Ticketmaster, Tay Tay and chasing phantoms

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  • demetrios
    demetrios Posts: 97,912
    https://prospect.org/power/ticketmasters-dark-history/

    Just over 28 years ago, Taylor Swift was a precocious Montessori preschooler growing up on a Pennsylvania Christmas tree farm, and Eddie Vedder was the Most Important Musician in America, Kurt Cobain having bequeathed to him the (unwanted) title with his suicide that spring. Bill Clinton himself called Vedder to the White House to ask him for help with “messaging” around Cobain’s death, and the rock star in turn confided in the president that he was having trouble with a rapacious corporation named Ticketmaster, which appeared to be operating an illegal monopoly. A few weeks later, the Clinton Justice Department invited Vedder’s band Pearl Jam to be the star witness in an antitrust investigation inspired by the case. The band obliged.
  • demetrios
    demetrios Posts: 97,912
    Witnesses Announced for Ticketmaster Senate Hearing as Opposing Sides Square Off 

    U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Mn.) and Mike Lee (R-Ut.) have announced the witnesses for the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing examining the lack of competition in the ticketing industry titled “That’s the Ticket: Promoting Competition and Protecting Consumers in Live Entertainment,” taking place Jan. 24 at 10 a.m. ET and will be livestreamed here.

  • demetrios
    demetrios Posts: 97,912
    Should be a good watch 
  • Lerxst1992
    Lerxst1992 Posts: 8,138
    In network Dr office billed me hundreds for an in network claim after my insurance covered the contracted amount. Billed aggressively to make me look like a criminal when they agreed to a contracted amount,

    Oil company charged me 60 cents per gallon over the region average cost for that date.

    virus software company not canceling invoice for computer long gone, without a two hour call to complain.

    This is just one week.

    yes, everyone is out to get our money, and companies are getting more aggressive every year and trying to turn everything into a monthly subscription. The music artists we love have a service to aggressively charge us more and share in the proceeds, it’s called Ticketmaster.
  • YourDirtisMyfood
    YourDirtisMyfood Boston Posts: 4,668
    Go Animal said:
    I'll find a way into one of the Tampa shows on day of show (just like we do for the boys), but nothing beats free, lol.

    Taylor Swift, 2003 - Florida Music Festival, Wall St., Orlando, FL 
    was the Florida Music Festival held at a pool hall?
  • Alpine Valley Music Theatre East Troy, Wisconsin (September 03, 2011); Alpine Valley Music Theatre East Troy, Wisconsin (September 04, 2011); Deluna Fest Pensacola, FL (September 21, 2012); Wrigley Field (July 19, 2013); Milwaukee, WI (October 20, 2014); Wrigley Field I (August 20, 2016); Wrigley Field II (August 22, 2016); Home Shows Seattle Night 1 (August 08, 2018); Home Shows Seattle Night 2 (August 10, 2018); Ohana Festival Dana Point (September 27th - 29th, 2019); Apollo Theater (September 10, 2022); Madison Square Garden (September 11, 2022), Bourbon & Beyond Louisville (September 17th, 2022); Las Vegas (May 16th, 2024); Las Vegas (May 18th, 2024).
  • YourDirtisMyfood
    YourDirtisMyfood Boston Posts: 4,668
    edited January 2023
  • YourDirtisMyfood
    YourDirtisMyfood Boston Posts: 4,668
    edited January 2023
    I am actually seeing Taylor this May and if she covers Green Disease I will faint.  Funny story, I became a fan of Taylor's because years ago, right before Red blew up, I was on youtube looking at artists and songs that I wasn't a fan of and saw Taylor had covered DMB's "You and Me" when she did medleys during the Speak Now tour.  I liked it, saw some other songs on YT like "Mine" and "Back to December" and a few more that I didn't realize she was the artist of those songs as I wasn't a fan back then and just fell for her and her music.  These will be my 4th and 5th shows of hers this summer.
  • runbirduk
    runbirduk Brooklyn Posts: 23
    This market value price is a joke especially because we live in New York.
    We recently tried to get tickets multiple times to see the Bono chat/tour but were only offered tickets for like $1000+.
    Of course now you go back on and there’s loads available for resale but much as we love bono/U2 we won’t be paying $300+ a ticket.
    Front row resale over $9000 a ticket! How is this possible?
    when he did the larger tour you could get tickets for something like $90 in Canada as they have a law that prohibits the market value tkt. 
  • demetrios
    demetrios Posts: 97,912

