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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

#141

Post by benburton »

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…

This proposed economic model creates a dystopian situation: whoever has the most capital has the right of first refusal to consume art.

Current primary and secondary ticketing markets are not ideal, but this proposition disenfranchises whole market segments from consuming art as experience based on economic factors. That's bad for art, it's bad for artists, and it's bad for consumers.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#142

Post by Nursie »

cbsmith wrote: post #138
Nursie wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see why the venues and artists don't want to capture more of what people are willing to pay Because artists don't always want to extract the maximum money possible from their fanbase? Artists are not always rapacious capitalists. Sure, they want to make money from the show, but a lot of them also genuinely want to reach people who may not be able to drop hundreds of bucks on a ticket. Always selling to the…

> Because artists don't always want to extract the maximum money possible from their fanbase? I think that's both true and not. The larger truth is that trying to maximize the extraction during a single ticket sale is incredibly short-sighted of an artist. Having fans attend shows is a very effective way to grow your fan base and your brand, and that brings so much more lifetime value for an artist than you'd ever ge…

On the one hand, I want to say that’s cynical.

On the other, well, I just bought tickets to Iron Maiden’s “all the best bits” tour (who have to be getting close to retiring, one member already has) supported by Megadeth who are explicitly on their retirement tour.

And those were not cheap. No sir or ma’am.

There are also artists like the Cure though, and Robert Smith seems to have a genuine interest in keeping prices accessible.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#143

Post by BrenBarn »

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.

Federalism is a red herring. For every case of "federalism is good because it let the states do this good thing" you can find a case of "federalism is bad because it let the states do this bad thing".

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#145

Post by kube-system »

bdangubic wrote: post #130
kube-system wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, we didn't start having the government screen people on planes when hijackers were merely endangering one plane worth of people. About 3,000 people died and likely tens of thousands of people were injured before we started doing that.

Because 3,000 people died I am unable to just transfer my upcoming flight to someone else? Even if this crazy sentence rang through in any way, just this year I had to fly twice "the next day" so-to-speak and basically bought tickets and then flew the next day. 9/11 is as far from a reason why airline tickets are non-transferable as it gets.

I didn’t make the claim you’re arguing against, that was someone else.

But the answer to your question is: partially

The reason you can’t change it overall is simply airline policy for business reasons. But the reason you can’t change even a misspelling within the last couple of days before a flight is in fact security related.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#146

Post by rplnt »

tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #58
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s kind of annoying in practice. For example you buy four tickets to go with your friends. But you get sick so you offer your ticket to a different friend instead. Oops that’s not allowed so now no one gets to go? Or you buy tickets as a gift for someone. There’s a lot of legit reasons to want transfers, outside of scalping.

I can't do this with airline tickets, hotel bookings, train tickets, dinner reservations, or any other kind of receipt that allows me to put my butt in a seat at a specified time. Why are concert tickets special?

Dinner reservations is a weird one. I have never heard of this concept where they would id you while you are being seated. Maybe there are super exclusive restaurants I'm oblivious to? But even so, roughly 100% of dinner reservations can be implicitly transferred.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#147

Post by mrWiz »

ipaddr wrote: post #120
hgoel wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most flights are available at high frequencies (on the order of days, weeks) compared to concerts (once a year or so). You also don't care as much about sitting together on a plane.

You care just as much on a plane. Sitting beside wife/friend => stranger

This position sounds bonkers to me. I don’t care at all about who I sit next to on a plane but like to see concerts with friends.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#148

Post by potro »

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 has no real incentive to try to prevent resellers from buying up all the tickets on first sale

Why should it have such incentive? And even more so, why it should be a concern for the court that it should have it?

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#149

Post by saaaaaam »

bombcar wrote: post #114
hgoel wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is a buyer supposed to trust that the scalper won't just run away with the money? And conversely, how is the scalper supposed to trust that buyers aren't just feigning interest and will back out at the last minute? Even escrow systems don't necessarily bypass this because ultimately the buyer is likely spending on more than just the concert ticket. They're probably taking time off work, maybe traveling in from an…

We'll start a HN online marketplace, called "Dive Station" that will guarantee everything and offer insurance and double-your-money back guarantees. We'll get bought out by TicketMaster within 5 years.

5 years? 18 months max!

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#150

Post by saaaaaam »

tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #58
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s kind of annoying in practice. For example you buy four tickets to go with your friends. But you get sick so you offer your ticket to a different friend instead. Oops that’s not allowed so now no one gets to go? Or you buy tickets as a gift for someone. There’s a lot of legit reasons to want transfers, outside of scalping.

I can't do this with airline tickets, hotel bookings, train tickets, dinner reservations, or any other kind of receipt that allows me to put my butt in a seat at a specified time. Why are concert tickets special?

You can change a name on a flight. There’s a fee perhaps. I don’t know where you are but in most European countries train tickets are valid to the bearer. Dinner reservations, I’ve never once been asked for ID. And indeed I’ve often had reservations made by others for me, or arranged reservations for friends and colleagues from out of town - “I know a great restaurant you’ll like, I’ll reserve a table, just give them my name”.

Hotel bookings - again, the number of times I’ve booked a bunch of rooms for work under my name and then we just assign them at check-in, and the number of times I’ve travelled for work where the hotel room is reserved in someone else’s name.

So yeah, pretty sure this is commonplace that the person who shows up with the chit and can verify certain info gets the access.

And of course, there nothing at all to stop concert tickets being sold to verified buyers and then transferred to other verified buyers.

But during this court hearing it transpired - from emails sent by Michael Rapino - that Live Nation/Ticketmaster’s “Verified Fan” scheme is just a scam to make artist feel like ticketing isn’t the murky Wild West that Ticketmaster knows it is. “Verified Fan” meant almost nothing.

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