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naraburns  nihil supernum  3yr ago (text post)   Edited 3yr ago   36167 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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I believe that Ticketmaster/Livenation is essentially a monopoly on in-person concerts of any size. They've somehow managed to get contracts with labels/artists and with venues, so they sell tickets for all the major tours. They can pressure other venues into accepting them as the ticket seller, or they won't get any concerts. And they can do the same for new artists: use us or we won't let any venues put on your concert. So they don't need to use algorithmic pricing to try to beat their competitors the way airlines do, they can just have high prices all the time.

In general, I agree that the creator should just price tickets at the efficient level, even if that seems expensive. Otherwise, unrelated middlemen just capture the extra surplus. People don't like "price gouging" which is why I think some companies refrain from doing it in emergencies, and try to use other methods to not run out (like per-customer limits), and similarly artists don't want to piss off their fans.

Side note - the reason why they have the contracts w/ labels and artists is since their merger with LiveNation/AEG, they also own many of the biggest and most important stadiums as well.

Ticketmaster was always crappy, but once they merged with LiveNation, and there was no way for artists who wanted too, like Pearl Jam, to push back reliably, they really went into overdrive w/ the BS fees and pushing up prices. This is just one example - Bruce Springsteen is having a tour early next year. Now, of course, these tickets aren't going to be cheap.

But, in Europe, from what I saw, prices ranged from $50 to $200, while in the US, seats went from $100-$150 for the nosebleeds to literal thousands for the floor. Now, there's not that much of an economic difference or interest difference between the two areas when it comes to Springsteen, so that's where people getting upset kicks in.

It also doesn't help people's trust in TM/LN when they also own a third-party ticket selling site.

I believe that Ticketmaster/Livenation is essentially a monopoly on in-person concerts of any size. They've somehow managed to get contracts with labels/artists and with venues, so they sell tickets for all the major tours. They can pressure other venues into accepting them as the ticket seller, or they won't get any concerts. And they can do the same for new artists: use us or we won't let any venues put on your concert. So they don't need to use algorithmic pricing to try to beat their competitors the way airlines do, they can just have high prices all the time.

Exactly. Concert tickets might be priced by supply and demand, but the demand is artificially restricted; not just for the artists themselves (it's become more common for acts to deliberately play smaller venues at higher prices because margins are better), but also for substitutes because Ticketmaster also controls things for all the others artists as well.

It's such a blatant violation of anti-trust and there appears to be no governmental will to correct it.

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