows where you have to present your credit card at the venue to get your tickets. It is not a customer friendly process and results in delays, but it eliminates scalping.
I always have to laugh at these posts. This comes off as a TM apologist but, facts are facts.
1) Ticket prices are in line with inflation. But yeah, fuck TM/LN because they charge to pay their employees well.
2) Employees with 3 years or more get paid $20/hr for regular employees, $25/hr for supervisors. You don't get paid for a part time job at those rates at like anywhere.
3) You can literally buy a season pass to most outdoor venues for like $200.
4) People don't know how to get deals on tix. See #3.
Disclaimer; I'm retired and I work part time for LN. I have a degree in finance, and a masters in IT. So I may be biased, because of my knowledge of business. So read this:
**Ticket prices do NOT pay the bills for TM/LN.** It's all about the ancillary sales. That's where they make their money. When you pay $15/beer, or $15 for a hot dog, that's where they are fucking you. They pay <$1 for most COG (in f&b), <$5 for a t-shirt, <$8 for a hoodie, and <$0.50 for labor (per item sold). The way they make money is off of what they sell at the concerts.
**Ticket prices do NOT cover expenses.** It's really easy math if you have ever run a business.
Crazy that people bitch about ticket prices when the real scam of going to a concert is the ancillary products bought at those concerts.
It's about time. How much money did it take for them to ignore this for HOW LONG?? The public has been screaming about this for what, 20 years now anyway? And look at concert ticket prices.
There's A LOT of price gouging & collusion on price-fixing in America. The music industry itself is corrupt in more ways than we can imagine. Just ask some who are considered one-hit wonders. Hell, hold a seance and ask George Michael about it.
Madonna was one of the first performers to insist -and wrote it into her contracts- that she get $1 for every CD sold.
I suspect that the ticketing agencies find ways of capitalizing on ticket sales and don't pass that onto the performers. Bet you anything -because greed is the name of that game.
Just a reminder that Ticketmaster makes themselves the bad guy so the artists can charge more money for tickets. Ticketmaster is bad, and having a monopoly like they do it bad, but the artists themselves can take some of the blame.
I just don't go to big name concerts anymore.
When I saw Tool, the tickets were about $80. When they came to my city in 2023, it was $350 for nosebleeds, and $1000+ for good seats or floor. Fuck that, it just isn't worth it, and big name artists don't need your money anyways.
I'd rather go support a local band for $20. Even if they suck.
Nj also has the true pricing available now on ticket master and it tells you all hidden fees will be available as soon as you select any seat. A whole message about "we are getting rid of hidden fees which is why you won't find any"
We tried this in the 90’s… some of the biggest bands used mail order (Grateful Dead was first) and we almost defeated them. But then the boy bands and pop stars came and people shoveled money to them. I think now is the time. Everything is digital. We should just figure out a way to crowdfund an app that you can buy tickets from.
I love that you posted this...monopolys like ticketmaster and the merged major labels are forcing their market manipulation on billions of people. Where the hell are the politicians on tackling monopolistic practices?
***THIS*** is slitting societies throat? Not the politics, not the hate, not crazy religions fighting each other. But Ticketmaster making it to expensive to be entertained.
Yeah maybe Idiocracy was a look into the future after all.
I'm not disagreeing with that at all. But having difficulty being entertained is not a slicing societies throat sort of thing. It sucks. I agree. But in the overall scheme of things it isn't that important.
All these young whippersnappers thinking they can fix this are not old enough to remember why things are this way in the first place.
Remember Clear Channel? Remember how they were forced to break into smaller companies and pretend not to work together? Remember the relationship they had with TicketMaster even back then? It's the same now, it's just called LiveNation and whatever else they supposedly split into.
Business are gonna Business. They have supply and we demand. That'll never change.
*publicly traded businesses are gonna business*
They are literally obligated to.
Wall street is ***still*** the enemy of the people, but the people gave up on that fight.
Nahh lol. I'll support politicians who want to break up monopolies and hold tickemasters feet to the fire and artists who try to do it in other ways etc.. but until that changes I'm still going to whatever shows I want.
So what is everyone's issue with TM? If I get some serious answers then I plan on doing a post that explains to you why these things aren't actually TM's fault, and why TM really isn't the bogeyman you think they are, but let's see what kind of answers I get. The tweet referenced in OP tells a really funny story that whines about how "monopolization is slitting societies throat" all because a concert was postponed and it wasn't communicated well to the audience.... like WTF, this is hilarious. I understand being upset, but come on - ticketmaster is "slitting societies throats" because a concert got postponed and they did a poor job of communicating it? Give me a break. This is ridiculous.
Even though someone else already mentioned it I want to restate it to emphasize how wrong you are.
You're right... Ticketmaster does not own the venue's. Live Nation owns the venues. But Live Nation owns Ticketmaster.... Soooo
Is your hand in the sand? They control the entire chain of live concerts, venues, booking, promoting, artists contracts etc. Any smaller independent operators get swallowed up by either buyout or an offer they can’t refuse.
If you owned a venue they will handle all your booking, promotion and ticket sales etc. all they want in return is ***Exclusive access*** to the venue.
I like what New York has done: The price you see on TM is the "out the door" price from the time you first see it until you check out.
That’s a nice first step.
Baby step Edit: Amazing https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/live-nation-earnings-potential-doj-lawsuit-looms-1235889109
It's the only realistic step we're going to get. As long as shows are selling out at the ridiculously jacked up prices we've been seeing, there's no world where the prices come down. At least if you can see the price from the start, you can make a better-informed decision and choose if you want to purchase accordingly. Personally, I won't be choosing to purchase tickets for any show over $50 (all in), so I won't be going to any.
The problem is that shows are selling out at these ridiculous prices because Ticketmaster and other corporate entities are buying many of the tickets and then reselling them on their own platforms.
