The Ticket Monopoly Is Worse Than Ever (Thanks, Obama) Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, called the hearing, and has long positioned herself as a moderate Democrat eager to work across the aisle to get things done. Im in Canada and managed to get tickets for a show. The fervor wasnt exclusive to music fans. You told me yesterday you have a hard time distinguishing between a bot attack and a consumer, Ms. Blackburn said to Mr. Berchtold. Orders cannot be canceled due to problems with receipt of emails. The Justice Department allowed the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger to proceed despite a 2010 court filing in the case that raised objections to the merger. 5 days 7 hours 43 mins 36 secs. Top officials at Live Nation and SeatGeek are arguing over a New York Times story about ticket vending at the Barclays Center. I have a problem with Live Nation Are you having issues? If you lose your internet connection during booking for even a second, if you're part way through a booking you may have to start over and search for tickets again, so it's best to make sure that you're using a reliable connection. Live Nation, a company behind Astroworld, has a long history of - NPR But he largely pointed to an assault from bots automated programs from scalpers that seek out tickets as the primary problem, saying that the bots had even attacked Ticketmasters servers. Heres what its really doing. Everything from their service fees to their mobile tickets are bullshit. The volume of people on their platform during Taylor Swift was insane. Live Nation ticket refund site now live - Chicago Tribune That agreement worked, well, medium, as in 2019, the DOJ announced it was modifying and extending the agreement because the company was doing some of the things it said it wouldnt. He was worried if his name appeared, it might harm his companys relationship with Ticketmaster a relationship the company needs to survive or that Ticketmaster might retaliate. were rejected as fakes by malfunctioning scanning machines. The thing with a company being so big and having so much power is that it doesnt have to try very hard to be good. . One person says that their card was charged, despite not being able to get a ticket. As a result, many venues are effectively required to contract with Ticketmaster to obtain Live Nation concerts on reasonable terms, limiting the ability of Ticketmaster's competitors to compete in the primary ticketing market and harming venues that would benefit from increased competition.". In his testimony, Berchtold said Ticketmaster has lost ground due to the enormous secondary ticketing market, in which Ticketmaster has a modest market share and many strong competitors. He said Ticketmaster has more competition now in the primary market as well from outfits such as SeatGeek, AXS, and Eventbrite, among others. You leverage market power in one market to get market power in another, he said. What you get when you chat with us. You can read it here. Jack Groetzinger, the chief executive of SeatGeek, a smaller but aggressive competitor to Ticketmaster, was the first in the hearing to broach the big question facing regulators: whether the 2010 merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster should be undone. Live Nation is offering an all-in package of four tickets for $80 to various summer concerts including @Beck with @WearePhoenix, @WuTangClan with @Nas, @QOTSA . "Consumers deserve protection against the clear excesses and abuses of Ticketmaster repeatedly demonstrated in their own lives and documented in Congressional hearings," Blumenthal said. The Taylor Swift tour drama has added fuel to the fire, but its hardly the only factor in the mix, nor is Swift the only artist who has people paying attention to this. We have a monopoly that covers an entire supply chain.. Live Nation is so powerful that it doesnt even need to exert pressure. The power imbalance is such that many people in the industry are nervous to speak out. Mr. Berchtold argued that the biggest problem it faced with the Taylor Swift tour was an onslaught of bots that crowded out real fans and attacked Ticketmasters servers, forcing the company to pause its sales. Lil Uzi Vert - PINK TAPE TOUR Tickets Nov 06, 2023 Atlanta, GA | Live Witt believes the ticketing market is ripe for disruption but is held back by Ticketmasters dominance. Service Fees, Order Processing Fees, Taxes, and Shipping Charges . Football latest news, gossip and updates - Sky Sports CNN Lawmakers grilled a top executive of Ticketmaster's parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, on Tuesday after the service's inability to process orders for Taylor Swift's upcoming. In the past, Live Nation has been accused including by the Justice Department of using the leverage of its control of concert tours to coerce venues to sign with Ticketmaster. Im against dumb, Kennedy told the Live Nation president. Greg Maffei, the chairman of Live Nation Entertainment, which owns Ticketmaster, apologized for the problems in an interview on CNBC in November and said that the issues were caused in part by Ms. Swifts huge popularity. Visit your venue's official site for specific questions such as parking lot locations, hours, drop-off areas or to find their contact information. Last year, Ms. Klobuchar, along with Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, urged the Justice Department to investigate anticompetitive behavior by Live Nation and Ticketmaster. Buy concert tickets for top tours and festivals - Live Nation is your premier source for latest tour news, artist insights, exclusive videos, photos, and more. Live Nation has much of the market for concert management, venues, and promotions covered. Theyve figured out how to define a bot in their system, but you cant?. Live Nations $25 concert sale is on now, and people are struggling to grab tickets to see their