>With all the hate Ticketmaster has gotten [...], I'm surprised Ticketmaster still has a hold of pretty much the entire market. How are they doing this?

This question is a common mystery because you're using the perspective of the fans. E.g. "I hate Tickemaster ridiculous fees because it's price gouging, etc"

But the mystery of Ticketmaster being dominant is solved once you understand it from the perspective of the venues, promoters, and the artists. They are the true customers of Ticketaster. Ticketmaster's various "convenience fees, surcharges, etc" are just creative financial tricks to funnel more money back to venues+promoters+artists but still keep the ticket's face price artificially lower.

The alternative arrangement would be the ticket's face price being much higher to reflect the "true market price" but that means the artists would be the ones perceived as price gouging. Instead, just charge the higher price via convenience fees and let Ticketmaster take the public relations hit. The psychological manipulation of fans is working exactly as designed.

When the fans wish that there was another true competitor to Ticketmaster, what they're saying is they want "a service that charges less money". But that idea conflicts with the venues/promoters/artists that want to charge more money.

Therefore, if you really want to disrupt Ticketmaster, you need to charge even higher fees and more expensive ticket prices so that the greedy venues & artists will get more money from you and thus choose your service over Ticketmaster. I don't think that's the type of competitive disruption fans have in mind.

And the common cited reasons of vertical integration of LiveNation and owning the venues doesn't explain Ticketmaster's advantage. They were already dominant in the 1980s and 1990s before LiveNation acquired venues. Taylor Swift's tour promotor was AEG (not LiveNation) and she played at many stadiums owned by the cities (not owned by LiveNation) and she still chose Ticketmaster to be the selling agent for those locations. One of the reasons is she negotiated 110% of ticket's face price from Ticketmaster. How is extracting that type of money even mathematically even possible?!? The add-on "convenience fees".

Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drip_pricing

Entirely correct.

what they're saying is they want "a service that charges less money". But that idea conflicts with the venues/promoters/artists that want to charge more money.

And it also conflicts with the other fans who are willing to pay more. There is no possible world where you can reliably get Taylor Swift tickets for $25.

>The add-on "convenience fees".

Hence the US needs 'full price up front' laws in the same manner as Australia does. This kind of law shuts this crap down fast.