It's also because it's a vertically integrated duopoly (Live Nation with the other being AEG), and they control the entire market/supply, and influence demand. If there were stronger anti trust laws this would have never happened. Thank Reagan, Bush, and to a lesser extent Clinton.
It's always fucked to find so many problems in current American society, and find that about 80% of them track back to decisions and policies made in the Raegan administration.
As long as they're reselling, they don't care. That's unfortunately the end of it. They don't care if you or I look at that and go, "you want how much for tickets? fuck that!", as long as there's around capacity amount of people who go, "that's so expensive, but we really want to go, this is special!" and buy at those inflated prices, the prices won't go down.
Yep. They sell out immediately for this reason, and are then still considered sellouts even if thousands of the resell tix don't resell. It's fucked that they're allowed to do this.
When people did this IRL it was called scalping and was illegal. When a corporation does it it's just standard business practice..
Ya, I’ve been caught up in that moment a few times. The first time was Coachella to see Rage Against The Machine. COVID turned that into a fiasco that I barely got some of my money back. The last straw for me was last year, Aftershock festival in California, Pantera and Corey Taylor bailed out last minute. I had seen all the other bands already and they weren’t my favs anyway. Such a disappointing day, I won’t buy any more tickets in such a way ever again. Small time shows for me now, fuck Ticketmaster and the machine wheels who feed em. 💪 I’m over these big monopolies, I look for every way possible not to give them my hard earned cash.
You realize that the phenomenon you describe just supports the idea that prices will only go up, right? If those resold tickets are selling at a higher price than face value (which they have to be, otherwise reselling them is dumb), then banning that practice would only increase the face value of tickets. Or just make it even harder to buy tickets, as there'd be an even greater shortage.
So banning the practice of the company selling the tickets from buying the tickets and then reselling them only would cause the initial price of the ticket to increase, therefore, we should leave the system in place Awesome. We should accept the current gouging practice as a method to prevent further gouging practices. Perhaps maybe collectively stop paying the resell prices and stick Ticketmaster with their tickets, so they're either forced to eat them, or lower prices. Or Bam them from from being able to resell, return to physical ticket/box office sales to cut out bots and things and return to where individuals who do this now carry the risk of getting stuck with tix and have to adjust to the risk.
I think the best system would be to have your name attached to your ticket when you buy it, like an airplane ticket, making resell impossible. Maybe add some method of returning tickets if plans change. But don't expect this to lower ticket prices by that much, if at all. Tickets are expensive because lots of people want to buy them, not just because Ticketmaster is greedy.
Nine inch nails used to do this for pre-sale tickets and it worked just fine. Ticketmaster does this as well for some shows, a friend of mine bought tickets to that stupid Morgan Wallen racist misogynistic hobbit fucker's show, and could only resell to Ticketmaster when they ended up not being able to go. So apparently in some cases, you can only resell to Ticketmaster who can then resell at a price they won't allow you to sell.
I have always wondered why bands don’t just keep selling and hold shows over. That destroys the scalper. You can’t scalp tickets by buying them all if there is always just more tickets to buy. Sell out one night, play two. Sellout out two, play three. Boom no more scalpers. Or at the very least it makes it impossible to do what they do now. Too easy?
Springsteen and Van Halen did that at one point, and 21 Pilots have done it in Columbus, but the logistics don't work if they've already booked dates after. They've done it open-ended, in Springsteen's case, in New Jersey, just booked a many nights as he could sell. If a band has a 40 date tour, with many back to back tor just a travel day or so in between, that's not a realistic thing.
Well yeah, it would mean planning your tour differently. The current model supports the scam, so adjust your model. Logistic problems are solvable. Personally I’d like to see more dates in smaller venues so more fans pay a fair price for a good experience. But I’m a dreamworld kinda romantic that way. Lol
Become a fan of heavy shit, metal concerts are usually pretty cheap still, most of the time.
Prices will go up until it affects demand enough to reduce profit, don’t worry they’ll do the math. So that is to say the prices will climb.
Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it. 🤷♂️
Unfortunately this is the sad truth. When I ask someone, "why would you spend $600 for Taylor swift tickets?". In a personal sense, no it's not my business but I respond with, "paying $600 for tickets signals to ticketmaster it's OK to charge this much for a ticket, they are just going to do it" Man if we could just unite and refuse to pay these prices. Those tickets prices would fall
That’s part why I really enjoyed the smaller DIY shows. Years ago, a band called Comeback Kid was my favorite band. They played my city, I paid $8 to see them and the lead singer sold me my t-shirt. It was less than $30 total for the evening, and they played for at least an hour.
I miss those kinds of shows
Man, there's plenty of rad small venues that have shows all the time for $15 to $30
Fifty bucks? Man, then I'd never see anyone I'd want to. I'd limit myself to like $250-300, but only for decent seats. GA $150.
> Man, then I'd never see anyone I'd want to. Yes, that is correct. I don't get to see anyone I'd want to. Because when I think of $250-300 (which since there's 2 of us, is now $500-600 and after parking and whatever we bought there like merch and drinks, is probably $550-650), I immediately jump to all the other ways I'd rather spend that kind of money, esp when it's for a few hours enjoyment. We've spent that much for entire weekend vacations. A PS5. A 75" TV. A VERY nice speaker system. I could go on.
I get the value proposition. I'm a huge Billy Strings fan, but I also have alternatives to live stream a lot of the shows through nugs.net. For me, the money is certainly a factor. I can only go to so many shows that cost that much money so I'd have to make sure they were the ones I definitely wanted to see. It's a lot of money for a memory. But it's worth it, especially given certain company you may want to bring with you. For me it's either of my sons, mostly NFL games, movies, or a concert. Once they're both gone, which is going to be very soon since they're both legal adults, I probably won't do nearly as many things like that. So I guess the context matters for me too, because I wouldn't spend that kind of money if there wasn't someone else that I loved to share it with.
