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Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

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381–390 of 397 posts

Re: Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best systems are the points based systems where fans are rewarded for being fans. E.g. people who had seen all Chiefs games for 3 seasons would be allocated a higher chance of getting a Superbowl ticket. What you don't want is people flying in for finals and paying $10k to see just the final game.

My point is that it depends what you are optimizing for. Your system is fantastic if you want to make sure that people who have invested the most money in the past get priority over those willing to pay the most for a future game. It still works against fans who can't afford season tickets. With your system a corporate lawyer that buys season tickets to hand out as perks to clients will get priority over a "true" fan…

Yeah there is no perfect system. And money will always give an advantage. Compensating for that and validating that people not just bought 3 seasons worth of tickets but actually watched the games, would mean checking id:s (Which also has downsides).

I do think the loyal fan systems with their drawbacks are still much better than the purely market economic approach. In the example of Super Bowl, the people who wanted to be sure to get tickets would need to have season tickets to all teams. The only resource we are awarded fairly is time. Estimating how much time we dedicated to the team/artist is fair game.

Re: Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

#382
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did they stop scalping?

Most venues in NYC seem to use an app called dice for ticket distribution. You can only resell on the app and only at or below the original price. Not foolproof, but seems to work pretty well in nyc, but in a less populated area might be hard if people cant sell the tickets and start complaining.

Lol most NYC venues do not use dice.

Re: Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most venues in NYC seem to use an app called dice for ticket distribution. You can only resell on the app and only at or below the original price. Not foolproof, but seems to work pretty well in nyc, but in a less populated area might be hard if people cant sell the tickets and start complaining.

Lol most NYC venues do not use dice.

most of the ones I go to :shrug:

Re: Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

#384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of banks have gotten weary of chargeback scams and taking the brunt of Amazon's binning practices. Frankly, I'd think it better if they just cut off those bad retailers from the system, which is where the failing is. Alas, monopolies in -that- sector as far as I know prevent a single bank from doing a whole lot, especially when it's a vendor that does so much volume that all the legitimate chargebacks w…

> taking the brunt of Amazon's binning practices Amazon has a lot of flaws, but I've never once had an issue returning an item for a full refund. I'm sure chargebacks are up in recent years, but I'm not sure it's Amazon that's to blame.

i think this is a reference to amazon's co-mingling of inventory regardless of where it came from, which results in businesses selling legitimate items having customers that get sent counterfeit goods.

Re: Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

#385
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…

Again though, there are plenty of events that already do this and have people for handling logistics. And indeed people with temporary jobs involved.

Re: Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I despise TM and think this needs to change, but the only thing it's going to fix (from the consumer's perspective, not the artists et al) is the abysmal and abusive customer service (that doesn't really exist), not the high prices. The prices are pretty much exactly what the market will bear, and that will be true no matter who the middleman is.

no they arent. the prices are significantly below market value which is why scalping exists. If Taylor Swift actually used market pricing then tickets would be thousands of dollars, but then people would whine that Taylor Swift is greedy, so instead they set some arbitrary "acceptable" ticket value and pawn all the blame on scalpers and Ticketmaster.

Yes that's a fair point, although Taylor Swift is somewhat of an exception/corner case. Some of the huge acts do sell cheaper than market rate for other reasons, but most of the events they sell for are not.

It's also worth noting that sometimes things change after prices have been set. For example, a baseball game in which tickets were sold but now there's a lot of attention/love suddenly and unexpectedly on the team (maybe they just pulled off a big upset or something) so "market rate" for tickets jumps much higher than what it was immediately before that when the tickets were sold. They weren't originally trying to price lower than market rate. Also the pricing they do for market rate is calculated to optimize for maximum revenue which includes some balance of selling max number of seats but only until the delta of additional sales means a net loss of revenue (i.e. you can sell every seat for $1 but that would make a lot less money).

Re: Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

#387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I attempted to charge back the purchase since they did not provide what I paid for (tickets I could sell), and they fought me and won somehow. This has happened to me twice now (though not with TicketMaster) and I was 100% in the right, and I lost. When I mentioned it on HN I was met with a lot of doubters. I think something has really changed regarding chargebacks.

which bank if you feel free comfortable sharing?

It was USAA. I don't know if this matters, but it was a Visa card.

For the record I'm very pleased with USAA overall and I think quite highly of them.

Re: Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

#388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not what rent-seeking means. > They’re just charging exorbitant fees to a customer base with no alternatives. The term for that is “monopoly rent”, it is a subtype of economic rents (which are distinct from, but overlap, “rents” of goods or services for a finite time as distinct from sales.) Actions taken in pursuit of economic rents are called “rent-seeking”.

Rent-seeking is profiting from position without adding value. Rent-seeking is not merely pricing your product as high as the market will bear. Ticketmaster adds value. They just charge exorbitant fees. ... Edit: But OK, you can argue that their full vertical integration (ticketing-venue-artist management) is maximizing their position for the furtherance of increasing their fees, and that would be rent-seeking. I don'…

> Rent-seeking is profiting from position without adding value.

No, that's “economic rent”, of which monopoly rent is an extensively-studied subtype. (Monopoly is position.)

Rent-seeking is pursuing economic, including monopoly, rents.

Re: Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This exists today... you can buy several tiers of tickets on Ticketmaster and the ability to even access those tickets depends on other status. Today we see Ticketmaster adding numerous fees and using anti-competitive venue and artist lock-in to avoid the industry having competition. I have been to over 100 concerts in the last 2 years and I can't say I have noticed any additional value or ease by using my tickets th…

Ticket master sucks, but it's gonna be worse. Doing onsales is pretty hard, your basically making every one stand in line all be it virtual. No one wants to deal with that. The current all in price is just going to become the "minimum bid" put down more money and possibly get better seats. When ever one has bids in, then close them and run an algorithm to distribute seats and start charging cards. The tech is cheaper…

Excellent, you agree that it is bad now. The only thing that will make it better is non-exclusivity with venues and no monopoly power in ticketing systems. Then people can iterate and appeal to customers for their purchasing power.

As I said before, no problem paying more for tickets if artists feel this is how they make money, but none of this scammy fee-based structure where I am charged 20% of my ticket value as a convenience fee due to getting it virtually (lol?)

Re: Justice Department to file antitrust suit against Live Nation

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i would love to see a picutre of you receipt because i frankly dont believe you

I would like to see a picture too, but it wouldn't surprise me. The highest I've actually paid is $44.58 per ticket in fees. But I've seen $50 fees and not purchased. Here's a screenshot of my receipt from that one: https://i.imgur.com/7mesmdj.png

Gotta love the "Delivery fee" on tickets that will be emailed to you.
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