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Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

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Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#21

Post by srmatto »

jp57 wrote: post #16

The horizontal control of venues is only one issue. A perhaps bigger issue is the vertical integration (if that's the right term) of first-party ticket sales and resale in one company. Ticketmaster has no real incentive to try to prevent resellers from buying up all the tickets on first sale, because it gets to charge fees on all the resales through its platform. The more times a ticket is resold, the better. I don't…

It should also be said that they could do anything at all to prevent these professional scalpers from scooping up all the tickets at once, including even merely closing those APIs entirely but they continue to do nothing about it.

The verified re-sale thing as you have correctly pointed out just allowed them to pretend like something was being done about scalping while it actually just let them make more money on the resale fees.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#22

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

xrd wrote: post #12
tomwheeler wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds about right. The attorneys take $1.52 and leave the victim with $0.20. And then nothing actually happens that would restore a competitive marketplace.

Back in my day, the federal government would break up monopolies.

Used to be they wouldn't allow such mergers to happen in the first place what with the law and all that.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#23

Post by ryandrake »

jp57 wrote: post #16

The horizontal control of venues is only one issue. A perhaps bigger issue is the vertical integration (if that's the right term) of first-party ticket sales and resale in one company. Ticketmaster has no real incentive to try to prevent resellers from buying up all the tickets on first sale, because it gets to charge fees on all the resales through its platform. The more times a ticket is resold, the better. I don't…

I'm always annoyed by this kind of news. The problem has existed for a long time, and finally, FINALLY, a court weighs in on some very narrow sliver of the problem, meanwhile things keep getting worse.

It always feels like the scene in Lord Of The Rings where they're waiting for the Ents to deliberate on the big war that's going on, and then after an agonizing amount of time they announce that they just said Good Morning and decided their guests weren't Orcs.

Like jeez can justice move any slower?

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#24

Post by dylan604 »

saaaaaam wrote: post #15
rossdavidh wrote: post #7

In case you wondered what the point of the federal (i.e. states not totally controlled by federal government) system is, here's a good example. If only the federal government were allowed to pursue this case, it would have ended when the administration changed. 30 states chose to keep the case alive, and good on them.

It makes you wonder why the DoJ settled so early. Or, rather, it doesn’t really make you wonder at all. It’s obvious there was a case and they should have let their lawsuit run. I wonder why they didn’t?

this really seems like a naive question. what about this administration dropping the case seems out of place from the rest of the corruption occurring within it? do you honestly think this administration dropping a case in favor of a powerful business instead of fighting for the consumer as anything other than corrupt?

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#25

Post by jp57 »

sgron wrote: post #19
jp57 wrote: post #16

The horizontal control of venues is only one issue. A perhaps bigger issue is the vertical integration (if that's the right term) of first-party ticket sales and resale in one company. Ticketmaster has no real incentive to try to prevent resellers from buying up all the tickets on first sale, because it gets to charge fees on all the resales through its platform. The more times a ticket is resold, the better. I don't…

Ticketmaster actually experimented with this https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mic.20180230

Our basic findings suggest that the auctions “worked”: price discovery substantially improved; artist revenues roughly doubled versus the ­ fixed-price counterfactual; and, perhaps most importantly, the auctions eliminated or at least substantially reduced potential resale profits for speculators.... And yet, over the decade that has passed since the time of the data, rather than coming into more widespread use, ­ primary-market auctions for event tickets instead disappeared.... We conclude by speculating as to why the auctions failed to take off. As discussed in the introduction....

They don't seem to mention the most obvious reason: the same companies profit from both the primary and secondary market. Why would TicketMaster want to reduce the number of resales when it collects fees on them?

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#26

Post by CodingJeebus »

srmatto wrote: post #21
jp57 wrote: post #16

The horizontal control of venues is only one issue. A perhaps bigger issue is the vertical integration (if that's the right term) of first-party ticket sales and resale in one company. Ticketmaster has no real incentive to try to prevent resellers from buying up all the tickets on first sale, because it gets to charge fees on all the resales through its platform. The more times a ticket is resold, the better. I don't…

It should also be said that they could do anything at all to prevent these professional scalpers from scooping up all the tickets at once, including even merely closing those APIs entirely but they continue to do nothing about it. The verified re-sale thing as you have correctly pointed out just allowed them to pretend like something was being done about scalping while it actually just let them make more money on the…

It's long been speculated that they clandestinely participate in the resale market. If the goal of a business is to maximize profit and they control the market and technology around it, they have everything they need to push prices to the absolute limit that a customer is willing to pay.

Based on what came out during the course of the trial, it would not surprise me at all if they are double-selling tickets.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#27

Post by dylan604 »

jazzpush2 wrote: post #8

Now do service fees and 'convenience' fees. Every ticket I buy for a movie somehow costs $2 extra now. (As with everything else). Robbery.

My favorite is the local tax office charges extra for paying online vs going in to the office to pay in person. At first, I thought it was a way to recoup the processing fees as you're obviously paying by card online. The last time I paid in person with a card, that fee was not added on though. So they are charging you extra for not having to pay an employee to process your account.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#28

Post by saaaaaam »

dylan604 wrote: post #24
saaaaaam wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes you wonder why the DoJ settled so early. Or, rather, it doesn’t really make you wonder at all. It’s obvious there was a case and they should have let their lawsuit run. I wonder why they didn’t?

this really seems like a naive question. what about this administration dropping the case seems out of place from the rest of the corruption occurring within it? do you honestly think this administration dropping a case in favor of a powerful business instead of fighting for the consumer as anything other than corrupt?

Sorry, I was being satirical and that doesn’t come through always in text. It’s very obvious why they dropped it because they are corrupt as hell.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#29

Post by autoexec »

jp57 wrote: post #16

The horizontal control of venues is only one issue. A perhaps bigger issue is the vertical integration (if that's the right term) of first-party ticket sales and resale in one company. Ticketmaster has no real incentive to try to prevent resellers from buying up all the tickets on first sale, because it gets to charge fees on all the resales through its platform. The more times a ticket is resold, the better. I don't…

Why not just ban the transfer of tickets and allow refunds? You buy a ticket, you show your ID at the door. Early refunded tickets get resold online and late refunds are sold at the venue. All seats, including the best seats, go to actual fans instead of scalpers just hoping to make a profit while providing zero value. First choice in seats goes to the most passionate and attentive fans.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#30

Post by saaaaaam »

kumarski wrote: post #17

Venue contracts are a sort of political firewall against any relevant ticketing technology becoming massive globally. Music festivals were a sort of guerilla attack on lack of venue contracts.

Lots of festivals are owned or controlled by Live Nation.
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