Ticketmaster is a company which is so hated, people ascribe their success to malice and illegal activity rather than any compelling economic arguments. It's unfortunate because their business model is, imo, quite interesting.
The first thing to point out is that the question itself is flawed. Ticketmaster has a number of competitors (StubHub, Eventbrite, AXS, Seatgeek). Nevertheless, artists do seem to always gravitate to companies like Ticketmaster, even when neither they nor their venue have any affiliation.
What we should ask is what problems a naive artist would face selling their tickets like any other commodity:
- They overprice it: No one shows up, people are angry at the artist, the artist is in debt to the venue for overbooking.
- They underprice it: The tickets are hoovered up by scalpers who capture most of the ticket's true value, fans are disappointed they can't attend because finding a ticket is much harder.
Ticketmaster's (et al) primary service is to capture as much of the value of each ticket as possible (through phased ticket rollouts, faux-sellouts, variable pricing, attendance modelling, etc.) and package the event wholesale for the venue and artist. Both parties are can be guaranteed of some portion of the event before tickets even go on sale and the risk for them both is diminished.
Obviously I'm not trying to say Ticketmaster is all sunshine and lollipops, but if you want to make an argument about Ticketmaster's success, saying that they've cornered the ticketed events market globally is ludicrous.
Obviously not true. Pearl Jam tried to ditch Ticketmaster in the 90s and ended up cancelling their tour because they could only get shitty locations. The top comment here is correct: Ticketmaster has exclusive deals with venues and you can't get around it as a performer.
> Nevertheless, artists do seem to always gravitate to companies like Ticketmaster, even when neither they nor their venue have any affiliation.
Artists will want play at more than one venue, surely, and I should imagine that TM's stance is "If you want to play at any of our venues, you sign with us". Might be possible for a small indie band to completely avoid any TM venues but for any moderately popular band, it's probably not possible.
> Ticketmaster has a number of competitors (StubHub, Eventbrite, AXS, Seatgeek).
Those are reseller platforms (StubHub, Seatgeek) and independent entities (Eventbrite & AXS) that aren't associated with the venues/rooms they're playing in.
So your examples either:
1) Resell tickets from Ticketmaster + the list you mentioned + all other providers, or
2) They don't have the ability to flex on people because they don't own & operate the rooms across the entire planet, and in turn can't hit them with exclusivity clauses in their contracts the second they step foot into one of XXXXX rooms they'd like to play.
> Nevertheless, artists do seem to always gravitate to companies like Ticketmaster, even when neither they nor their venue have any affiliation.
Are you sure those non-affiliated venues don't have 10+ year exclusive ticketing contract that came with a fat lump sum when the ink dried in order to modernize & sustain their business?
I'd also question which rooms are slanging TM tickets without being owned by the overarching entity? I don't think I've ever seen that and I'd appreciate you presenting some examples of this.
> What we should ask is what problems a naive artist would face selling their tickets like any other commodity:
So anyone outside the TM system is naive? Wow... 0k... proceed...
> - They overprice it: No one shows up, people are angry at the artist, the artist is in debt to the venue for overbooking.
Please explain to me how the artist is in debt to the venue? There isn't a promoter in between the two? The artist is signing loan agreements and going into debt to the venue? Tell me you have zero clue what you're talking about without telling me you don't know a single thing about this industry...
> - They underprice it: The tickets are hoovered up by scalpers who capture most of the ticket's true value, fans are disappointed they can't attend because finding a ticket is much harder.
Again, no idea what you're talking about.
1) TM is GASSED UP when scalpers hoover up. They have multiple reselling platforms for exactly this scenario, including one that's TM branded. They _love_ this.
2) In reality, the promoter/venue is totally fine with this. They build offers against the proposed ticket price & sellable capacity, and a sell out is a sell out. Sure, hindsight is 20/20 and they'll reference historicals and adjust accordingly when the agent hits them up for the next play, but nobody is mad at a sell out.
> and package the event wholesale for the venue and artist. Both parties are can be guaranteed of some portion of the event before tickets even go on sale and the risk for them both is diminished.
They own & operate the venues. The artists are paid cash up front to sign the exclusive tour contract. They're not working for _anyone_ other than Ticketmaster... you're tripping my guy...
> Obviously I'm not trying to say Ticketmaster is all sunshine and lollipops
Ayyyyy no worries anyone with any exposure to this industry and half of a brain has already determined you have no idea what you're talking about, you're wrong & confused & way out of pocket, and we already know TM isn't sunshine & lollipops... back into your text editor you go (please)...
To follow on with your comment, I think Ticketmaster also offers hate-absorption as a service. Weird fees and opaque pricing can help venues and artists like you describe, but alienate fans. Ticketmaster is comfortable with being the bad guy.
Except this isn’t a balanced perspective. That Ticketmaster can help cover the increased costs of touring is not really relevant to the discussion of “why isn’t there a replacement for Ticketmaster?”.
Why?
Livenation and Ticketmaster controls like 70+% of the market for shows (https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/did-ticketmasters-mar...). They own fuck tons of venues and literally can’t be competed with in a lot of instances. Theres not a competitor because it turns out that acquiring vast numbers of venues is expensive and is only something that a market leader like Livenation could do.
The first thing to point out is that the question itself is flawed. Ticketmaster has a number of competitors (StubHub, Eventbrite, AXS, Seatgeek). Nevertheless, artists do seem to always gravitate to companies like Ticketmaster, even when neither they nor their venue have any affiliation.
What we should ask is what problems a naive artist would face selling their tickets like any other commodity:
- They overprice it: No one shows up, people are angry at the artist, the artist is in debt to the venue for overbooking.
- They underprice it: The tickets are hoovered up by scalpers who capture most of the ticket's true value, fans are disappointed they can't attend because finding a ticket is much harder.
Ticketmaster's (et al) primary service is to capture as much of the value of each ticket as possible (through phased ticket rollouts, faux-sellouts, variable pricing, attendance modelling, etc.) and package the event wholesale for the venue and artist. Both parties are can be guaranteed of some portion of the event before tickets even go on sale and the risk for them both is diminished.
Obviously I'm not trying to say Ticketmaster is all sunshine and lollipops, but if you want to make an argument about Ticketmaster's success, saying that they've cornered the ticketed events market globally is ludicrous.