Let's however not get too caught up in feel-goodism that somehow breaking up Ticketmaster is ridding the live entertainment industry of some external leech that everyone hated.
You should realize that venues and artists are equally beneficiaries of what Ticketmaster enables. In a sense they enjoy having Ticketmaster be the hated scapegoat for high prices that they then also enjoy the benefits of.
Without Ticketmaster who knows how much less tickets would sell for. And venues get paid a cut by Ticketmaster. Artists get paid a cut by Ticketmaster. Sometimes those parties are glad for that value extraction from the concertgoer to be done on their behalf, and to be blamed on an entity that diverts attention from the fact that they want more $ too.
Ticketmaster did not just emerge to prey on an unwilling helpless industry. They occupy a niche that is part of a semi willing ecosystem.
the huge upcharge on tickets is usually from scalpers that are allowed to buy and resell on the platform. are artists and venues somehow in on the scalping? I have suspected as much, but I have no evidence.
A large part of this is there are several companies that are effectively the modernized scalpers using very high dollar pay-per click advertising, and incredibly complex optimization methods to charge the maximum markup they can. Most of them use each other as well, in cooperation via affiliate kickbacks more than competition.
Then, add in ticket brokers, with pre-reserved sets and blocks of tickets, feeding into that, and everyone is getting a cut. Not a small cut either. I do have evidence, as I worked for two of the companies for a while.
A lot of artists are not happy about this. Selling seats to the highest bidder to maximize revenue of a given show is not necessarily in the long-term interests of an artist.
You should realize that venues and artists are equally beneficiaries of what Ticketmaster enables. In a sense they enjoy having Ticketmaster be the hated scapegoat for high prices that they then also enjoy the benefits of.
Without Ticketmaster who knows how much less tickets would sell for. And venues get paid a cut by Ticketmaster. Artists get paid a cut by Ticketmaster. Sometimes those parties are glad for that value extraction from the concertgoer to be done on their behalf, and to be blamed on an entity that diverts attention from the fact that they want more $ too.
Ticketmaster did not just emerge to prey on an unwilling helpless industry. They occupy a niche that is part of a semi willing ecosystem.
reply