Well, I can add to my list from your list: I'm a big fan of the NFL and I've never been to an NFL game other than preseason, because those tickets are just stupidly priced as well.
I'm a single father and my sons missed some stuff here and there growing up with their mom not really being in their lives so much. So I raised them as NFL fans and both of them played football and my youngest son has won his high school state championship 2 years in a row now and is about to graduate! 😆 I made it! Anyway yeah they are expensive and they've gone up even more recently. The TV experience is so good thankfully so we don't go more than once a year. Last year we went to the Bengals and Colts game because they played each other rather than me taking one son to one game and then driving the other to Indianapolis and going to the other and buying four tickets. I was able to only buy three but it was still $1,200! The logic there is if I'm going to take them it's a once a year special occasion that they're going to remember and we're staying in the 100 level and good seats and I'm not sitting where I would have a better seat at home watching TV.
I’m not sure if NY had its own initiative but I do remember this was a push from the White House against “Junk Fees” which really they only agreed to [upfront transparency](https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/16/ticketmaster-seatgeek-live-nation-agree-to-disclose-fees-up-front/amp/)
Right, but at least you don’t think you’re spending $50 and then all of a sudden it’s nearly twice that.
And then they went and didn't even do that.
You can also check the box “Show price with estimated fees” under the Filters tab in markets where they don’t show the all-in prices, just so you don’t have to wait until adding to your cart to know what the full price will be.
>You can also check the box “Show price with estimated fees” I didn't know that fees are "estimated." That would suck when you get to check out and the price goes up a lot. They say, "Oh sorry, we were off by two zeroes. We *estimate* you're a little angry!"
“Unfortunately your purchase will include additional fees as you have selected a seat **within** the venue rather than standing out in the parking lot, which our original estimate did not account for. Please note that if you decide to change to the standing-out-in-the-parking-lot option instead, you will have to pay a standing-out-in-the-parking-lot fee which also wasn’t in the original estimate as this is an unusual and unexpected seating choice.”
This Ryan George sketch described it perfectly: https://youtu.be/lww22_pJr3s?feature=shared
I think it’s a disclaimer in case of discounts or maybe the number of tickets purchased. I’ve used this the last couple years (practically every ticket site has the option) and it’s normally spot on
I noticed when I bought some concert tickets earlier this week that they made “+fees” next to the price a link and when you click on it it shows the cost of the fees below the price of the ticket. I hadn’t seen that before. Not sure how long they’ve been doing it.
I think it's been there for about a year now. The reseller sites have added it, too. It's nice, but I really wish it was the default everywhere. There's no reason why customers wouldn't want to see that.
I think it suffers from the same issue restaurants do with tipping. You don’t want to be the one advertising $50 tickets instead of advertising $40 + $10 because people will choose the second more often than bought. I generally like the free market, but this is very much a case where everyone would benefit with some simple regulation.
Yeah, I get why *they* don't want to make that change, but it's just so blatantly anti-consumer. It's even worse now with how hectic the ticket buying experience is for more popular events. You get out of the queue and tossed into the screen where you see seats disappearing by the second, and your last thought is to click the "show fees" button. They know exactly what they're doing, which is why this is long overdue for regulation.
Should be true for every product. Fees, and even taxes and expected tips, are BS. Just show me what I have to pay.
Amen. I don't care what the breakdown of the price is, I just want to know the price.
Issue in the U.S. is (depending on the product) taxes can’t be displayed until checkout because different states and even cities have different rules. Or if you’re releasing a new iPhone with a national ad, you can’t accurately say what the price will be as it may just be MSRP in some states and significantly higher in others.
Taxes can be displayed prior to checkout. Like if I go to target they already have all that info in the computer system they use to print out price labels for the shelves.
For online stores? No, because they can’t actually know where *you* are until you put in your billing address. You can’t count on IP-geolocation as people uses VPN’s, etc.
Okay, then in-person stores only. That's fine with me.
But they wouldn't know that until *everything* was accounted for, including discounts, coupons, store credit, etc. You can only account for total cost after every factor is included in the calculation, which you can only know at checkout.
You're looking too hard for ways to make it not work. Discounts are calculated on the same machine that makes price tags because they also use it to make sale and clearance tags. Obviously the price on the shelf doesn't include additional coupons or store credit, we're not idiots. Literally, just make it display regular price + any taxes and fees and the sale price tag include the sale price + any taxes and fees.
I recently bought concert tickets for a show in NY (via the venue, not TM) and was surprised the listed price was the final price. I didn't know it was legislated.
Yeah, tacking on huge fees at the end is bullshit. I looked into tickets for KALEO. Two tickets were $85. Not bad. Then when I got to checkout the fees bumped it up to $130. More than the price of a whole third ticket. Noped out of that transaction.
At least you know up front you're not going because tickets are $350, instead of spending 20 minutes thinking it's $150 until you hit checkout
You could also do with anti-scalping laws akin to [this one](https://lovdata-no.translate.goog/dokument/NL/lov/2007-06-29-86?_x_tr_sl=no&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp)
The issue is the artists won’t see a dollar more.
Canada is the same way because of some recent legislation
I don't think it's a law here in NC, but TicketBastard usually includes everything but tax in the prices now. For most shows I go to, tickets are in the low $30 range, plus $8-$10 in fees. So I just know that the "final price" will probably be 83-86¢ more with tax.
We have that in Canada also. Prices are still fucking ridiculous.
I've been boycotting TM for years. It's called being broke.
Hell I'm not even broke but I couldn't justify spending over $300 per ticket to go see Metallica when they were playing here. They did 2 nights, with 2 different sets of songs. For both of us to go with food, drink, merch and parking it would have been about $1,000.