favourite artists. He says he hopes the committee can help make a better experience for the consumer., Durbin says that Live Nation and Ticketmasters consent decree the regulatory agreement that allowed those companies to merge in 2010 does not appear to have been effective.. Berchtold, the Live Nation executive, pushes back on what he says is old data suggesting that Live Nation controls 80 percent of the market. I think very few platforms would be ready for that type of volume, Brown said. The company often charges a litany of fees that dont have a clear rhyme or reason (and generally dont end up in the artists pocket). They are not held accountable on a competitive landscape, and thus far, regulators have allowed for almost all abuses to go through with extremely minor ramifications, said Krista Brown, a senior policy analyst at the American Economic Liberties Project, an anti-monopoly think tank thats part of a coalition called Break Up Ticketmaster. A new class-action lawsuit seeking to represent any Ticketmaster customers who purchased tickets since last July claims . We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and I was able to grab tickets to see Haim, but it took multiple refreshes. pic.twitter.com/VlzBgbq5dc. The company has had some successes, including with the Dallas Cowboys and Jujamcyn Theaters, one of the major theater owners on Broadway. Those fees were also sort of hidden I had to click a little drop-down arrow to see a breakdown beyond the total charge. 2023 Fortune Media IP Limited. Receive direct access to our top content, contests and perks. Since Congress approved the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster in 2010, they have controlled nearly 90% of the live entertainment market. Its nice @LiveNation has $25 tickets. And we cant do that if we have a paywall. But its not nice that the server keeps crashing. Ticketmaster's Taylor Swift tour fiasco last week renewed calls to investigate the 12-year-old merger that joined the world's largest live event promoter . Purchase Policy - Live Nation Help This isnt the first time Ticketmaster has fumbled selling Swifts tickets. The first witness this morning is Joe Berchtold, the president and chief financial officer of Live Nation Entertainment. Swift will complete her North America leg of the Eras Tour next month, and then will continue to Latin America, Asia, and Europe, concluding in London in August 2024. "She was shocked to see that the extra fees tacked on at the end amounted to original price of the tickets in the first place," Wilk told Insider. As Bad Bunny played to a curiously sparse stadium floor in Mexico City last month, thousands of fans were outside, trying desperately to get into the venue. Though senators at Tuesdays hearing acknowledged the need for stricter federal enforcement on the issue, some including Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee did not take kindly to finger-pointing from the worlds largest concert company. California Sen. Scott Wilk introduced a bill in February forbidding ticketing services from entering into exclusivity contracts with venues. On Tuesday, European fans logged onto the Ticketmaster site to buy Taylor Swift concert ticketsand saw that over 1 million other fans were ahead of them in the virtual queue. In prepared testimony for the January Senate hearing, Live Nation Entertainment president and CFO Joe Berchtold said that in most cases venues set service and ticketing fees. Los Angeles-based concert promoter Live Nation has announced the return of its Summer's Live all-in ticket promotion. Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, proposes making tickets non-transferrable. Live Nation came under fierce questioning from lawmakers and competitors at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday that explored whether the companys 2010 merger with Ticketmaster, which formed a colossus without equal in the multibillion-dollar live music business, had stifled competition and hurt consumers. I didnt think it was right. The Swifties were vying for spots at the pop stars six Eras Tour concerts in France slated for June 2024. 4 concerts tickets for $80: Live Nation's Summer's Live sale is here The hard thing is that theres not a lot most people can do about it. Each week, we explore unique solutions to some of the world's biggest problems. Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use, which became effective December 20, 2019. Also complex: dynamic pricing that ups ticket costs based on demand. Now, hes spending $2 million a year to stay young A millennial entrepreneur whos raised over $1.5 million for his 2 small businesses says he lives in his parents Americans are hunkering down and buying less food as inflation bites, one grocery giant saysinstead theyre raiding CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. In 2018, The New York Times reported that Ticketmaster controlled ticketing at 80 of the top 100 concert venues in the United States. How we got here: In 2010, the Justice Department allowed the two most dominant companies in the live music business Live Nation, which ran tours and managed artists, and Ticketmaster, the largest ticketing company to merge. It finally errored out. The hearing will also be carried live on the Senate Judiciary Committee website and C-SPAN. Once you choose your desired event, select the "Summer's Live 4 Pack" ticket type and it'll instantly add a four-pack of tickets to your cart. At one point, I was receiving a message that said the number of tickets in my cart exceeded the limit for the event. Check the venue website leading up to your event for the latest protocols. In the case of resale tickets, listing prices are determined by the seller, which can include fans or season ticket holders. But the trouble that Ticketmaster had last year selling tickets to Taylor Swift fans seems to have united lawmakers from