You may know the drill. You get online at 10am, several months before the show, and receive a place in the virtual queue. Perhaps you notice with dismay that your number is larger than the capacity of the venue. Perhaps you then lose your place because you’ve been misidentified as a bot, or the site crashes altogether. If you make it to the front, you may well wonder why £100 (plus about £20 in opaque surcharges) now qualifies as a cheap seat. And that’s if there are any cheap seats left, not just inflated VIP packages. And you may ask yourself why it has to be like this.
When you don’t get what you want, you tend to look for someone to blame. That someone is usually Ticketmaster. The company, which merged with concert promoters Live Nation in 2010 to form Live Nation Entertainment, sells about 70% of all concert tickets worldwide, and an even greater proportion of the arena and stadium market. In 2024, Live Nation generated a record $23.2bn (£17.5bn) in revenue, with Ticketmaster selling 637m tickets. Rivals such as See Tickets (owned by Germany’s CTS Eventim) and AXS (the ticketing arm of promoters AEG Presents) aren’t exactly minnows but Ticketmaster has become a synonym for ticketing: a lightning rod and a punchbag.
In the US, Ticketmaster’s current problems stem from a cardinal error: getting on the wrong side of Swifties. In November 2022, the company failed to stagger the presale for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, listing all 2m tickets simultaneously. The colossal demand overwhelmed the servers, causing myriad problems. Swift expressed her disappointment. Ticketmaster grovelled. Last May, the US justice department (DOJ) filed an antitrust suit, now backed by 39 states, which alleges that Live Nation and Ticketmaster use their “power and influence … to freeze innovation and bend the industry to their own benefit”.
They should at least outlaw the exclusive deals with venues and artists which they use to crush the competition.
They’re clearly an anticompetitive monopoly. Wish I could say I’m optimistic that the DOJ can pull off something positive in regards to this case, or anything really.
Guess I should try to start some sort of grassroots campaign accusing Live Nation of being woke
I bought tickets through Ticketmaster for a concert that was happening in April ‘20. I bought them a few months in advance right when they went on sale, because of course I had no idea of the coming pandemic. The concert got rescheduled to the Fall of ‘20, then rescheduled again for early ‘21, then eventually cancelled. Ticketmaster said that they would refund my money back to my original payment method, my debit card. One problem, in the time that this had dragged on - over a year and a half - my debit card had expired, and the bank had issued me a new one. So the original debit card information was no longer valid, and the money wouldn’t go back on it. Ever try to get customer service from Ticketmaster? Yeah, good luck with that. They refuse to respond, and they make it so difficult that they eventually achieved their goal - frustrating me to the point of just throwing my hands up in disgust and giving up. Money gone. Have I bought tickets through Ticketmaster since then? Of course I have, because there were some acts that I really wanted to see, and what other choice do I have?!?
I hope their CEO broke his leg falling off of his third gold toilet that my money helped him purchase.
I buy tickets all the time from industries I hate in hopes that one day they realize they should treat customers better. Until then I’ll keep buying tickets.
Because as I’ve gotten older and I can afford things, I realized there’s no effort to prevent this from other people. So why would I miss out. It’s not like we’re on the right where they will protest and collectively not stop until they get their thing actioned.
Funny, I go the opposite route. If a company does something to bother me enough, I will easily forego whatever experience they are providing. There is no lack of meaningful entertainment in this world, why further encourage shittiness when I can just enjoy something else? I do the same with prices. Too expensive? Fuck it, guess I don’t do that anymore. Here’s looking at you Phish; nothing against the band and understand their pricing, but I am not paying over $100 (especially now back w ticketmaster no less) for a concert. It doesn’t bother me if others do, it just becomes ‘not for me.’ Like everything, to each their own though.
Have I bought tickets through Ticketmaster since then? Of course I have
And you don’t see yourself as enabling the problem?
I get that, but my wife and I are huge fans of The Monkees. The only one of the 4 alive is Micky Dolenz, who is still touring at 80 years old. How much longer will he be doing concerts? I don’t want to miss out on seeing him perform when he’s near in what, at any time, could be his last concert just to make a stand against Ticketmaster.
Understand, we don’t go to multiple shows a year, but when there’s something that we really want to see, they’ve got me by the short and curlies. Either pay up or don’t go. There are times when its more important to pay up than to prove a point, but that doesn’t make me hate them any less.
And you cut the quote before they explain they have no other choice. People aren’t choosing to buy tickets from Ticketmaster over another competitor. If they want to see their favorite artists live, there frequently is no other choice. Ticketmaster maintains its monopoly by threatening to blackball venues that provide tickets through other providers, and many of these large spaces can’t afford to fall out of Ticketmaster’s good graces.