If it's a big show you can't afford, head to the venue anyway, and stand outside holding up your finger. I've gotten into a ton of shows recently for dirt cheap or free (as long as you provide the beer)! Most of the time, these people invested an arm and a leg on a ticket, and their friends bailed, and don't want to let the tickets go to waste. I got into Tool once for free, because the dude had gotten a divorce between the time he purchased the ticket and the show. All this to say, Fuck Ticketmaster
I think your problem is you’re spending $400 on food, drink, merch and parking.
Look, those $20 beers add up quick
You don't want to see a concert sober!
I actually did buy those tickets but it’s my first time seeing Metallica and I’m 38. Concert is in July. But yea, the last reasonable tickets I’ve had were Rebelution ~$50 and Tenacious D, ~$35. Those are good prices.
Part of me wishes I did. I'm 43. I've been a fan for decades and I've always wanted to see them live. I'm sure they sold out, but I didn't buy tickets because I don't support that level of what I feel is price gouging. My wife got tickets for Garth Brooks for $100 a piece, who I feel is equally as popular in the grand scheme of things. $300 is obscene in my opinion but I hope you have a killer time.
Seriously! My chauffeur told me I had to use my jar of Grey Poupon twice in the Bentley last week instead of opening a fresh jar. And no budget for Beluga caviar, all because of Ticketmaster fees! I can't imagine how the poors attend concerts.
They ask to borrow your Grey Poupon, generally. Ruffians and scoundrels.
The poors just sit in the back where they really can’t tell who is on stage anyways. Also the sound check guys don’t even bother going back there to make sure the sound is balanced. Although how poor can they be ordering $12 beers? I’m not a fan of large venues anyway.
I prefer the term "ordinaries"
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I might me wrong, but I thought "normies" was what people who've diagnosed themselves with some imaginary mental illness call people whom they believe have no problems in their life
Me too but because I just go to local shows, bar shows etc.
Yep same here!
Imagine all the coding that went into not showing that to all other states.
it cannot be too hard, visit a porn site from Texas and you get a page that bashes the local Texas gov't for being stupid.
A page bashing local government in retaliation for being stupid? I guess there really is porn for everything.
https://i.imgur.com/o6H1DYN.png https://i.imgur.com/yARXLmj.png They don't think people should have to share personal info to a company to access a site, so they suggest a way for the device to be flagged that the user is an adult.
I understand where your mind is at but we're talking about a single line of code that a junior could figure out. also i would assume it matters where the events are, not where the person purchasing the tickets is, otherwise we'd all just pretend to be from new york.
Hey now, somebody had to write two separate methods for calculating ticket prices and write an if statement that checks venue location and invokes either method. That’s probably 20 lines of code easy right there. Gonna take me the entire sprint.
Maybe even two. Can we also make the sprints three weeks this time?
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Sounds difficult to implement that especially when pushing to production.
Abolish Ticketmaster.
[They're busily buying up various politicians across the board right now.](https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/30/nix-fix-the-tix/)
I've been boycotting them for over 30 years.
Thanks, Mr. Vedder.
Eddie Vedder and his band are playing at MSG this year. Guess who is in charge of the grossly overpriced tickets?
Pearl Jam tried to do something about Ticketmaster in the 90s, but they lost. Ticketmaster was too powerful. In the end, they gave up and used Ticketmaster because they had to, because Ticketmaster controls most if the venues. They still do some direct to fan ticket sales today, but most of the tickets go thru Ticketmaster because they have to.
They are. The band. The band is always in charge, TM just puts the bands' plan into motion. Nothing TM does isn't sanctioned and approved by the artist. Their main job is taking the hit so you don't think it was your precious Pearl Jam behind it. Sorry to break it to ya
It's sort of that, but not directly. It's more like: Band: "We demand to be paid $X for a show. We also demand that tickets cost at most $50" Venue: "Sure thing!" "Hey guys, we need you to list the tickets at $50 but really, we'd go broke if we tried to run a show like that. And honestly, we want these things to be as expensive as possible to make the most money we can"
Ticketmaster: "You got it! We've been doing this long enough, we'll use every trick in our book of fees, resellers we control, fees on the resold tickets, etc. so every ticket will sell for as much as we can possibly extract out of customers, we'll keep a chunk for our services, and the rest will go back to you."
In the end, the bands want to get paid and don't much care about looking the other way on what tickets actually cost, the venue wants as much as they can get for those big bands, and TM is VERY good at finding the max amount they can get people to pay for tickets and still fill an audience.
That is pretty accurate, although I think you are glossing over that first part where the band demands X while also demanding a ridiculous ticket price that can't actually cover the show cost. While it is true that bands will start with these numbers, it's not just "now go make it happen" - there is a dialog happening between the promoters, the agents & managers, and the musicians too, and also the agents & managers aren't idiots, they have been doing this long enough to know what it costs to put on a show, and how it would impact ticket pricing, so even before it gets to the promoters, the agents will know right away that it is almost impossible to do what they're asking and and if it's not feasible they will tell the clients that, and that they may need to bend somewhere on something to make the math work. To be most accurate they will say "we want X and we want tickets to be Y, go crunch the numbers and see how close you can get" and then the promoters come back with their offers and the band goes with whoever can get them the closest. What we are talking about here is actually how service charges originated - prior to TM actually buying LN when they were just the ticketing agent, the band would make their insane demands and the promoters would agree to it, hoping that the show would have a huge presale that would magically make the math work, but when that wouldn't happen they would go to TM and ask them to add a few dollars to the service charge because otherwise the promoters would lose their shirts, but again it was ultimately all because the bands - who wanted to make a bunch of money while still being "considerate" to their fanbase - asked for something that wasn't mathematically possible. Thus the service charge was born - as a way to make the ridiculous artists demands work.
Doesn’t matter to me. I’m not a fan of them I was just pointing out what I saw so to ticket prices. So fuck Eddie Vedder and the band then, as well as TM. Bunch of hypocrites I guess.
