Live Nation & Ticketmaster: The Monopoly Behind the Concert Industry

[@cjthex]

this is a subject I'm very passionate about and this is one of the greatest coverages on it I've seen. This channel is excellent. Hope u keep producing incisive pieces on incentives and complicated mediated systems, I hope to also see advocation for business models that are much more mutually beneficial between the value providers and the customers

[@jimferry4751]

I used to stand in line and camp out for seats to a good show that was coming to town. Thanks for putting this together. I only went to 1 show that I paid more than face value for a ticket and that show was David Gilmour at Radio City. Well worth it and was also my last concert.

[@andreadanica]

When LiveNation organizes concerts everything is CHAOTIC.

[@mitchm0]

I work in the industry and you really cut through a lot, TM is very negligent in making things fair and only claims it is, but the learning curve for fans is massive. The integration into the secondary and the support it gives to resellers is a lot deeper than anything you might know of due to the lack of publication. However, you produced a very informative essay and i enjoyed it. Good job! I would like to add that you do get the fact wrong that TM makes it harder to sell on other secondary markets. Almost all shows are transferable in some regard and makes selling on other secondaries only a matter of who has the most exposure. In fact TM's secondary department has implemented tools to make reselling easier across all secondaries. The Black Keys incident was the introduction to their non transferable disclaimer and was very much so an isolated incident and has not occurred in the same manner since.

[@juliedacosta9930]

Hey. I hope you will be on to answer my questions. Your opinion interests me a lot seeing you say well informed. How much Ticket Master take per places sold ? Do they really give 90 % of the prices to the artist ? I wonder if artists do not in some way get a lot of profit of this system and if they are not okay in a way that TM is overly pricing tickets. Why artists don't refuse the dynamic pricing algorithm of TM and do not fix clearly a price for their show themselves ? I hope you will answer. Thanks for your first comment anyway. And good evening.

[@Chick-r4m]

​@@juliedacosta9930😮

[@Chick-r4m]

I want my paid for TXs.

[@Chick-r4m]

Live Nation if we pay your fee....GIVE TS. Please.

[@MIKEBORGIA]

One can only hope that consumers see this video and resist buying concert tickets until LN makes more ethical moves.

[@meg8278]

That's not going to happen. I haven't even watched the whole video yet. But this is not new. They have already been sued and fought and always win. Your right that us as consumers could change it. No one is more angry than me. Especially since I go to a lot of events. I have spent well over $1,000 in just this past year. It's beyond frustrating.

[@MIKEBORGIA]

@@meg8278 It could happen, but just as you said, you're personally not willing to do so and what shocks me is that you're complaining about the cost yet you continue to buy the ticket. I presume that it's the fear of missing out? I don't really care what other people do as long as it doesn't effect me, I have refused to attend Corporate funded concerts since 1999, which was the last time I logged into Ticketmaster or LiveNation. I just think that if people are going to continue to complain they need to take action or let it go.

[@DebraWelch]

Thank you, that was an excellent video. I attended over 35 concerts this past summer, and became very interested in the ticket selling practices. I was wondering if you might make a video about the practice of selling the “VIP packages” offered to fans for premium seats. I know some of those packages were several hundred dollars for stuff like plastic laminated hard tickets, cheap plastic souvenirs, shoelaces, lapel pins, express entry, designated photo ops and my personal favorite, the valuable benefit of a dedicated merchandise booth for crowd free shopping. They literally charged people to spend money on $75 t-shirts. I had tons of trouble with AXS also, glitchy app, unable to resell tickets with some artists. Unfortunately, I think if anything happens they will get sued, settle by giving every discount codes we can never use, and pay a fine, that will be less than the profit they made. Who loses? The customer. My suggestion is for everyone to not buy tickets. Too bad you miss your fave band or artist once. Things would change if we all boycotted purchasing tickets. The consequence of that is a lot of innocent workers would be affected. This is a huge problem, and I am sorry it took this long to be exposed and the consumers are paying attention. Rock on!

[@mrmohamed5494]

Please continue your videos, you are really underrated ! I enjoy watching your content :)

[@r-qube23]

Full support for this channel. Keep going. And huge respect for the hardwork put in

[@ephraimmotho887]

This was a really good breakdown. Really, really well done!!!👏👏👏

[@Tipp_Of_The_Mitt]

You would almost think the government would step in on something like this. Back in the 80's I was going to concerts almost every weekend during the summer in Northern Lower Michigan (and I mean above traverse city) at $12.50 a pop. There's no way I would ever go to a concert now no matter how much I like the band.

