Live Nation CEO speaks at Goldman Sachs

[pnêyu]

Live Nation's CEO talks about breaking with Ticketmaster and gouging consumers firsthand, instead of through a third party:

Live Nation: We Want In On Ticketmaster, StubHub

 

Some of the more disturbing passages:

"If we can control that consumer" and sell them directly, we can get more out of each transaction.

 

We want to sell each of the 20k seats at Madison Square Garden for maximum price

 

Average consumer goes to 1.5 shows a year

 

That last one is truly news to me.

[jc4prez]

yuck is all i can say.

 

 

But honestly the worse part is that musicans WILLINGLY work with them.

[W(TF)]

yuck is all i can say.

 

 

But honestly the worse part is that musicans WILLINGLY work with them.

 

I'm not sure about that. Bands who need venues of a certain size, do they really have an alternative?

[jc4prez]

I'm not sure about that. Bands who need venues of a certain size, do they really have an alternative?

 

 

Dylan plays baseball stadiums no? And isn't house of blues now live nation?

[bjorn_skurj]

yuck is all i can say.

But honestly the worse part is that musicans WILLINGLY work with them.

Do they get a better deal with Live Nation than they did with Ticketmaster?

[markosis]

Average consumer goes to 1.5 shows a year

 

I personally attended 11.7349 shows last year. Im working on 11.735 for '07.

[hummingBERG]

Yeah - HOB is owned by live nation. Many bands at that level don't have much of an option. Here in Chicago bands at that level either work with live nation, JAM, or indie promoters like me. We get screwed by the corp companies like that all the time. Working the grind and building up bands until they are big enough to work with them; then they get snaked. Also, if we go to do shows with the bigger acts, the room rentals of the places owned by those companies are so outrageous that it makes it impossible for us to put on the show. BULLSHIT. The crossover happens when it becomes more of a business than a passion. No offense to any of those companies. They can do their thing but I have no prob sticking to shows we believe in, with reasonable ticket prices, and working with artists/managers/agents who appreciate relationship longevity. Now they want to tax a little harder on tickets though. Wowsers.

 

However - sometimes these companies throw me a bone for my acts too so I am trying to stay fair here this analysis.

[lizish]

You guys see the apology for Ticket Master on Lefsetz?

 

"TM's fees as the most hated item in the music industry?"

 

I got a long, long list of companies that deserve to be hated, and they don't even pay me. Seriously, Bob, I thought you were smarter than all this.

 

Let's first talk about TM's convenience charges. Guess what, Bob....TM wants, and it would certainly make my day job easier, to have its fees included in the face value of the ticket. Unfortunately, venues and promoters won't hear of it -- they'd rather let TM take heat while they split their healthy share that these revenues generate. As you know the convenience charge has become a very viable source of revenue for the live entertainment industry, so don't look for substantive changes unless the rest of the industry allows it. If you're going to take a shot at somebody, target the ones that have the real power to change the "system." At the end of the day, TM is a glorified Fed-Ex without the cool planes and trucks.

 

As to the non-refundable delivery charge... Let's be clear, Ticketmaster does not cancel shows. Artists and/or promoters cancel shows. When an artist is "instructed by their doctor to rest their vocal cords" or a promoter cancels a show due to "scheduling conflicts," Ticketmaster is the one that makes the refunds to the ticket holders. Today alone, among the tours Ticketmaster is refunding include Amy Winehouse, The Cure, and The White Stripes.

 

Guess what? Nobody in the industry reimburses TM for the cost of doing this -- not the promoter, not the agent, not the venue and of course, not the artist. Yes, you are right, TM uses $4 of the $111 charge to pay for handling this reimbursement -- and when refunding, performs the service twice. TM would love to walk away from that responsibility but somebody has to step up to the bar and do the dirty work. TM provides that service. TM would be happy to provide that service for free, but my thought is that the big guys in NY with the calculators would have a problem with that.