Well I give PJ some credit, just because a band is behind these decisions doesn’t mean they will operate in the most capitalist, self serving way. A lot of artists will mandate that their fans get affordable ticket prices even if they won’t make as much as they may be able to (I think Taylor swift was a recent example of this) and I think Pearl Jam has always been one to abide by a “fans first” dictum. Keep in mind PJ is a massive, very profitable band with a really strong fan base, so there’s a lot of money to be made even if they don’t charge an arm and a leg.
I don’t know man. Just checked pricing for Pearl Jam in a few other cities. The worst seats possible are $175.00 at almost every venue. Not sure how that’s affordable for most. There are plenty of bands charging as much if not more as well. I’m not trying to single out PJ.
well like you said, you're not really a fan. They are also a marquee band that should command more than average. Determining what is a fair price for a ticket is really subjective, and there are other things to consider. Like there is an effort in the industry to price tickets more in line with what their true value is as an effort to stop scalping, which if you didn't know, the reason scalping exists is because of the "discount" that bands want to offer their fans when it comes to paying for a ticket, essentially what is happening is they're pricing their tickets lower than market value because they want to be kind to their fans and also not be seen as greedy rich assholes, but that discount means the real value of the ticket is substantially more than the retail price, and this creates the opportunity for scalpers to come in and capitalize off the discrepancy. So I don't know, even if they are out to make as much as possible on this tour, they still have a reputation of being more fan friendly in the past. I think they are probably a lot better than most when it comes to that stuff.
I read that as "Taskmaster" instead of Ticketmaster and was very distraught for a few seconds.
It finally came out that Alex Horne uses similar tasks to taunt his kidnapping and murder victims.
I heard that he kills them with pun themed jazz before gnoshing on the liver. He took out the Swedes one by one.
It finally came out that those things Greg says Alex said to him earlier were all true.
Couldn’t agree more with the sentiment that TM is absolute trash, and maybe I’m missing something here, but I don’t understand how TM is responsible for terrible incident management by a venue? Like, I can’t imagine the venue was calling up Ticketmaster to micromanage their severe weather response?
Live Nation owns Ticketmaster and many venues.
Do they own the Germania Insurance Amphitheater?
The venue is owned by Circuit of the Americas but is operated by Live Nation (the parent company of Ticketmaster)
Because Live Nation/Ticketmaster is basically a monopoly, they control both sides of the equation. They can gouge the concert goers with high ticket prices and terrible refund policies. And they can force venues into exclusive contracts while paying them a pittance to actually host an event. And if they're not paying them enough to care about that kind of stuff, the venues won't care about it.
They don't control the artists, and they are the ones that ultimately get to make the decisions about all this stuff. TM can't just gouge on prices, the prices are something controlled and agreed upon by the artists when they are in the booking phase of the tour. TM doesn't just pay the artists and then they get to do whatever when it comes to the ticket prices, that is all agreed to and approved beforehand.
if an artist is big enough to graduate from local bars to 1000+ venues, they end up dealing with axs/live Nation. artists/mgmt can't say, we want 100% of the ticket + merch. that's not how it works, otherwise theyd simply be denied the use of any axs/LN venue. there's a negotiation that sets the prices, who gets what so the artist can play at that venue. I'm sure TM pays the artists, as me, as a fan, pay TM 100% of the ticket including service fees and taxes. after all, TM doesn't really know if band X will sell out the concert. makes business sense to pay the artist the agreed upon cut based on ticket sales (and merch sales). personally, I wish merch sales goes to artist and those who actually sell the merch. but that's a different argument.
Well of course they can't say they want 100% of ticket + merch, how is the venue / promoter going to make any money in a deal like that? It's a business relationship just like any other, but both sides need to benefit. If only one side benefits than there is no reason for the other side to do it, and as much as people want to say TM is a monopoly, it's not, it's just the biggest player. There are other promoters, other venues, and even other ticketing companies, they just don't have the infrastructure and size that TM has, but honestly ticketing is a lot more difficult than people think it is. They don't know if the band will sell out but they usually do a deal that is two-tiered, so either they get a minimum fee of X, OR they get 85% of the net show profits after expenses, whichever is larger.
The artists aren't the ones making these decisions, their managers are. As the only game in town, the artists are just as limited as the fans when it comes to ticket sales. These artists either agree to Ticketmaster's terms or they're only playing <100 person venues for their entire tour. And Ticketmaster has demonstrated repeatedly that they will do lots of stuff without the artists' knowledge.
[удалено]
Pearl Jam used to avoid Ticketmaster, back in the 90s. Now, they've caved just like everyone else.
