Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 319 posts

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#181

Post by supernova87a »

Let's however not get too caught up in feel-goodism that somehow breaking up Ticketmaster is ridding the live entertainment industry of some external leech that everyone hated.

You should realize that venues and artists are equally beneficiaries of what Ticketmaster enables. In a sense they enjoy having Ticketmaster be the hated scapegoat for high prices that they then also enjoy the benefits of.

Without Ticketmaster who knows how much less tickets would sell for. And venues get paid a cut by Ticketmaster. Artists get paid a cut by Ticketmaster. Sometimes those parties are glad for that value extraction from the concertgoer to be done on their behalf, and to be blamed on an entity that diverts attention from the fact that they want more $ too.

Ticketmaster did not just emerge to prey on an unwilling helpless industry. They occupy a niche that is part of a semi willing ecosystem.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#182

Post by Aunche »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #131
Loughla wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just looking at that last night. [Artist that was super popular in 2006ish] tickets when we went at the absolute height of his popularity were $40 for lawn seats at a local venue [Same artist] at the same venue in the same lawn seating is now $380. What's the difference? Guess who bought the venue.

> What's the difference? Disposable income of target audience. Greater number of people in target audience. Fewer shows. Technology enabling more accurate pricing so each customer is able to be targeted to pay as much as they can afford (price discrimination). Etc.

Also, artists can no longer make money by selling music, so the majority of their income comes from performances now.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#183

Post by cbsmith »

ldoughty wrote: post #62
nickff wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What theory is this from, some sort of administrative state theory? This has never been the case in any executive branch that I'm aware of.

"I want you to make sure this case goes nowhere, can you do that?" "No!" Fires leadership "I want you to make sure this case goes nowhere, can you do that?" "You got it!" Hires There certainly is some of this every administrative change over.

The political leadership generally can't fire civil servants for that reason. When Trump was in office, he complained about it a lot, and key part of Project 2025's policy plans are to get the rules on that changed: https://www.project2025.org/.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#184

Post by cbsmith »

dylan604 wrote: post #38
nickff wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What theory is this from, some sort of administrative state theory? This has never been the case in any executive branch that I'm aware of.

Exactly this. The first few days in office, a new POTUS will typically use executive orders specifically to reverse policies the previous administration put in place.

Yes, the administration can change policies, but dropping cases is another matter. Certainly policy changes can have an effect on cases, but it's not like cases get dropped at some dramatic rate when a new administration comes in.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#185

Post by bigstrat2003 »

ajdude wrote: post #163
throwaway5959 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not going to live music, at least in the US.

That's just not feasible for people who don't have the means to simply fly to Europe to see a band. Sometimes it's a once in a lifetime chance that your favorite band happens to be in your city

Of course it's feasible. Nobody is saying "go to Europe", they are saying to not go to concerts. To effect change, you have to make sacrifices.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#186

Post by __loam »

kylebenzle wrote: post #115
__loam wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand people like you. A government agency does something material to help the consumer and you just shit talk and resort to base cynicism. Nothing would ever change if everyone was as apathetic as you are.

No one is doing anything to help the consumer. Artists set their ticket prices, tickmaster is a middleman/scape goat. Pretending to go after the scapegoat is just for show.

Nah ticket master is legitimately terrible.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#187

Post by JoelB »

hedora wrote: post #17
knappe wrote: post #5

I am so hopeful that this happens. I was comparing the fees to see a band in the US or EU recently based on their tour dates and it was insane what US ticket prices came out to be. It was ~$54 for a ticket in the US because of all the junk fees and just 8 euros for other places in the EU.

Recently, I bought tickets through their web page, and the seat hold timed out prematurely, making me reselect seats. The tickets had been on sale for weeks, but in that 60 second window, scalpers just happened to buy the exact block I wanted out of 100’s of available seats. Of course, ticket master owns some of the scalper companies. Despite the blatant false advertising / auction fixing, I have no way to prove the…

I think there's a non-zero chance that scalpers are watching the list of available ticket blocks, comparing frequently to find when a block becomes unavailable (because it's in a cart), and then monitoring and automatically buying any "missing" ticket blocks as soon as they reappear. That's what I would do, anyways.

That said, I would not be surprised in the least if this was being aided by ticketmaster or they were straight up doing it themselves. I just think there is a possible explanation where they are ignorant rather than malicious.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#189

Post by __loam »

willcipriano wrote: post #74
__loam wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand people like you. A government agency does something material to help the consumer and you just shit talk and resort to base cynicism. Nothing would ever change if everyone was as apathetic as you are.

> something material That's the trick. What material thing happened? Over the years, hundreds of thousands (?) of people have been ripped off. If I did that I'd be in jail.

Anti-trust has a proven record of making things less shit. It doesn't work if you don't use it, obviously. Courts are unfortunately not built for your instant gratification.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#190

Post by __loam »

willcipriano wrote: post #143
wumeow wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually supported by evidence: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167218783195

So is my theory for what its worth: https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba The US as a democracy isn't supported by evidence.

Giving up on your democratic representation is not going to make things better.
Post reply on HN