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Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

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Re: Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scalper is trading volatility (they may or may not sell the ticket for a higher price) for the opportunity of a return. The venue is getting the opposite side of the deal. Guaranteed income now.

But if, on average, scalpers didn't get their payout, then they wouldn't take the risk right? Unless scalpers as a class are economically irrational?

> if, on average, scalpers didn't get their payout, then they wouldn't take the risk

The point is they can get their pay-out while the venue/artist and consumers win. Scalper gets paid. Venue and artist get stability. Consumer who buys from the scalper gets availability. And the other 90% of consumers get cheaper prices.

Re: Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

#312
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how I took it, if she wanted to rent out a field and import equipment, she'd still sell out, and at whatever price she wanted to charge.

Of course, then it also falls to her and her team to handle permits, hiring employees for the concert (and this would be a one time thing for those employees?), training, arranging materials, foods, and anything else, figure out parking and transportation, manage any necessary insurance, and whatever else is needed. A venue is more than having a place, it's having everything necessary to handle an immense volume of p…

Cirque du Soleil does this. They always setup their own venue on an open ground, but I think that's more for consistency of their layout and apparatus.

Re: Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> artists have trouble securing large venues Then perform smaller venues and ration tickets to your most-devoted fans. Unfortunately, if you do that, it's tough to become a billionaire. (Analogy: wineries. On the 4 x 4 of size and price point, you have wines positioned in each quadrant.) TicketMaster is, or more accurately its exclusivity requirements are, the root of the problem. But everyone around them--from the m…

That's still not a reason for the government to not bust up their rackets. It's about time someone stepped up and did something. I was hoping would be state based like Texas or California, but I'll take action from the feds I guess.

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Re: Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> artists have trouble securing large venues Then perform smaller venues and ration tickets to your most-devoted fans. Unfortunately, if you do that, it's tough to become a billionaire. (Analogy: wineries. On the 4 x 4 of size and price point, you have wines positioned in each quadrant.) TicketMaster is, or more accurately its exclusivity requirements are, the root of the problem. But everyone around them--from the m…

That's still not a reason for the government to not bust up their rackets. It's about time someone stepped up and did something. I was hoping would be state based like Texas or California, but I'll take action from the feds I guess.

> not a reason for the government to not bust up their rackets

Nobody in this thread has argued against enforcement.

Re: Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

#315
post #15

One important thing to know is that the venues/artists often get a kickback of part of the Ticketmaster fees. In other words, the artists, venues, producers, and Ticketmaster are in cahoots to fleece fans for as much money as possible, and Ticketmaster is willing to play the 'bad guy' and take the blame for high prices, and they get to keep a bigger slice of the overall pie than they would in a highly competitive mar…

Concerts aren't a necessity. As much as Ticketmaster/LiveNation "fleece" fans, secondhand sellers a/k/a scalpers do it even more. The demand is there, if the prices were too high the tickets would not sell. If you don't like what a concert ticket price costs, don't go.

So monopolies and oligopolies are okay as long as it isn’t for a life necessity?

Re: Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

#316

I used to work in this space. If the DOJ breaks up live nation the only group who gets screwed is the consumer. The sort of artist who is big enough to use live nation also wants a pay day for going on tour. They want the door, they want to sell their merch, they want a cut of the 20$ beer you buy. There might be 1 or 2 artist left who dont want to see you gouged on the ticket but that might not even be true any more…

> "The sort of artist who is big enough to use live nation also wants a pay day for going on tour. They want the door, they want to sell their merch, they want a cut of the 20$ beer you buy." This is true, of course, but the rest of your claims are pretty speculative. Big bands were touring long before the TicketMaster monopoly became a thing. A competitive marketplace benefits both suppliers (ie: the bands) as well…

>> This is true, of course, but the rest of your claims are pretty speculative. Big bands were touring long before the TicketMaster monopoly became a thing.

Ticketmaster is the result of consolidating all the regional ticking systems that existed back when printing and retail sales were a thing. This lawsuit is against Live Nation, that Ticketmaster is a part of... It's the evolution of what Bill Graham started. Your thinking ticket master is the problem but promoters are the ones maximizing value from ever aspect of the experience.

Bill Graham made EVERYONE money, and it all came from the fans...

>> Why wouldn't a band want to play several ticketing companies off against each other

Ticketing is a zero sum game... You dont really need paper tickets or local markets. If ticket master dies ... "oh no were auctioning tickets now the other tech is hard" is going to the excuse.

>> It's also not in a band's best interest to rip off their own fans... There are two artists who give a shit about this.

I did point that out, there are a few... but there aren't many. The only money is in touring and licensing. There are lots of artists who say this, and push low "ticket prices" and take their cut of the "high fees". The only ones who give a shit: non transferable tickets. It cuts out the secondary market (and means they, or their promoter, can sell there themselves...

>> In Europe there is a much more competitive market in the ticketing/events space... And there's certainly no shortage of big bands on tour.