[@MIKEBORGIA]

Fully agree. I grew up in the hardcore/post hardcore scene and tickets were affordable so the bands could build an audience and even once we had our core followings, tickets still made ethic sense.

[@ThatRascalMerlin]

Actually ... they *_have!_* The DoJ recently filed an anti-trust lawsuit against these greedy, evil overlords. The suit is charging them with monopolizing the concert industry (which they very clearly have). The last article I read about this said that *forty* states had joined in on the suit, with even more expected to. Search the net, and you'll find the story.

[@Adip96]

The part about what goes on sale is incorrect, the lines under ‘opens’ are different allocations and holds. Each line constitutes for various things, for example other ticket agent allocations (that are sold through different channels like See tickets for example) artist/ promoter holds for their guest lists, pre-sale tickets which are in a different ring fence to general sale and go on sale first, venue holds for staff tickets and relocations etc, the ratio looks shocking when on the screen but there’s many reasons for the different holds, they’re not just withdrawn from sale because concert promoters want to sell as many tickets as they can and maximise sales. That’s why the biggest proportion of tickets go on sale within the presale so they can gauge the customer demand

[@fionarofl]

finally a new video!!!!

[@djyua9157]

I was looking for an in depth video that could educate me more on this Thanks

[@iristhundercloud9684]

Bro you need more subs great video gotta new subscriber 👍

[@kevinb4079]

Ticketmasterr deserves the Ma Bell treatment!

[@DigitalZeitgeist]

Amazing video as always

[@kuku8122]

2:26 what movie is this

[@kjellmagnusson3398]

I was unable to use my 4 ABBA tickets and sold them through Ticketmasters resale function. It was a fast sale mid november but no money for me. Great for Ticketmaster to sell the tickets twice and keep the money. I will never buy a ticket from them again.

[@tbikes6581]

I don't blame you! Whenever I have time (I live in LA) &I want to attend a concert, I drive to the Hollywood Bowl or the Forum, for instance, BEFORE the concert and purchase my tickets 🎟️ at the box office. I will sacrifice a little time and gas to prevent Ticketmaster from getting richer

[@pattillo21]

This was a great video!

[@Ace-hj7li]

great video i really hope more people see this

[@allanox]

Exceptional quality of your videos. So immersed into the topic, thanks your great sounding voice and NO bg music 🙏 keep it up

[@mollycartwright4104]

Brilliant video

[@AM74691]

Great video!

[@violenthell]

The US Government needs to sue Live Nation, they should broken up into a million pieces, and the executives should probed for criminal conduct This can only end in catastrophe, this level of control and extraction of wealth from the American ppl cannot be unchecked

[@novel886]

The boss of Live Nation collected over 70 000000 dollars in 2017 alone, while his employees get an average of 24000 a year. Squeezed out of the ticket prices of people who just want to have a good time with their favorite artists. Absolutely disgusting. He is considered the CEO with the biggest discrepancy with his employees.

[@djyua9157]

This aged WELL😂

[@fionarofl]

also, have you thought of adding hashtags? and maybe creating shorts to get the algo to pickup your videos?

[@jeremycarrier-levesque510]

All of this and you didn't even talk about LN venues merch cuts, how hard they are to work with for non-LN venues, how TM is sooooo buggy and they have no interest in making their platform actually workable for the size of the business, etc. those two really need to work on their crap if they wanna make sure this industry still stands in 10 years. Right now they're making more and more money while artists and crews make less and less...

[@ansonstiles]

Good program

[@jh0720]

10:55 great video, but this part about the wealthy getting the tickets (or even annual fees into the four figures) is very wrong

[@autecheee]

The secondary market sellers (aka scalpers) are at risk of losing money if the show is not selling up to capacity. If the show does not sell out one can find ‘fire sale’ tickets a day or two before the concert, e.g. 50% off retail primary price from my personal experience. Of course these are nosebleed seats.

[@clbbarle9903]

DICE FM is a good alternative. They only have tickets for smaller, select concerts, but tickets are usually well priced and have NO FEES.

[@chaoscultus]

The least of our concerns are the negative affect on Taylor Swift. Even if you disagree that its trash, the importance in this is the tens of thousands of smaller selling artists and the future of music and culture

[@ReillyBJohnson]

These videos are great!

[@kryptonarie6367]

The majority of fans are excluded when two tickets in a nosebleed section cost >$500! TM/LN have no qualms with price gouging consumers, because they know if people want to see a show bad enough, they'll increase their credit card debt to go.

