Tickets, Ticketing, AEG, TM

Kat

Any thoughts on this story? A lottery similar to PJ's I think.

LA Times
AEG moves to battle Ticketmaster head on
The Los Angeles-based entertainment giant ramps up its AXS ticket-selling business at Staples Center and its other L.A. Live venues.
By Todd Martens and Wesley Lowery, Los Angeles Times
February 4, 2013, 4:00 a.m.

photo: AEG executives Bryan Perez, left, and Tim Leiweke appear on a scissors jack outside the Staples Center Ticket office on Feb. 01, 2013, as workers were putting the finishing touches on their new ticket office look. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times / January 31, 2013)

Ticketmaster, long the dominant player in the concert ticket space, now has major company.

Los Angeles-based AEG, the sports and entertainment empire that owns Staples Center, Nokia Theatre, L.A. Live, the Kings and a minority stake in the Lakers, is angling to reinvent the ticketing business. It's counting on Staples Center, the busiest concert venue in the United States, to get there.

AEG is now selling concert tickets at its trio of L.A. Live venues via its 18-month-old AXS ticketing platform. It's the company's attempt to build a national rival to Ticketmaster and challenge the traditional concert business, including battling scalpers.

FOR THE RECORD:
Beyoncé concert: An article in the Feb. 4 Calendar section about AEG’s ticket platform, AXS, incorrectly said Beyoncé would give a concert at Staples Center on June 26. The concert will be June 28.

A mobile app, for instance, will allow fans to order concessions from their seats.

"AXS is not a ticket transaction for us," said AEG Chief Executive Tim Leiweke. "AXS is a relationship for us. From the moment someone says they want to go to an event, to the moment they walk out of the event, we want to capture that relationship from beginning to end."

Tickets for a June 26 Beyoncé show will go on sale Feb. 11, and that will be the first Staples Center concert available exclusively via AXS.com rather than Ticketmaster. For now, the trio of sports teams who call the venue home will continue to use Ticketmaster, but that will change this summer with Kings tickets for next season, said Bryan Perez, AEG's president of digital, ticket and media.

AEG has been considering a full-scale ticket service since antitrust regulators in 2010 approved Ticketmaster's merger with AEG rival Live Nation Entertainment.

How big a deal is...........

article continued at http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/mu ... full.story

dimitrispearljam

thanks for that...lets read the whole article..very intresting

dimitrispearljam

the rest of the article,...thanks Kat...very similar with PJ

"Our potential flow of tickets from our owned-and-operated venues to AXS is about 20 million" tickets, Leiweke said.

Launching a ticketing firm can be fraught with peril, as Live Nation learned in 2009. The promoter opted to launch its own ticketing service rather than renew with Ticketmaster, but the ticketing system struggled with its first major on-sale. Days later, Live Nation and Ticketmaster announced they were merging.

Perez is confident that AXS is ready for the rush that selling Beyoncé tickets could bring. "We build buildings," he said, "so we're patient. We've been doing this for 18 months."

AEG's movement toward the development of its own ticketing arm makes strategic sense, said Dean Budnick, executive editor of Relix Magazine and co-author of "Ticket Masters," the definitive book on the event ticketing industry.

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Ticketing events in its own venues, said Budnick, allows AEG to cash in on ticketing fees for events and keep that money from going to Ticketmaster, which essentially amounts to subsidizing its chief competitor, Live Nation.

Budnick theorizes that Live Nation has long been able to offer more money to performers by using ticket-fee revenue. Now AEG may be able to increase pay for performers at some of its venues, making them more competitive for major shows.

For concertgoers, this could mean higher ticket prices in cities where both Live Nation and AEG have venues — if the powerhouses enter bidding wars for major concert tours and events, Budnick said.

AEG's attempts to rewrite the ticketing rules include an endeavor dubbed AXS Invite that will allow ticket purchasers to reserve adjacent seats and then invite friends via email or social networks to purchase those seats.

Of even bigger interest to fans may be AEG's thoughts on how to thwart scalpers, who use computers to bulk-buy tickets.

"The current method of selling tickets is like Black Friday," Perez says. "You open the doors at midnight, and people get trampled to death."

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AEG's solution is Fair AXS, which will allow fans to sign up to purchase tickets up to a week in advance of the on-sale date. Customers can select up to three sections in which they would like to sit, and tickets will be purchased in advance via a lottery system. If tickets remain, there will be a general on-sale.

"If it's a big-bang on-sale, and everyone has to buy at once, naturally the guy with the hardware to overwhelm the system is going to have the advantage," Perez said. "There's a better way to do this."

There's another reason AEG wanted to launch a competitor to Ticketmaster: data. If there are, for example, a lot of advance requests for tickets via Fair AXS, AEG can add shows. If there are few, the company will learn earlier that interest is low and perhaps "that the prices should be lower and there should be more marketing," Perez said.

