The issue that spawned scalping and Ticketmaster is that musicians want to sell tickets under their market value. There's no analogous issue with airline pricing.

▲

username332211 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Worse still, they want to sell it below market value, but they want to be paid as if they were selling tickets at market value.

I remember finding some story about a contract for Ke$ha or Kathy Perry or some other pop-concoction of the previous decade getting leaked (*) , and one of the ways in which the artist got paid was trough a percentage of the tickets to distribute trough unofficial resale channels.

The issue that spawned Ticketmaster is that as a class artists are greedy, but they want to pretend they aren't. Being hated is a vital part of that company's business model.

(*) I think it must have been Ke$ha, as that one was involved in some financial dispute, but I can't find the story right now.

▲

woah 2 days ago | parent [-]

> The issue that spawned Ticketmaster is that as a class artists are greedy, but they want to pretend they aren't. Being hated is a vital part of that company's business model.

Excellent analysis

	▲	amanaplanacanal 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yep. Artists make Bank and ticketmaster takes the heat. Win win!

▲

hnuser123456 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The issue is that scalpers can buy a significant portion of tickets at initial pricing and artificially drive up demand when the event says they're "sold out". Plus, many events like to set low initial prices to try to get money flowing in earlier, and raise prices closer to the day of the event, which makes them a potential "investment" for people who have no plans to attend.

▲

SoftTalker 2 days ago | parent [-]

The demand is the demand. TM should just set the initial price higher. This will discourage scalpers because their return is lower and their risk is higher. Fans will get to see the concert if they are willing to pay. If they aren't, then the price is too high, or the tickets will go to other fans who value them more.

	▲	hnuser123456 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		But many concertgoers buy their tickets early specifically to get the discount. The discount over later pricing is a valid marketing tactic. Airlines also raise seat prices closer to the day of the flight to encourage people to buy earlier ahead of time. If Ticketmaster enjoys such market dominance, they become responsible to prevent widespread misuse of their own platform, lest they become negligent. They are owned by livenation which is a public company.

▲

zer00eyz 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Scalping has existed since forever.

The thing was it was local promoters + local sales (aka criminals) who would get tickets from management (yes thats the artists management) and kick the money back to the artist if they were lucky (if not the management kept it).

Now TM owns the venue, they are the promotor, they are the manager(to an extent) and have full control of the tickets, and the secondary market. The artist is now 100 percent in on the action making fans buy a fan club membership then get "face value" tickets at presale only with expensive meet and greet packages that range from a few hundred bucks to a 1000. An artist can tack on 50k to several 100k doing this at every date/venue.

As for TM's uncharges, most of that is because the artist either demands they do it (my prices are reasonable) making TM the scape goat, or they want a sum that is the total of the door and TM needs to cover venue costs and make profit so that just gets baked in as a "fee".

Just to put a fine point on this. In the old model promoters, venues all of those entities being separate and charging a markup made sense. When TM consolidated they didnt change the markup they just kept the margin...

▲

fnordlord 2 days ago | parent [-]

By the reasoning of "Now TM owns the venue, they are the promotor, they are the manager(to an extent) and have full control of the tickets, and the secondary market." I would think the artist is 100% at the mercy of TM rather than in on the game. With that kind of control, why would they share with the artist?

▲

rstupek 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Without the artist there's nothing to sell?

	▲	fnordlord 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I feel like there's always going to be a surplus in artists. I think it would require something like a union of artists to have any kind of leverage in that regard. Maybe something like ASCAP or BMI?

▲

zer00eyz 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> With that kind of control, why would they share with the artist?

Its in both parties benefit to find a mutually lucrative deal. More so when the customer is not that bright and motivated by "passion" and "fan culture". That same sort of passion (about music) leads to all parties underpaying a lot of staff (people want to be in the industry for some reason). Tech has its own version of this, see game development for over worked and under paid talent who does the job out of "passion".

"Influencers" selling burgers, backpacks, sports drinks and screw drivers is no different than concert t-shirts, posters, coffins and condoms. An artist is more than just the songs they sing. It's the film / TV that work shows up in. It's the other products artists can sell (a lot of this is other peoples art but...) and the things they can promote. They can exist without TM but the same cant be said in the other direction.

And some times the artist do get screwed. When your management and TM/LN folks have a relationship that dates back to Bill Graham Presents there is likely a back side deal that gives the management an extra kick.

▲

Zigurd 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What other services, other than musicians operating in a monopoly environment, deserve criticism for under pricing their services? The problem is a market failure, but the musicians didn't cause it.

▲

wafflemaker 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Only recently I realized the fact of musicians purposefully selling tickets much below of what people would actually pay. Never occurred to me, had to hear it in an podcast/interview.

I wonder how many simple facts of life like that one remain hidden right under my nose.