As I am sure most of the world is aware of the monopoly that Ticketmaster have regarding events, I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to defeat them little by little or otherwise.
I have seen many campaigns, including one from before live nation was formed, in an attempt to prevent it. The juggernaut that it is, easily bats away any attempt to take it on, they are not even afraid of the US government trying to break up the monopoly.
They have been caught many times globally breaking and bending laws, and have a very unethical form of practice. Ticket prices just keep going up along with nonsense charges.
Would love to see ideas to help defeat them.
Go to the small venues, support local bands, get a cool tshirt 👍
I second this.
I see great local shows regularly and I haven’t paid for tickets past a donation bucket at the door in years.
Sadly, the only real way to fight them is to stop going to concerts.
And make these dumb fucking celebrities understand that they are just as big a problem by going to these people.
Pearl Jam tried at what was pretty much the peak of their career and it didn’t go well for them. Ticketmaster holds an illegal monopoly and should be forced to allow other players to sell tickets to the venues that they have in a stranglehold.
Seems like artists would have some way of setting up shows outside of Ticketmaster’s control.
Not in any way that would be meaningful for bands that tour internationally and play for tens of thousands. Pretty much all large venues have exclusive contracts with Ticketmaster.
Smaller bands, sure.
It’s not really up to the celebrities, I’m afraid. The venues themselves have exclusivity deals with LiveNation, and pretty much every venue that’s at least of medium size has this deal. I guess you could say “then don’t perform at those venues” but imagine Metallica performing in a 100-person venue… that’s kind of unfair to all the people that want to see them
You don’t get that they can choose who what and where to go. They could make a shitty no name stadium a good one. There are no excuses for rich privileged children. Which unfortunately is most of them.
Not to mention the musicians often don’t have control over their tour schedules.
I’m hesitant to blame the celebrities on this one. Putting on a concert is a business proposition not just for the venue and ticketing (dis)service, but also for the performers. As with any business venture, the goal is to profit. Larger acts often have large set pieces to create and massive amounts of equipment to transport, not to mention all the labor that goes into setting up at each venue. Can’t make the economics of that work if you don’t have enough seats to sell, and Ticketmaster/LiveNation owns the lion’s share of those large venues.
You cant be serious? Are you going to defend the people who kept TicketMaster in power? Without their concerts they wouldn’t be a business? Todays the day we should learn about choice and free will. Because theyre freely choosing ticketmaster. E-concerts would be cheaper more worthwhile and guess who never gets a dollar?
What is a “concert”?
Is this something I’m too introverted to understand?
Boycott venues that use their service, it’s really the only option. Admittedly it’s getting more difficult everyday, even my local hole in the wall recently signed on with ticketmaster for their shows.
Save your money. Stay home and pirate the music.
It’s tough since you’re basically stuck with having to use whatever the promoter / venue is using for ticketing. I do hate it when shows are using Ticketmaster / TicketWeb, like why is that even necessary when other options exist?
In the NYC area I’ve seen shows use other ticketing systems like Dice, See Tickets, Eventbrite, KYD, etc. so other stuff does exist beyond the Ticketmaster monopoly. Personally I think Dice might be the best one, it’s nice to have the ability to let the venue resell your ticket via waitlist if you can’t go to the show for some reason - I think it only works for sold out events but still seems useful. Or the reverse, you can put yourself on a waitlist for a sold out show and maybe score a ticket if someone else decides they can’t go.