AEG has also been buying and investing in technology companies such as Carbonhouse and ByPass to ensure that it's more than just a platform to move tickets. The goal, said Perez, is that if a repeat Kings customer walks into Staples Center, he can use an app to have his desired snack-bar items awaiting him at his seat. Other fan-friendly aspects include an elimination of print-at-home fees and more transparent ticketing costs, meaning consumers know up-front the final cost of a ticket.

AEG also intends to pitch a service to other venue owners that allows them to sell tickets directly on their sites rather than force consumers to visit a third-party destination.

"This isn't about controlling the front door," Perez said. "It's about controlling the process and making fundamental changes in the way people purchase tickets."

Jason P

Kat wrote:

Any thoughts on this story? A lottery similar to PJ's I think.

I smell a lawsuit! Time to get all Napster on their butts!

Bentleyspop

Not sure how it thwarts scalpers but it sounds like an idea that needs ot be tried out to see if it works.

Don't like the part about ticket costs going up because of competition rather than going down.

Thanks Kat

81

these company's sure are making it easy to stop attending entertainment events.

i may just start buying everything on stub hub.

Jeanwah

I don't know. These guys propose the lottery way to deal with the issues of "the person with the biggest and fastest hardware always wins", much like PJ. But leaving it up to chance isn't my thing, nor a lot of other peoples'. There's got to be a better way...

Kathi

Sounds like a good idea.

brianlux

Jeanwah wrote:

I don't know. These guys propose the lottery way to deal with the issues of "the person with the biggest and fastest hardware always wins", much like PJ. But leaving it up to chance isn't my thing, nor a lot of other peoples'. There's got to be a better way...

Yeah, plus my computer skills would do me in every time! It helps to have somebody who knows what the heck they're doing to help you like DS1119 did for me in getting my ticket to see PJ in Missoula. (Thanks DS! )

Either that or maybe this: if you want a ticket you have to submit a 500 word essay stating why you believe you should be able to purchase a ticket. I might have a shot at it doing that.

blackredyellow

AEG has a ton of money, they manage venues and have a national promoting presence, so if anyone can challenge TM/Live Nation it's them.

Likely it will end up taking market share from TM, but not change much. AEG buildings will used AXS, Live Nation venues will use TM, and independent buildings will pick who ever gives them the greatest bang for their buck as far as money and shows. It's not going to change much of anything for fans.

The fact that now both AEG and Live Nation can leverage buildings based on routing tours is potentially very scary, and could really jack ticket prices up and screw markets out of getting shows. The two biggest promoters in the country can basically blacklist venues who don't use their ticketing system. So if you are a huge McCartney fan, and the arena in your city is ticketed by AEG, and Live Nation buys the whole tour... looks like Paul isn't coming to your city.

And the "Fair AXS" thing sounds like crap. Everyone is going to pick their three sections, Floor 1, Floor 2 & Floor 3, and the 50 tickets that are left after fan clubs, VIP ticketing, artists, etc, will be gone in a second. What happens to the buyers than? Do they bump the people in the next best sections, or get put behind them because their sections they picked are gone?

Jason P

blackredyellow wrote:

The fact that now both AEG and Live Nation can leverage buildings based on routing tours is potentially very scary, and could really jack ticket prices up and screw markets out of getting shows. The two biggest promoters in the country can basically blacklist venues who don't use their ticketing system. So if you are a huge McCartney fan, and the arena in your city is ticketed by AEG, and Live Nation buys the whole tour... looks like Paul isn't coming to your city.

Hmmm.

That is a very valid concern. :?

EdsonNascimento

This has got to be the dumbest rationale ever.

How does this system STOP scalpers better than the bot protection TM uses?

So, now, the scalpers who have more money than anyone can put in 10,000 requests under 10,000 different names while those of us with fewer resources will bitch about having to have a $300 hold on our credit card.

Furthermore, they are basically admitting that this pre-ordering will allow them to adjust their prices. Raise your hand if you take the lowering part seriously. If you are now sitting at a computer with your hand raised, that tells you all you need to know about yourself.

So, you know all those PREMIUM tickets TM sells for different prices than the general on sale? Ummm. Magically, with MORE demand FEWER tickets will go in the lottery and there will suddently appear platinum seats for 3 x's the price.

They might as well just go the e-bay route and be done with it.

Anyone that thinks this is a good idea or that it will actually do what they rationalizing it to do need to join the rest of us in the real world.

polaris_x

Jason P wrote:

blackredyellow wrote:

The fact that now both AEG and Live Nation can leverage buildings based on routing tours is potentially very scary, and could really jack ticket prices up and screw markets out of getting shows. The two biggest promoters in the country can basically blacklist venues who don't use their ticketing system. So if you are a huge McCartney fan, and the arena in your city is ticketed by AEG, and Live Nation buys the whole tour... looks like Paul isn't coming to your city.

Hmmm.

That is a very valid concern. :?

the flip side is that the artist doesn't play in that market which can have other impacts such as lost revenue on album sales ... not saying it would be a huge deal but it just simply isn't a "oh well, guess we ain't playing there" thing ...