It isnt that much different. AEG is 2nd after LN/TM and owns O2 they also own AXS, and Eventim, independent but now into venues in joint deal with AEG... It's a bit of an insestuous circle jerk not as "free" as it appears.

Europe as a market is still a region in America. Taylor Swift is doing as many dates in Indiana as she is in any EU city...

>> secondary and resale-market ticketing companies like Viagogo/Stubhub, DICE, Ticketswap

Here is the well known inside secret, why do shows still have "promoters" instead of marketing departments? Because lots of these secondary sales were never primary sales.

Re: Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affordable tickets requires a way to combat scalping, which in turn butts up against freedom to resell/transfer tickets after purchase. It's a hard game to win whenever scarcity and economics are involved.

Current ticketmaster tickets are electronic and often can be resold only on their system (depending on what the artist/venue has chosen as a restriction). Of course their system could limit the resale prices of the ticket, to the original price or a set percentage above it. They already take a bite of each resale I believe. They have already built the electronic ticketing and transfer system that would allow them to…

afaik, scalpers will often be selling tickets that have been bought speculatively in large blocks during pre-sale or when sale starts. this is a whole very complex side industry in itself, and being able to get those large chunks of cash up-front/early is beneficial for the artists/promoters/venues for lots of reasons. obv. this doesn't really apply to a super popular artist who is going to sell out on the first day, but there are very few artists/performers who do that.

so. as mentioned above. it's a hard problem to solve. if you think about it purely as a market/exchange then it's not dissimilar to how market-makers, arbitrageurs and HFT systems keep the market "efficient".

there's a good writeup here. https://www.404media.co/why-scalpers-can-get-olivia-rodrigo-...

Re: Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

#318
So, a little context as to how the live events industry works, because it is not how most would assume.

First, you have the venue. The venue has an owner. This may be the owner of the sports team who plays there, a company that's entirely unrelated to the venue, a city or other government entity, or whoever else. *

Then you have the show you are buying a ticket for. This show may be a sports team, or it may be a concert or other live act. If a sports team it's probably got the same owner as the venue, but if a concert or other live act you have...

Promoters. Promoters rent the venue, pay for the show (i.e. they pay the band their fee to come play), sell the tickets, staff all the parts the venue doesn't, and pocket the difference. The promoter takes a risk, in that if they pay Major Act $1m and spend $500k on marketing/the venue/staffing and nobody shows up, they lose $1.5m. The band and venue still get paid.

The ticket platform. This platform sells the tickets for the event and adds their service fee. That service fee is generally used in part to pay the venue for the exclusive rights to sell tickets at the venue to the venue owner. That is both obviously valuable (fans can either pay your fee whatever it is or not go) and an obvious monopoly (if there were two ticket platforms selling for the same event the same seat would likely get sold twice sometimes).

Where this gets dicey: Live Nation (which owns Ticket Master) is both the biggest promoter and a ticket selling platform. Both by far. In fact they pay for exclusive rights to more than 80% of large venues. Most states only have a few venues that can do major acts (20,000+ seats), and a major act has essentially no alternative but to either play Live Nation venues, or play smaller evenues where independent promoters will pay them smaller fees.

Artists hate this system because it gouges their fans and arguably reduces their rates (there isn't a thriving market of promotors because most of them can't even use most big venues) but since Pearl Jam lost trying to break it up 30 years ago (when they were separate entities and TicketMaster had just as big a monopoly as now) they've not bothered to sue. Fans hate this system because they get gouged coming and going. It works well for Live Nation and the venues, obviously, though the venues still would be fine as they have very little competition. In my area there are two viable venues in the summer for a 25,000 person concert and one in the winter, and we're bigger than most.

Live Nation can use the vertical integration (they get both the promoter's share of the ticket revenue and the ticketing fee) to buy up most venues. And by buy up I mean either pay for exclusive contracts too, or just purchase outright.

It's been pretty clearly in violation of anti-trust laws for decades. TicketMaster before the merger and the combined entity now. I don't know how they've gotten away with it for so long, and they should undo the merger they never should have allowed to begin with.

*Unrelated but interesting: the venue also sells the rights to services inside the venue, like merchandise and, most lucratively, food and beverage. Third parties buy the rights to sell all of the food and drinks for very large sums. So a venue owner is responsible for relatively little of the work that goes on inside the venue. Someone else sets up the shows, pays for everything, sells the tickets, sells the food and drinks, etc.

Re: Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If isn’t just vertical integration. It’s also abuse of monopoly power. I’m sure the DoJ won’t have any trouble showing how much market share TM/LN have. I think the real issue is the limited supply of tickets to the most popular shows. Supply and demand dictates that the prices for these limited goods be very high, yet social norms discourage artists from charging the true market value for their tickets (fans will re…

It’s partly this but also the artists benefit in other ways from large strata of their fan base being able to attend live shows, but merch in person and mingle with each other. The venue and Ticketmaster only benefit from the ticket sales.

Scalpers are also a source of guaranteed sales, so you're diluting the risk of a concert because someone is already buying up all seats already for you and running the risk of not being able to sell them at a higher price later.
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