    No problemo! 
  • runbirduk said:
    This market value price is a joke especially because we live in New York.
    We recently tried to get tickets multiple times to see the Bono chat/tour but were only offered tickets for like $1000+.
    Of course now you go back on and there’s loads available for resale but much as we love bono/U2 we won’t be paying $300+ a ticket.
    Front row resale over $9000 a ticket! How is this possible?
    when he did the larger tour you could get tickets for something like $90 in Canada as they have a law that prohibits the market value tkt. 
    Wayyyy too many people doing this across the board with everything.

    New clothing line from a star comes out?  Sold out to resell.

    New limited sneakers?  Sold out to resell.

    This has failed miserably though which I am happy with in the NFT's for basketball.
  • pjruss
    pjruss Posts: 657
    Sorry, this may be slightly off topic because I’m not sure that it’s Ticketmaster that is behind it, but what about when a certain venue (well, it’s owners) is causing ridiculously out of line ticket prices for high demand shows?

    I live in Ft. Lauderdale. A lot of BIG acts are now playing at a 7,000 seat venue here, whereas everywhere else on their respective tours, they’re playing arenas or even stadiums!

    The venue is at the Guitar Hotel at the Seminole Tribe’s headquarters. And tickets to these shows are minimum $500, and as much as $10,000. 

    The Seminole Tribe owns the entire Hard Rock operation. I can’t be alone in finding it fishy that McCartney plays a football stadium in Orlando, where tickets could be purchased for $100-$150, albeit far and high from stage one night, and here at the HR a couple nights later and tickets are $1k minimum. Then back to stadiums the rest of the tour. 

    This week Billy Joel here. 
    Bruce in a couple weeks. 
    Janet Jackson in April. 
    It goes on and on. 

    Look at their itineraries: arenas in all other cities of their tours. 

    How much are they being paid up front to play there, rather than an arena that could hold 2-3 times the number of people like they’re playing in front of the rest of their tour??

    Who suffers? Anyone living in South Florida that isn’t wealthy that wants to go to any of these concerts. 

    Not blaming the artists, just saying that this is a problem that may or may not be related to Ticketmaster, but shows that they aren’t the only ones that contribute to this mess. 

    And kudos to Taylor Swift for not playing a show or two there on her upcoming tour. I can only imagine what they offered her (and what the ticket prices would’ve been 😳)…

    Any thoughts/comments (other than “so move out of South Florida 🤷🏻‍♂️) on this? Does this happen to this degree anywhere else?

  • Zod
    Zod Posts: 10,916
    To me the question is, if TM was broken up, what would actually change.   I don't think platinum tickets are going away.  Not that there's many non-TM venues left, but before the RATM tour got cancelled, the old NHL arena in Vancouver was selling it's tickets through TicketLeader.   RATM was doing platinum tickets for charity on that tour, and the website had no problem doing that.    If there were other shows where that wasn't for charity, I don't imagine it would be an issue.

    Platinum tickets rise more ticket revenue which results in larger gaurantees for the band.   I don't get how, even with more competition how that's going to change.  Oh we got of gotten paid 10 million to do that show, but we're going to go with Ticket Company X, that doesn't do platinum, so we're only going to get paid 5 million... lol.

    Things I think could improve:

    Lower ticket fees.

    Everything else I think would be the same old problems.   If you fragmented the sector, what are the odds all these smaller ticket companies will have the capacity to handle giant onsales.  If TS brought TM to it's knees, I can only imagine what would happen with smaller operations.

    I sort of agree with some comments that TM is designed to take the flack, but I don't think most of the problems get solved if they weren't around.  Demand is still greater than supply, artists don't make money on music anymore, so they want more money to play live (even worse for new bands where the label also gets concert revenue).  

    Cat's out of the bag.  Not sure the grass would be much greener.