Sure, live music isn’t a necessity, but blaming the consumers for feeding into a broken system instead of the monopoly that enforces it is incredibly disingenuous.
Yes, they have another choice. Don’t go.
One family not buying tickets is not going to put a dent in Ticketmaster’s bottom line. I understand the principle, but a total boycott of the majority of live music isn’t feasible. This situation isn’t getting fixed without anti-trust getting involved and since it doesn’t fall under the umbrella of big tech, I highly doubt the current administration will do anything.
This monopoly is one of the best examples of our government being broken by lobbying. This problem is a least 30 years old and nothing has changed in all that time.
Absolutely. Between Ticketmaster and LiveNation, almost every performing venue in the United States is completely dominated.
We desperately, desperately need legitimate anti-trust actions in the United States; we need something that will reintroduce some actual competition into the market.
The first failure of the federal government that led to this path was in the 1990s and the Microsoft Antitrust Trials. That was the point at which there really could have been another way–but the billionaires, at that point, had all the inroads to government that the Reagan Administration made possible. Because Microsoft could buy politicians, the vast majority of people on the planet have never used any operating system other than Windows, and the Microsoft company gets billions upon billions of dollars from state/federal/municipal contracts.
Google and Apple, then, just followed the path that Microsoft bought and paved through government regulations. And that made it easy for other billion dollar companies like Ticketmaster and LiveNation to do the same thing in other realms–simply buy the laws, buy the politicians, buy the system that’s supposed to regulate them, and then use that system to remove all competition.
And that made it easy for other billion dollar companies like Ticketmaster and LiveNation to do the same thing in other realms–simply buy the laws, buy the politicians, buy the system that’s supposed to regulate them, and then use that system to remove all competition.
Most notably, actual competition – a supposedly great boon of capitalism that drives up value for the customer – nowhere to be found in that formula. This is the exact same path i believe we watch every successful product or service eventually take.
Oh but it has. Things have been getting progressively worse.
Ticketmaster owes me a couple hundred dollars for a show that’s been “delayed” for a year now. Meanwhile, I’m paying interest on the credit charges.
There’s no way to get a refund or dispute the charges.
It should be illegal.
Just do a charge back on your credit card.
It’s been too long. Most credit cards only allow a limited period of time to challenge a charge. I stupidly hoped that it would be rescheduled. You know, since Ticketmaster told me it would be. After 60-90 days, the money is theirs whether they deliver a product or not.
Meanwhile, I’m paying interest on the credit charges
You wouldn’t be had you been responsible and actually paid your card off at the end of the month.
I mean even if the show had happened it sounds like you shouldn’t have spent money you didn’t have.
Thanks for the financial advice bro.
The point is that they borrow money for free. It’s theft even if they one day refund the tickets. Because that’s how money works. Apparently you should know that since you’re clearly an expert.
On the one hand, maybe it might be considered a little scummy for a megacorporation to financially abuse people, but the important point here is how dare you try to enjoy your life.
I mean even if the show had happened it sounds like you shouldn’t have spent money you didn’t have.
You seem to be one of the blessed people who do not work a minimum wage job, barely making ends meet, with a desire to go to a concert 'cause you haven’t been able to afford to for years.
Lucky you.
No, I don’t believe you should do it if it is going to make you struggle more long-term. At what point do we just agree a given amount of money you don’t have is stupid to spend. If someone spent $1,000+ that they can’t actually pay on a t swift concert at 25% interest, yeah, maybe you’d be in a better situation for 2y if you avoided that extra few hundred in interest for like 4y. Preventing my own struggle certainly better than a few hours of entertainment and hearing loss.
I do believe people should be paid enough to afford joys in life without struggling so much but that’s not the system we have.
I love how easily people are strawmanning this into something I didn’t say.
You said …
I mean even if the show had happened it sounds like you shouldn’t have spent money you didn’t have.
Please explain how my response was a strawman argument.
So if you have a mortgage, you’re not supposed to buy anything until the house is paid off?
A mortgage gets you a place to live with increasing amount of property ownership as time goes on. It isn’t at 25% interest for one evening. You never get the money back from going to a concert, you do get at least some back on a mortgage.
You could use your ticket money to pay off your mortgage, so all of your spendings are costing you the same interest at minimum.
Housing is a bit different than concert tickets, both in terms of how essential it is and the interest rate involved. I’m not putting concert tickets on anything that’s accruing interest, that’s simply a bad financial decision.
Repeat after me: FUCK TICKET MASTER.