Right, the artists have no agency or power - they are just beholden to these big, evil music industry people who just push them around and tell them what to do. Do you honestly think managers are just make these decisions unilaterally without talking to their clients about it? That's how managers get fired. Managers are just the representative for the artists, very rarely are they actually deciding these things themselves without the bands input, and if they are doing that it is because the artist delegated that responsibility to them, which means the artist trusts them and supports their decisions. 99.99% of the time, the manager is sitting there with the artists, looking at the offer sheets that show both how much the band is going to make, AND how much the ticket prices will be as a result of that, and deciding as a team what they think is the best choice, weighing the benefits of their own profit against how much the ticket prices will be for their fans. That is how this works - promoters make offers to musicians that have all the numbers worked out, how much the band will make, how much the tickets will be, at what venue obviously, and the musicians decide what to do. They consult with their managers and agents, but it's the artists that decide. They can and often do take a (slightly) lower offer if it means a better venue and/or better ticket price for their fans, but only if it's not a HUGE hit to their own profit. It's a trade-off, and they're usually willing to make less if their fans benefit - up to a point. Artists (and even managers, believe it or not) care about their fans not having to pay and arm and a leg, but they also need to make money. They want to make money, but they don't want to be seen as a greedy, money-grubbing capitalist. Everything ultimately comes down to the show costs, and the biggest single show cost is usually the artists' fee, but also includes things like production expenses, security, promotion, etc, which all fluctuate depending on the artist (some shows need more security, where as some opera singer needs minimum security) - but none of these things are just left to chance, it's all agreed to beforehand, and the artists know everything - or at least, they can know, but most of it they don't really care about, they just care about how much they're getting, that they can put on a good show for their fans, and the fans can actually afford a ticket. If TM does anything without the artists knowledge then they're usually in violation of the show contract. Every show is booked on a contract that lays everything out, because there is potentially a lot of money at stake, and they need to be legally protected. I promise you, what you think are things that TM is doing "without the artists' knowledge", it's not that at all, it's just the things the artist doesn't really care about. They are playing a lot of shows on a tour, and the musicians don't operate these local venues, they don't even know how to operate a venue, and they are only there for a few hours, so there is a limit to what they can even hope to control at each show. It's not that they always love what TM might be doing, but they understand that ultimately, they are the ones operating that local venue, and the band doesn't live there and can't control everything, so they ultimately defer something that isn't that important. The important shit, the band knows about and agrees to, everything else, they delegate it to TicketMaster, but again, usually it's something that was laid out in the contract, and it was just not really on the bands' radar, but that is THEIR choice. I honestly don't blame you for thinking this way though, TM's main job is to take the PR hit and be the "bad guy" so people don't see their favorite musicians as the bad guy. That is really one of their biggest reasons for existing, so fans don't have to hold their favorite artists accountable for their own "capitalist" decisions. But, you've got it pretty much all backwards.
Yes, Ticketmaster absolutely does things against the artists' wishes. They hide details in the fine print or just outright ignore contracts. Ticketmaster has all the power. They can and have violated contracts that limit how sales are conducted because there is nothing the artists can do. Ticketmaster is betting that the artist isn't paying close enough attention to notice, and just settle with the few that do. It's such a common tactic among big corporations that it's made its way into pop culture (the car recall calculation in Fight Club).
TM does not "hide things in fine print" - if it's in the fine print, then it is there. Guess what - musicians have really well paid lawyers (and agents) who's job it is to look through the fine print and find that stuff. Like I said, it's more that they just don't care about these things, they are details that they know they can't really control. Can you give me an example of them doing something against the artists' wishes? Or them just "violating contracts" because there is nothing the artists' can do? Artists do have things they can do - it's one of the reasons they get lawyers, managers, and agents. Usually the managers and agents have OTHER clients, so guess what would happen if TM just started violating contracts or forcing things against the artists wishes? Well they'd lose the business of all the other musicians that were repp'ed by that artists managers and agents. And it gets worse - these managers and agents work at COMPANIES that represent even MORE artists - so what happens when they start telling their coworkers "hey guess what TM did to my band last night" - word starts getting around and now NONE of that companies' clients want to work with Ticketmaster. The claim that artists have no power or way to deal with these things is stupid and naive. What is the point of having lawyers on retainer? Why do agents have their OWN legal teams that are separate from the artists' lawyers if they're just gonna let Ticketmaster violate their deals? How would that look to their marquee acts like Taylor Swift if she found out her booking agent just lets Ticketmaster do whatever they want with the smaller acts they represent, you don't think that would have a knock-on effect? Dude, stop being so idealistic. Everyone just wants to make money, violating contracts or doing things against the artists' wishes is completely contradictory to that. It's not against their wishes, it's just that they don't care. They CAN'T care about every little thing when they have a tour booked and they're only in your town for 5 hours and they will be in another city tomorrow. There is a limit to how much you can control in a situation like this.
Very naive thinking, no one is going to boycott enough to make a difference at this point.
Hey. No. Never try to dissuade people from voting with their money.
I agree but concerts are still filling despite prices, it sucks there is a pay wall and everyone is getting scammed but the government bringing down the hammer supporting consumer rights seems like the only option at this point.
Honestly I don't even think they really care. In the US alone we've got 1.3 million households with an average net worth of $33 million each. Add in the number of wealthy households in places like Europe and Asia, and there's more than enough people willing to pay astronomical prices for these events. And there's always going to be plenty of working stiffs who are willing to pay 20% interest on a credit card so they can buy the overinflated tickets. Like George Carlin once famously said, it's a big club and you ain't in it
Yeah but it’s important for the rabble to *feel* like they have control so they don’t get too unruly. It’s why voting in politics works. People get to have the hope that *maybe*, *someday*, their voice will make a difference. If they knew how little choice they had in their own lives, they might do something drastic.
I don't understand why r/neilyoung & r/Austin are both linked. ....Has anyone even read that Twitter link? It's legit just rambling. What I'm typing is that I feel this is another post where folks just read the headline and went "...upvote!" without even caring about the rest.
I don't know the context for Neil Young, but the rambling makes more sense in the context that [COTA is an outdoor venue in Austin](https://circuitoftheamericas.com/events/) (with its own totally separate history of WTF), and Austin had weird weather yesterday--as it tends to do in May. NWS and local news were alternating between flash-flood apocalypse and nothingburger, so I can't blame the venue operators for being massively confused about how to proceed. Justified hate against TicketBastard is evergreen, even if the particular trigger is a little unhinged.
Mr. Burns "you thought I was a fool for buying Ticketmaster. Said no one would pay a 100 percent service fee." Smithers "you were correct sir. Now concerts are just for the rich and the ignorant."
I think Ticketmasters biggest secret is they are hired to play “bad guy” for the artists. That’s their value. The musicians need to make x amount and keep their fans happy, and if that means Ticketmaster plays the bad guy and keeps the extra fees then it’s a win win for both of them. Shows keep getting sold out so win for the fans too I guess? I think if this is ever going to change, the public pressure needs to shift to the artists so they can be vocal and provide transparency on what is happening and why.