 

More importantly, how can one harp on a $4 per order (not per ticket) charge when the real issue confronting consumers and the industry is the exorbitant amounts resellers are taking out without investing a dime back into our business? This is the result when an industry refuses to price its product at its market value. Resellers go on to eBay/StubHub and other broker sites and regularly post non-existent tickets before they're even available for sale. They almost never tell fans exactly what seat they're purchasing or what the face price was (so much for the transparency you find on Ticketmaster), and, if there's a cancellation, often can't be found and you're shit out of luck. And you claim a $4 non-refundable charge on a $110 charge is the most hated issue or problem in the music industry? I got a list. We should have lunch......a long one.

 

If you want a real contender for "the most hated item in the music industry," why not ticket brokers/scalpers? Check out StubHub.com and you and Felice can have the honor of seeing Van Halen at STAPLES for $1,385 each ticket, $2,270 total. I'm sure you have no problem with StubHub's very reasonable convenience charge of $277 dollars and, don't forget, shipping & handling for $11.95. BTW, this whole deal is purely speculative, as the tickets haven't even gone on sale yet. Want to go see Hannah Montana with Felice & two friends at STAPLES? No problem. Write a check for $8,800, made out to StubHub.

 

And your venom is targeted at the industry asking $66 for the same tickets?

 

It's time to atone for your sins and educate yourself about the economics of Ticketmaster, Bob. Deal with it -- the 1990s are over and your Pearl Jam investigation isn't going anywhere.

 

Solters

[cryptique]

The guy has a point, but I'm still not going to loathe TicketBastard any less.

 

I do hate StubHub and their ilk far, far more, though. And I wish craigslist would do away with their Tickets category. It's laughable the way that category gets used. You should see all of the U-M football tickets that are listed there right now (on the Ann Arbor craigslist, naturally) at $1 -- because it's really "make me an offer," a.k.a. scalping.

 

And don't even try to buy concert tickets there. There's been some asshat trying to con people into buying non-existent Ryan Adams tickets for the past three weeks, but if you look at where he says the seats are, you can tell he's a scammer. (At that venue, the seats are odd on one side and even on the other, so if someone says he's got a "pair" of tickets and they're seats 7 and 8, you know he's full of shit.) Of course he wants to FedEx the tickets to you after you pay by PayPal.

 

And he's not even the worst one up there.

[JerseyMike]

Dylan plays baseball stadiums no? And isn't house of blues now live nation?

 

Venue is unimportant when it comes to the person promoting it. Most venues are rented by the promoter. What it comes down to is which promoter is going to give the performer the best offer. This is how Live Nation has taken control of the concert industry. They give acts more money than any small outfit can offer, and then jack up the ticket prices to maximize thier profits. On top of that, they intimidate acts by threatening loss of radio promotion and radio play on Clear Channel stations if they go with another promoter. This is how it all started a few years back and then Clear Channel (Live Nation, now, to avoid lawsuits) are buying up venues.

 

A promoter from Denver sued Clear Channel a few years back. His story gives you a good picture of how it all went down.

[remphish1]

[quote name='pn

[quarter23cd]

The LiveNation shed near my house in Columbus is up for sale and not expected to reopen as a music venue next year. The land in front of it is already bulldozed for a strip mall, and now that the summer concert season is over, I'm still amazed each day I drive past it and the shed is still standing. People are chomping at the bit to build on that site.

 

Its always sad to see music venues go, but I guess we'll get by. LiveNation only scheduled like maybe 8-10 shows there this summer and it wasn't exactly a stellar lineup. The last show was Toby f'ing Keith. Way to go out with a bang, bitches.

 

 

 

Oh, and I'm amazed to hear that my concert attendance is considered above average. With 3 kids, I don't get out much. This has been a banner year so far--3 shows under my belt already and tix for Wilco next month. Wooo! 4 shows, baby!

[Chris_H_2]

The Ticketmaster apologist doesn't account for the fact that TM charges different convenience fees for differently priced tickets. If the hinderance of having to facilitate the return of the tickets for cancelled shows is how he's going to justify the convenience fees, why is there a difference in fees? After all, the cost of returning $10 tickets is the same as $100 tickets.