What Ticketmaster doesn't want you to know: tickets were cheaper for decades

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u--se25_px8

by jimnotgym • 2 years ago

71 42 2 years ago

youtube.com

SunlitCat• 2 years ago

Many things were cheaper for decades and just went up in the last few years. Nothing surprising there!

eesmith3• 2 years ago

The video points out the prices aren't do to with inflation but with decades of a trend toward monopolization.

What you are seeing now in the last few years is with industry consolidation following the same playbook Ticketmaster applied to the music industry since at least the 1990s, to Pearl Jam's dismay.

The video summarizes this long history well.

mytailorisrich4• 2 years ago

Increase in purchasing power and broadened customer base thanks to cheaper transport means that they can increase prices while still filling venues. Tickets are also probably easier to buy now, a few clicks away on your smartphone, which may also widen the customer base while supply remains unchanged.

In economic terms tickets are only "too expensive" if they can't find buyers.

navaed01• 2 years ago

The ticketing market is out of control.

I would love to see the government break of ticket master.better innovation to avoid scalping by a company that does not benefit from i. The banning of reselling on platforms that sell the original tickets. Caps on fees

I’m a higher earner who loves music and rarely go to stadium size shows because the costs for anything is typically $500+. How does that make any sense?

Basic math tells you the margin on a stadium seat is huge.

Other factors to consider: More is spent on marketing and promotion than ever before, but the cost of digital marketing is a fraction of marketing costs decades ago - especially with the ability to target fans.

The market is willing to bear these higher costs because experience are more valuable to generations today than 20+ years ago.

Artists are also complicit to an extent but reasonably so. The market for paid music has collapsed, touring is how you generate revenue as a musician

ryandrake2• 2 years ago

The market is willing to bear these higher costs because experience are more valuable to generations today than 20+ years ago.

What does that mean?

guitarbill2• 2 years ago

It sure seems that things like concerts, festivals, theme parks, even movies are more expensive than e.g. 20 years ago - though I don't have inflation-adjusted data on hand. If true, people are willing to pay more for these kinds of "experiences", and I'd have to agree with parent. Although I'm not sure if it really is a generational thing.

This doesn't mean what Ticketmaster is doing is right, but they are hardly the only ones. E.g. cinemas or theme parks don't use them.

ghaff2• 2 years ago

I assume it’s the experiences over stuff meme. Don’t know if it’s accurate or not. If it is it’s probably because stuff like electronics is probably cheaper than in the past. And urbanites just have less space to accumulate gee-gas of all sorts. On the other hand real estate tends to be more expensive at least among those people thinking about experiences.

maxperience• 2 years ago

Believe it or not, but this is actually a usecase for crypto (evm)

justonenote2• 2 years ago

Downvoted comment but it's not completely wrong.

While NFT sales and token releases on ethereum and other chains with smart contracts are absolutely botted and scalped/sniped very aggressively, there has been a lot experimentation on how to avoid this. Whitelists are one (bad, IMO) solution, various type of auctions are a fairer solution that aren't that popular in crypto because people are mostly interested in flipping the asset rather than obtaining it at a fair market price.

For things like tickets to a concert or things that people actually want to keep/consume, auctions make a lot of sense.

comprev• 2 years ago

Touring used to promote record sales when their main revenue was the music media itself.

Thanks to Spotify (and streaming media in general), where music is almost worthless, artists need to tour and sell merchandise just to keep break even.

It's a sad state to be in really :(

maeil• 2 years ago

Great video, though it even understates just how extreme the monopoly is. They kind of show it on the screen as part of the article but the message would've benefited from reading the percentages out loud.

blackhaj7• 2 years ago

It’s mad in the US. Beyond just the ticket prices, the booking fees are out of control. I wanted to buy a ticket to a music event and the booking fee was $30!

In the UK, booking fees above £5 are considered an obscenity and would put people off buying a ticket.

I am surprised more artists don’t refuse to work with ticketing companies who extort customers like this. Seems like an easy way to garner loyalty from fans (beyond being morally right).

Although, I imagine - like the healthcare system - the whole food chain (music labels, artists) are all in on the scam

TheBozzCL• 2 years ago

Yesterday, a friend and I tried to buy tickets for a show. Each ticket was $40. The total came to over $110. That’s nearly the price of three tickets!

Thanks for saving us money by making us think twice about buying these tickets, Ticketmaster!

linotype3• 2 years ago

The problem is even if Ticketmaster is split up, a future administration will allow them to put themselves back together again.

JumpCrisscross2• 2 years ago

problem is even if Ticketmaster is split up, a future administration will allow them to put themselves back together again

This is in the same category of technically correct but imaginary problem as if I take this medicine I will still eventually die. Or, if I repair my windshield it will one day break again.

If it’s a problem, and the solution is better than its cost, it’s worth solving. Even if that doesn’t solve it perfectly forever. I’d like to say perfect is the enemy of the good, but you’re defining perfection so unrealistically as to require disproving the heat death of the universe.

SpicyLemonZest• 2 years ago

I am surprised more artists don’t refuse to work with ticketing companies who extort customers like this. Seems like an easy way to garner loyalty from fans (beyond being morally right).

There’s ongoing antitrust litigation about this. Ticketmaster has exclusive contracts with many venues, and in most scenarios artists aren’t going to have a menu of a dozen different venues they could realistically pick.

(https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-live-...)

mixmastamyk• 2 years ago

artists refuse

The fees are split into thirds—TM, the venue, and artist. Which makes the artist appear that they wanted lower prices while also still getting more money. Lower album sales than in the past is also a factor.

That's why it has worked so well.

intellix• 2 years ago

ticketswap have a max markup of 20% and then you can be refunded if you overpay for tickets. I guess the idea is that people start looking there and people naturally use it. The problem is that scalpers will empty the platform and sell em for more on ticket master and everyone is again forced to buy from there.

It would be great if artists had a way to force people to use it. Hopefully that's the plan.

omega3• 2 years ago

I rarely go to ticketed events any longer due to absurd prices. It’s hard for me to understand the obsession with festivals either: expensive, long queues, poor organisation, poor sound quality.

dvno42• 2 years ago

At this point, I just won't go to any event where a Ticketmaster/Livenation/etc is involved. They've taken a lot of the joy out of music events for me.

wodenokoto• 2 years ago

Musicians were also making a lot of money on album sales for decades - to the point where a tour was more of an album promotion than an income stream of itself.

So while the industry likes to complain that they are losing income, they’ve figured out that they can make up for album revenue by simply increasing ticket prices.

What Ticketmaster doesn't want you to know: tickets were cheaper for decades

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