both parties, who used Tuesdays hearing to criticize the botched sale and to ask tough questions about whether Live Nations merger with Ticketmaster had hurt consumers. All those people, next time they want to go to a show, will probably still have to go through Ticketmaster, and Bad Bunny tickets will remain there, too. The fiasco prompted Mexicos president, Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador, to condemn Ticketmaster and demand that the company reimburse valid ticket holders. From 7 a.m. Wednesday, July 19, through 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 1, get four . If youre watching the testimony, you may have heard the unfamiliar term vertical merger. That refers to a merger in which one company joins with another in the same supply chain, as in the Live Nation case: A company that ran tours and managed artists merged with a ticketing company. An antitrust expert who testified. This is what led to a terrible consumer experience, which we deeply regret, he said. Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, called the hearing to convene witnesses that include a top Live Nation executive along with some of its competitors in ticketing and concert promotion; experts on antitrust and market competition; and a performing artist. Sign In. Mr. Berchtold acknowledged that the company could have handled Ms. Swifts tickets differently, such as spreading out the sales over a longer period of time. Live Nation and Ticketmaster are criminals. . But she said that the larger questions of the day whether Live Nation-Ticketmaster is a monopoly, and if so what action should be taken about it were best handled by the Justice Department. Sure, supply-demand dynamics are often how markets work. Farm Aid Tickets Sep 23, 2023 Noblesville, IN | Live Nation Part of the problem is that Ticketmaster, owned by Live Nation Entertainment, occupies most of the ticket selling market, so fans have little other choice but to suffer its millions-long queues and Sisyphean loading screens. Because people just fall in line.. If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? The Senate Judiciary Committee explored whether the merger of Live Nation, the giant concert company, and Ticketmaster, the leading ticket seller, has harmed consumers by stifling competition. The company put on more than 40,000 events around the world and sold 485 million tickets in 2019, the last year unaffected by the pandemic for which it has disclosed data. After-Party featuring Busta Rhymes (Event Ticket Sold Separately) More Info. Hello! Twice a month, Emily Stewarts column exposes the ways were all being squeezed under capitalism. To return for a minute to the Taylor Swift of it all, the problem for Swifties was how glitchy the sites were thats not entirely whats on trial here, but its related. He said he hoped the committee could help make a better experience for the consumer.. Ticketmaster and Live Nation Entertainment insist they have competition that makes them try to try. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the top Republican on the committee, used his opening remarks to offer optimism, suggesting that the Senate Judiciary Committee will be able to work together well in the new Congress. If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Breaking up Ticketmaster and Live Nation will not instantly or even in the short to mid-term remotely remedy that. Thats in contrast to a horizontal merger, where two companies that do the same thing say, T-Mobile and Sprint combine. Grammy's Jack Antonoff on Live Nation: 3 Things Wrong With - Insider Ms. Klobuchar added, with a nod to the hearings most invoked, if absent, person: You cant have too much consolidation, something that unfortunately for this country, as an ode to Taylor Swift, I will say that we know all too well., Jerry Mickelson, a longtime independent concert promoter in Chicago, notes a frustrating situation familiar to most of Live Nations competitors: Pepsi doesnt earn money from Coke. Berchtold, Im not against big, per se. Midnights, the album Swift released in October, enjoyed the biggest debut week of any album in seven years. A lack of robust competition in our industry meaningfully stunts innovation, said Jack Groetzinger, CEO of SeatGeek, at the January Senate hearing. Im having the time of my life right now, watching this courtroom stream, said Erin Knox, a 21-year-old fan from New York State who, like many others, tweeted live reactions to the proceedings. Lets talk vertical mergers, corporate consolidation, and Taylor Swift. But in his testimony, Mr. Groetzinger argued that the environment is not fair. When they are debating whether to confirm a Supreme Court nominee, for instance, they tend not to be very collegial. Open Menu Livenation logo . Live Nation Entertainment is offering deep discounts on concert tickets through a two-week sale called Summer's Live. Blue October Tickets Nov 09, 2023 Anaheim, CA | Live Nation There are problems in the ticketing industry problems that we believe can and should be addressed through legislation, Mr. Berchtold said. After-Party featuring Busta Rhymes (Event Ticket Sold Separately 23 hours ago. Klobuchar says live events have become out of reach for many. Theres more to that story that youre not hearing.. Taylor Swift Ticketmaster fight: Senate holds hearing as fans protest : NPR Swift was a debacle.. The Ticketmaster-Live Nation Merger: What Does It Mean for Consumers I dont know whats happening, but Ive tried to buy tickets to one of the shows 4x now, and it keeps giving me an our bad error. It doesnt need to threaten. It doesnt need to threaten. Its not us, its everyone but us, Blumenthal says, summarizing what he says is Live Nations position. Because people just fall in line.. Ticketmaster agreed to do so. Periphery Tickets Nov 09, 2023 Dallas, TX | Live Nation
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