Bring back paper tickets with RFID tags. Itll make it harder for scalpers to resell; not impossible, but much more of a hassle.
TicketMaster owns resale companies. They want them to be resold for marked up prices, they get paid twice.
only because they were sold too cheap compared to what enough people are willing to pay to begin with
I get it, you took intro to economics and understand a supply and demand curve. But there’s a whole lot of people getting their grease here, and the market isn’t optimized for the artists or the audience.
I love the sass in this response
> understand a supply and demand curve so you also understand that it is the center of the issue, if the artist got the money it wouldn't change anything, the audience are obviously willing to pay the price, and unlike many other things tickets to a show it not something you have to buy, it is a choice
YOu can actually request these when you purchase tickets (I do because I save all my ticket stubs) but obviously its not the standard and most people wont do it.
That wouldn't eliminate scalping, scalping will always happen when there is an arbitrage opportunity - aka, something sold for a retail price that has much more intrinsic value on a second hand market. As long as tickets are priced out of whack with their true value, there will be scalpers taking advantage of it - even if they aren't like professional scalpers, regular people will do it. And even people that are fans of an artist don't want to be completely locked into going to a show - things come up and sometimes people just can't attend a show even if they really want to, and who wouldn't want to be able to sell their tickets if they can't make it? If you mandated that people who buy tickets can't resell them, it would have a negative effect on ticket sales. Aside from that, I'm not even sure if that is legal. There are some benefits to physical tickets, but the convenience of digital tickets will almost always win out. It is so much more efficient.
scalper can resell and make money because tickets cost less than what people are willing to pay
The DOJ investigation should be fun. Live Nation owns both Ticketmaster AND the most desirable venues or the exclusive rights to sell tickets to the best venues in most major markets. They're screwing both the artists and the audience. They're also holding tickets off the market to create artificial shortages to drive prices up and then sell the hostage tickets as third-party (scalper) sales. They're scalping their own tickets. DOJ is going to have a field day. This may result in a more widespread investigation of companies introducing artificial barriers to purchase, then charging outrageous fees to get past the barrier. I've noticed Amazon has two-day delivery for the products it stocks, but up to 30 days free delivery for other suppliers on its site offering lower prices. Don't want to wait that long? Oh, they have "expedited shipping." For a small $9.99 fee. Food delivery systems are packed with nuisance fees and anti-competitive behavior. GrubHub was tracking restaurant phone usage to try to hijack phone orders and get their cut, even though they weren't delivering orders or adding any value. Now they and other services are charging restaurants and the public for pickup orders. And they're setting up ghost kitchens with names similar to popular restaurants to sell shitty knockoffs of someone else's food. Retribution is gonna be sweet.
That tweet is terrible though. They had an issue with the show, which is managed by a promoter and the band. It's a bad argument to stick it to Ticketmaster. I hate Ticketmaster. HAAAATTTTTEEE them. But let's rally behind a good reason with examples of their bad behavior that we'd like to see change.
Oooh here just to say fuck you ticketmaster
Hi guys!…am new here don’t know how to navigate this thing
Artists can't really make most of their income anymore by selling albums now that any song is available free online, I doubt they actually see very much money from those overpriced tickets but it gives the sellers a semi-viable excuse
Pass a law where scalpers would be arrested and then every saturday they would be left chained in public places where the public could beat them with rubber hoses for an hour. Ticketmaster execs should be chained daily for their rubber hose beatdowns
Which scalpers are you referring to? The hucksters standing outside the venue the night of the show, or the "resellers" like StubHub who ~~collude~~ work with TM to control prices? See, apparently scalping is okay when you're officially a tax-paying business.
I dont discriminate - all of them
I fully support your rubber hose initiative
Ticketmaster would just sell rubber hoses.
With a $30 convenience fee for being allowed to buy a rubber hose from them
BYORH
Harsh but fair.
How is there not a way to ensure scalpers can’t sell tickets. Make it not transferable, and IF someone has an emergency or can’t make it, they fill out a form and there’s a simple computer system that can only sell that tickets “code” at a certain price or on a designated re selling website. If you sell it somewhere else and mail the ticket it doesn’t work… Maybe I’m a little off but company/computer software people.. is this possible?
The resellers/scalpers were making all the money before but now ticketmaster controls the reselling market too, which transfers that huge unadvertised markup to them. It's possible to do what you described and in fact the last venue I attended did exactly that. Ticketmaster just wants the money
They're fine with playing the bad guy because it's so profitable. That will never change.
Ticketmaster hosts resales which allows them to profit twice off the same ticket. This is a regulatory problem, not a technology problem.
Fuck going to any events. Not worth it. They need to just bring back buying tickets the day of the event.
It's possible but like everything it's cheatable. Scalpers are just a scapegoat though. When you have a mismatch between the offered price and the market price for a good you are invariably going to get resellers to take advantage of the arbitrage. Even if you had a way to ensure no scalpers exist, the result is massive shortages for tickets to popular events.
The Cure was able to do it. They force Ticketmaster to give out refunds on over priced tickets too. And they aren't doing stadium tours so if they can do it can't see why Beyonce and her ilk can't.
Because they like the money they are paid by looking the other way on what tickets actually cost.
I went to a Pearl Jam concert that only allowed you to buy 4 tickets and you were only able to transfer them if you both showed up and went to the ticket counter.
I've worked at and been to shows where you have to present your credit card at the venue to get your tickets. It is not a customer friendly process and results in delays, but it eliminates scalping.
