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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

#61

Post by carlosjobim »

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

The incentive would be to jack up the prices themselves and take any profit which would have gone to scammers. Supply and demand.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#62

Post by carlosjobim »

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.

> Oops that’s not allowed so now no one gets to go?

You sell your own ticket back to the event. Your three friends of course have their names on their tickets, so they can go if they want to.

> Or you buy tickets as a gift for someone.

Do you buy gifts to people whose name you don't even know?

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#63

Post by freejazz »

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.

The tickets are all electronic now and they can already do it. Most artists don't want them to.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#64

Post by jaredwiener »

smartbit wrote: post #2

Alternative sources - https://apnews.com/article/live-nation-ticketmaster-antitrus... - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/arts/music/live-nation-an... or https://archive.is/KA1wV Background story by Matt Stoller https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-the-tic... (April 13, 2026)

And live coverage with the reactions of various AGs: https://www.forth.news/stories/Ca6C8cj6TyNe7TMMKUnFX

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#65

Post by jp57 »

scarecrowbob wrote: post #57
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 disco…

Not everything sells out right away, though. I've bought concert tickets on the day of the show more than once. Somehow they still managed to have all the concessions staffed.

But regardless, the formula for decreasing the price could be adjusted. For example, it could be an exponential decay toward the reserve price, with the decay rate set so that most of the decline in price is early.

Or, for shows that are entirely general admission, like festivals, you could use the alternative form of dutch auction: when tickets go on sale, everyone bids what they're willing to pay for some number of tickets. Then the bidding closes (with ample time for planning), and the bids are cleared in descending order of price, and everyone pays the amount of the lowest clearing bid. This method would find a price closer to the true market price of a ticket and discourage speculators.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#66

Post by redwall_hp »

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.

That's fairly common in Japan: you can't transfer tickets, as they get a name attached at purchase, and many concerts use a lottery system. You register interest in tickets, and if you're selected, you get a window to buy them. No camping out the minute presales open, and the price is the price instead of rent-extracting dynamic bullshit.

Square Enix did that for the Final Fantasy conventions in the US as well (where details of the next FFXIV expansion will be announced later this month), but they added an additional requirement. You have to have an active subscription to the game to even have a chance.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#67

Post by [deleted] »

Kirby64 wrote: post #60
tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#68

Post by Avamander »

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…

> including even merely closing those APIs entirely but they continue to do nothing about it.

At the same time I've been bit by a ticket vendor's anti-bot block by simply browsing the site and clicking their own "retry" button.

I'm sure if I'd've written a script, it would not have gotten hit by that garbage.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#69

Post by autoexec »

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.

> 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 give your friend's names when buying their tickets so they can go even when you can't or you have them buy their own tickets, or you're sick so you get a refund for your four tickets and your friends each buy their own afterwards.

Re: Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing market, jury finds

#70

Post by traderj0e »

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…

The reselling seems fine to me as long as other resellers can compete. It's a classic market.
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