Ask HN: Why is it so hard to disrupt Ticketmaster? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Why is it so hard to disrupt Ticketmaster?

#121

Post by KptMarchewa » Sat, Nov 19, 2022, 3:06 AM UTC

georgeplusplus wrote: post #94

KptMarchewa wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It isn't just that the venues have exclusive contracts, its also that if they break the exclusivity contract with TicketMaster, they can't use a competing service for 2 years (though I can't find proof of this, when I worked in venues 20 years ago, this was the case). How is that legal under Sherman Act?

It's probably not along with many other industries that sorely need the Sherman act, but the DOJ would have to bring charges and sometimes it's not politically popular especially during periods of bad economy to do so

Well, it actually happened right now. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-opens-antitrust-probe-in...

Re: Ask HN: Why is it so hard to disrupt Ticketmaster?

#122

Post by rieTohgh6 » Sat, Nov 19, 2022, 11:54 AM UTC

comprev wrote: post #92

In the same way it's so hard to disrupt Google. They are such a powerful monopoly the average Joe rarely thinks there is an alternative.

Ticketmaster is nowhere close to Google's monopoly. If anybody want to buy a ticket, they will use whatever site sells them, users just don't care, they will follow any link from band's webpage. In case of search results you would have to fight to get and keep each user. I mean Google pays Firefox $400M a year, to be default search engine, despite its dwindling market share.

Re: Ask HN: Why is it so hard to disrupt Ticketmaster?

#123

Post by ryanchants » Sat, Nov 19, 2022, 3:03 PM UTC

batmaniam wrote: post #119

Justsignedup wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much this. And just to add, any startup that even attempts this, EVEN WITH 100% ARTIST SUPPORT, cannot work out because venues have the exclusivity contracts. And worse, you can't split a venue up to 2 different sellers. They don't have a communication protocol for which seats are sold, so you end up in a position of double-booking. Also bad. Basically the only way for this to work is: a) a system exists where ven…

Sounds like the gov needs to step in and break it up. Anyone have any idea on getting that process started? This is probably a better path than trying to disrupt Ticketmaster as another random startup.

I saw this being passed around the other day: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-the-department-of-jus...

Re: Ask HN: Why is it so hard to disrupt Ticketmaster?

#124

Post by georgeplusplus » Sun, Nov 20, 2022, 12:31 AM UTC

KptMarchewa wrote: post #121

georgeplusplus wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably not along with many other industries that sorely need the Sherman act, but the DOJ would have to bring charges and sometimes it's not politically popular especially during periods of bad economy to do so

Well, it actually happened right now. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-opens-antitrust-probe-in...

Happy to see.

Re: Ask HN: Why is it so hard to disrupt Ticketmaster?

#125

Post by pedalpete » Sun, Nov 20, 2022, 6:06 AM UTC

georgeplusplus wrote: post #94

KptMarchewa wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It isn't just that the venues have exclusive contracts, its also that if they break the exclusivity contract with TicketMaster, they can't use a competing service for 2 years (though I can't find proof of this, when I worked in venues 20 years ago, this was the case). How is that legal under Sherman Act?

It's probably not along with many other industries that sorely need the Sherman act, but the DOJ would have to bring charges and sometimes it's not politically popular especially during periods of bad economy to do so

This isn't the first time LN/TM have been been through this process.

Ian Hogarth of SongKick describes how he first fought the anti-trust.

https://twitter.com/soundboy/status/1593549611431493632

Re: Ask HN: Why is it so hard to disrupt Ticketmaster?

#126

Post by wdr1 » Mon, Nov 21, 2022, 9:05 PM UTC

syndacks wrote: post #115

wdr1 wrote: post #109

I worked at Ticketmaster as an Engineering Director for a few years. I'd be happy to share my perspective. - Selling tickets is hard. I mean really hard. By coincidence, I just hit my 14 year mark at Google. I also spent 5 years at Yahoo! in the early 2000s. I'd like to think I've seen hard technical problems over my career. And again, ticketing is hard. - There's not that much money it. Especially relative to the te…

What's so hard about selling tickets? Is it a technical challenge? A sales challenge? An operational challenge? I'm having a hard time understanding how selling tickets to a concert is so hard.

Tickets aren't fungible. You can never sell the same seat twice.

You have complex business rules. How venues are laid out change. How tickets are marketed is very dynamic.

Bad actors have a strong incentive for fraud.

You have an insane delta between median traffic & traffic spikes. You need to be able to sell out the staple center in under 4 minutes to an audience of millions.