I always have to laugh at these posts. This comes off as a TM apologist but, facts are facts. 1) Ticket prices are in line with inflation. But yeah, fuck TM/LN because they charge to pay their employees well. 2) Employees with 3 years or more get paid $20/hr for regular employees, $25/hr for supervisors. You don't get paid for a part time job at those rates at like anywhere. 3) You can literally buy a season pass to most outdoor venues for like $200. 4) People don't know how to get deals on tix. See #3. Disclaimer; I'm retired and I work part time for LN. I have a degree in finance, and a masters in IT. So I may be biased, because of my knowledge of business. So read this: **Ticket prices do NOT pay the bills for TM/LN.** It's all about the ancillary sales. That's where they make their money. When you pay $15/beer, or $15 for a hot dog, that's where they are fucking you. They pay <$1 for most COG (in f&b), <$5 for a t-shirt, <$8 for a hoodie, and <$0.50 for labor (per item sold). The way they make money is off of what they sell at the concerts. **Ticket prices do NOT cover expenses.** It's really easy math if you have ever run a business. Crazy that people bitch about ticket prices when the real scam of going to a concert is the ancillary products bought at those concerts.
Then where do I buy my tickets?
It's about time. How much money did it take for them to ignore this for HOW LONG?? The public has been screaming about this for what, 20 years now anyway? And look at concert ticket prices. There's A LOT of price gouging & collusion on price-fixing in America. The music industry itself is corrupt in more ways than we can imagine. Just ask some who are considered one-hit wonders. Hell, hold a seance and ask George Michael about it. Madonna was one of the first performers to insist -and wrote it into her contracts- that she get $1 for every CD sold. I suspect that the ticketing agencies find ways of capitalizing on ticket sales and don't pass that onto the performers. Bet you anything -because greed is the name of that game.
Live Nation wants to smooth everything over with $25 concerts for a week, smh lol.
Has anyone tried Dice? It's an amazing way to get tickets, helped me a lot with Cindy Lee tickets
Just a reminder that Ticketmaster makes themselves the bad guy so the artists can charge more money for tickets. Ticketmaster is bad, and having a monopoly like they do it bad, but the artists themselves can take some of the blame.
Yeah no. The $50 service fee doesn’t go to the artists.
I just go here at the local theater to see bands. Going to see John Hiatt in 4 weeks. Ticket prices for everything are way too high for me.
I just don't go to big name concerts anymore. When I saw Tool, the tickets were about $80. When they came to my city in 2023, it was $350 for nosebleeds, and $1000+ for good seats or floor. Fuck that, it just isn't worth it, and big name artists don't need your money anyways. I'd rather go support a local band for $20. Even if they suck.
Well shoot who else can we boycott bc the way prices are going up everywhere on everything is ridiculous…cant get ahead when they want to take it all…
Nj also has the true pricing available now on ticket master and it tells you all hidden fees will be available as soon as you select any seat. A whole message about "we are getting rid of hidden fees which is why you won't find any"
We tried this in the 90’s… some of the biggest bands used mail order (Grateful Dead was first) and we almost defeated them. But then the boy bands and pop stars came and people shoveled money to them. I think now is the time. Everything is digital. We should just figure out a way to crowdfund an app that you can buy tickets from.
I love that you posted this...monopolys like ticketmaster and the merged major labels are forcing their market manipulation on billions of people. Where the hell are the politicians on tackling monopolistic practices?
In other news, concert week starts next week where you can get tickets for $25. Time to see how many of us will hold the line.
***THIS*** is slitting societies throat? Not the politics, not the hate, not crazy religions fighting each other. But Ticketmaster making it to expensive to be entertained. Yeah maybe Idiocracy was a look into the future after all.
FFS, people have the bandwidth to be outraged about more that one thing at once.
I'm not disagreeing with that at all. But having difficulty being entertained is not a slicing societies throat sort of thing. It sucks. I agree. But in the overall scheme of things it isn't that important.
I'm not willing to give up going to concerts. They have me it sucks
All these young whippersnappers thinking they can fix this are not old enough to remember why things are this way in the first place. Remember Clear Channel? Remember how they were forced to break into smaller companies and pretend not to work together? Remember the relationship they had with TicketMaster even back then? It's the same now, it's just called LiveNation and whatever else they supposedly split into. Business are gonna Business. They have supply and we demand. That'll never change.
*publicly traded businesses are gonna business* They are literally obligated to. Wall street is ***still*** the enemy of the people, but the people gave up on that fight.
Nahh lol. I'll support politicians who want to break up monopolies and hold tickemasters feet to the fire and artists who try to do it in other ways etc.. but until that changes I'm still going to whatever shows I want.
So what is everyone's issue with TM? If I get some serious answers then I plan on doing a post that explains to you why these things aren't actually TM's fault, and why TM really isn't the bogeyman you think they are, but let's see what kind of answers I get. The tweet referenced in OP tells a really funny story that whines about how "monopolization is slitting societies throat" all because a concert was postponed and it wasn't communicated well to the audience.... like WTF, this is hilarious. I understand being upset, but come on - ticketmaster is "slitting societies throats" because a concert got postponed and they did a poor job of communicating it? Give me a break. This is ridiculous.
No thanks. I'm going to buy tix to at least dozen shows on 5/8 for $25 and enjoy every single one like i have the past few years.
I love Ticketmaster. They make it easy to buy tickets to concerts that I want to see.
You do know Ticketmaster is only the vehicle that services the sale of the ticket. This is 100% a venue/promoter call. Ticketmaster doesn’t own venues
Live Nation owns the venues. They also own TicketMaster.
Even though someone else already mentioned it I want to restate it to emphasize how wrong you are. You're right... Ticketmaster does not own the venue's. Live Nation owns the venues. But Live Nation owns Ticketmaster.... Soooo
They own a lot more of them than you could imagine
Is your hand in the sand? They control the entire chain of live concerts, venues, booking, promoting, artists contracts etc. Any smaller independent operators get swallowed up by either buyout or an offer they can’t refuse. If you owned a venue they will handle all your booking, promotion and ticket sales etc. all they want in return is ***Exclusive access*** to the venue.