[@82spiders]

LYV is why we have laws against unregulated monopolies. They control the price. One can fund alternatives or cap their prices. I prefer the former.

[@grassyknoll4702]

I recommend we collectively stop going to concerts for 2 years and break this criminal activity up...

[@emanuelsuarez2911]

see what happened in Mexico with the Bad Bunny concert two weeks ago.

[@mhdibm7515]

Damn dude

[@shotbyrima]

Me who bought TheWeeknd Tickets for 600€: 👁️👄👁️

[@abhisheksachan8565]

bro ur videos are great pls use hashtags and pls add the youtube shorts

[@TheWaveGoodbye-Music]

Live music is dead, and know what? Good. Its finally taken music away from the gatekeepers and put it in the hands of musicians. Theres less working class people in the arts now than ever before and less so with people buying tickets and going out, its becoming an exclusive event. And all these pub and club owners who underpay or don't pay artists at all and only have the "established" acts play helped to kill the music scene are the first out with the begging bowl asking for handouts or freebies from musicians who they've undercut for so long to "save the scene" or "save X's club," Live music killed itself and I have no sympathy. Long live online musicians. The future is now old man

[@ceruleandream972]

Ok to be entirely honest, I feel like if the good being sold was a necessity good (like rice or water or flour or whatever) then sure you could say it’s unethical. But these are concerts, and Livenation/promoters aren’t NGOs/non-profits - so like why do we expect them to care if tickets are given out to fans/the general population equitably? Wouldn’t it just be logical that those who can pay the most/put in the most effort get their tickets? Ultimately they are doing this to maximise profits, not to bring happiness to people or fans or whatever. Like why is it a crime that Livenation doesn’t care if people who can’t afford tickets (based on market economics) aren’t getting tickets? It’s not like people will die or starve if they can’t go to a concert

[@stokbrood]

Almost every concert in The Netherlands is hosted by MOJO Events, which has been bought by Live Nation and thus also from Ticketmaster... Regarding re-selling tickets for non-ticketmaster tickets, we have TicketSwap. Which only allows you to sell the ticket for 20% more than the original price and swaps almost all tickets for a new one and making the old one invalid. Which is very much loved here

[@mistifeyed]

You say “only 20%” like that’s a good thing lol. That’s outrageous.

[@stevel3980]

They cost me $500.00 this year because you can't speak to anyone, and customer service is an oxymoron. I bwante tickets to Tommy Emanuel and looked it up found a date and bought. Then realized (stupidly that another artist ) Emanuel advertised same page. There is no one to talk to ever so I'm out.

[@johnperez93640]

This should be against the law to be doing this to fans!

[@faysalshukri1313]

Promote it on Reddit as well

[@blurefr]

The older generations consistently gloat about how they used to go to concerts multiple times a week, when prices were

[@NobodyInTraining]

Awesome video again. I can't blame LYV too much, They are acting according to supply and demand. It is not their fault that they're in a monopoly, it is what every company strives for. They were just successful at it. Can you make the videos louder? I often listen to them doing something else, and it's hard to hear sometimes.

[@daviddavenport1485]

BREAK IT UP

[@jazztrumpet-8246]

Here is an easy solution that people make it hard…… STOP BUYUBG THESE TICKETS!

[@boyizhou9268]

Live Nation is a great company to work at though

[@ttban1988]

Sue Ticketmaster

[@richardburns420dale3]

I dont see what is so bad about it. They are making a previously subsidized industry actually make sense without the subsidies. Suffering from success because of the lack of competition because they saw what was happening first and acted upon it.

[@parisknight1840]

You clearly haven’t heard any of the horror stories people have had in recent years when dealing with Ticketmaster. Also monopolies are illegal from what I know, one company should not have full control over an industry because now people have no choice but to buy from Ticketmaster to see their favs.

[@selenesimonson9930]

Ticketmaster sells directly to ticket brokers-that’s how they have tickets before they go on sale during the presales. Is that ok? It shouldn’t be.

[@ChrisTopherBunnell]

As a disabled veteran, I get free tickets to events using VetTix, and Ticketmaster still charges fees on free/donated tickets.

[@27ozyboy]

I found it abs ridiculous that was charged 12.50 aud just to change the name off a ticket. For a totally generated system. And the website tickets that do not match name on ID won't be let in. No one checked anything at the gig but scanned ticket. Go figure. That Is price gauging. What happened to you 5 tickets who cares if author Or Martha attends. You have 5 tickets. Why the need for a allocated name. This is through @moshtix Australia.

[@stokbrood]

Do they even check the name on the ticket?