Live Music: Taming the Ticketmaster Giant

To many music lovers, there could be nothing better than seeing a favorite artist perform live. The concert-going experience is like no other and it seems that ten-year-olds feel the same way. Ticket sales to the Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds (image to the left) concerts have broken records. The tour will stop in 54 cities and arenas across the nation to capitalize on the success of Hannah Montana, a wildly popular Disney television series about a regular teen with a superstar secret identity. Millions of kids wanted the opportunity to breathe the same air as their favorite actress/singer, but tickets to Hannah Montana’s concert sold out within minutes. Irate parents are blaming Ticketmaster (the leading ticketing company) like many other Ticketmaster users who feel that they have been cheated or ripped off. Many reports, like this one from the National Ledger, suggest that there is some kind of “Ticketmaster conspiracy"with ticket brokers and promoters concerning profits made by concert tickets. Some even accuse the company of being a monopoly (see this article on Pearl Jam's case against Ticketmaster in the 90's). Ticketmaster will lose its position at the top of the ticketing pyramid if it does not address the power of the following three things: unhappy consumers, the Internet and concert promoters looking to make a bigger profit.

First, Ticketmaster has not done enough to keep its customers happy. Convenience fees on top of base ticket prices are getting steeper and steeper. For the upcoming Rihanna concert at the House of Blues (screencap of Ticketmaster’s online buying page to the right), what should have been a $37 ticket (if sold by an independently run box office) became more than $50. Also, because Ticketmaster is the official ticketing agency for the two largest concert promoters, AEG Live and Live Nation, tickets to the most popular shows sell out quickly. For the parents of Hannah Montana fans in Kentucky, only 4,000 of 11,000 possible seats were sold to the general public (take a look at the article here). Ticketmaster also auctions off the best seats for events instead of selling them at set prices, in efforts to tap into the profits of auction sites like eBay and ticket scalpers. Though Ticketmaster prices are reasonable at times, those tickets are usually hard to come by and Ticketmaster is not doing enough to get more of those tickets to make consumers want to use their services. Increasingly, buyers who cannot find what they want on Ticketmaster will then turn to other websites, like Tickets.com and pay even more money. In fact, many venues and groups are trying to switch back to selling their own tickets. Unless there is a change in Ticketmaster’s method of selling tickets, Ticketmaster’s online box office may bring itself down with its high convenience charges.

An online box office is efficient, reliable, and usually convenient. As Business Week magazine says in the article "Ticketmaster Faces a Full Court Press," “The Net is shaking up the ticketing market by giving artists and venues a way to sell tickets directly to fans.” There is no need to wait in line or talk to anybody else anymore; a simple left-click can secure the best seats in the house. In that simple sense Ticketmaster online is a wonderful idea, but it is no secret that the Internet has turned the music and ticketing industries upside down. Now, there are many other online ticket brokers to choose from, including auction websites and online scalping. The only problem is that those tickets charge sometimes five times as much as Ticketmaster would. Again, Ticketmaster needs to secure more tickets to sell. Though Ticketmaster is the first place most concert-goers will go to purchase a ticket, it is difficult to justify the need for Ticketmaster when independently, a ticket can be sold through other websites, including a promoter’s website or an artist’s fan club just as easily, and possibly for a better price.

Also, Ticketmaster’s big concert promoters (promoters are basically the people behind the tours making sure people come to these concerts) are always looking for a way to cut costs and keep the most profit. One of the easiest ways to keep the money is for the promoter to sell tickets to their own concerts. Judging from Ticketmaster's profits of over $100 million from Live Nation alone, it is really more lucrative to stay in charge. If AEG Live follows Live Nation’s decision to end its contract with Ticketmaster, Ticketmaster will probably be reduced to a secondary ticket-buying website for the most popular live concerts.

All in all, there is still hope for Ticketmaster if it wants to maintain its hold on the live music industry, but it will be a while before the public can again be comfortable with the company. Ticketmaster is said to be “investing heavily in technologies that could allow it to provide better marketing data and sell more tickets than rivals (Business Week)”. If that is true, then hopefully the other 9,000 Ticketmaster clients will benefit from it, and not go the way of Live Nation. Ticketmaster needs to respond to its consumers needs better to lose its reputation as an unreliable rip-off and become a primary source for live music performances yet again, hopefully by the next time Hannah Montana goes on tour.