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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

#51

Post by ceejayoz »

echelon wrote: post #31
autoexec wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Why not just ban the transfer of tickets and allow refunds? You buy a ticket, you show your ID at the door. Because everyone on the seller side - including artists - make money on this. If parties other than fans / buyers cared, it would be a solved problem.

I've seen quite a few artists opposed to it.

Quick example: https://www.instagram.com/p/DWWlQS-Dhj7/

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#53

Post by sonofhans »

I feel like we had a golden opportunity, years ago, to do something about Ticketmaster. In 1994 Pearl Jam, one of the biggest bands in the world at that point, boycotted and sued Ticketmaster. I wished at the time more bands had stood up and said, “Enough.” It would have worked.

But it’s easy to scare an individual artist, or make them feel like they’re locked into a contract, and fame is such a precipice. I suppose that makes it hard for them to work together for their own good.

Ironically sometimes artists complain about Ticketmaster and their stranglehold, but again, it takes some special bravery to actually do something about it.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#54

Post by zeroonetwothree »

autoexec wrote: post #29
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.

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.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#55

Post by rossdavidh »

dragontamer wrote: post #32
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.

On the other hand, I'm not sure a European style tribunal would have been allowed to settle the case early. Yes. It's good that the states can serve as a check on the Federal level government. But why can the federal level government give up on cases on a national level? Just because a different party was voted in?

No matter what your politics, sooner or later someone you don't agree with will be in charge at the national level.

There are also cases where states take on cases that the national government never pursues in the first case. IIRC, states pursued the tobacco companies when the national government would not (Democrat or Republican).

Of course, it happens in federal courts, so you also need separate and independent branches at the national level. But states that can act independently are important as well.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#56

Post by dmitrygr »

bsimpson wrote: post #50
dmitrygr wrote: post #4

> The jury determined that Ticketmaster had overcharged consumers by $1.72 for each ticket. I think the decimal point is a few digits too many to the left here... The various "fees" routinely add up to hundreds

That was the first part that jumped out at me. Apparently the state AGs dropped one of the charges that would have led to a more reasonable number there to try to make the decision easier for the jury.

Well, the AGs need "wins" for their campaigns for governors (a common path). Who cares about right and wrong? I totally get it.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#57

Post by scarecrowbob »

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…

Having produced, performed in, and engineered a number of shows and festivals, this is a terrible idea for a pricing strategy.

Consider portajohns for an outdoor festival- incentivizing folks to wait until the last possible minute makes it impossible to determine what the needs are there, so how do you plan for how many shitters you need to bring and maintain for, say, a 3-day festival?

Consider that "festivals discount early sales" might be a kind of Chesterton's Fence, and you might question why they do that...

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#58

Post by tjwebbnorfolk »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #54
autoexec wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#59

Post by micromacrofoot »

wccrawford wrote: post #37
micromacrofoot wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

usually the service fee doesn't even get refunded, which feels additionally foul

I think that's exactly the point. They've charged you $2 to process the request. They did that work. Even if you get the money back for the event, they still did the job, so they won't refund the service fee.

Sure, but imagine a brick and mortar doing that? "we paid our cashier so we can't refund you the full cost"

running the service is the cost of doing business

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#60

Post by Kirby64 »

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?

Airline tickets and train tickets are because they want to identify the person, for tracking/supposed national security purposes. Also, you typically can transfer train tickets. Depends on the country.

Dinner reservations: I’ve literally never had an issue “transferring” a reservation. There’s no verification, often, and the reservation tools typically let you change contact details. If I present myself as John Smith, I’ve never once had anyone question that.

Concert tickets are almost certainly in the 'dinner reservation' category. They have no need to identify me for national security reasons, so transferring them should not be a problem.

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