For years, Ticketmaster has been shafting customers.
They are a bloated middleman, leeching off artists while contributing nothing.
They have cornered large parts of the live music market and use that advantage to hike up ticket prices with fees and hidden costs.
Ticketmaster is owned by LiveNation, which owns roughly 400 venues worldwide. LiveNation used its leverage with venues to get exclusivity deals for Ticketmaster, which let Ticketmaster get ahead of its competitors.
Now Ticketmaster dominates the global tickets business. They can take staggering cuts of anywhere between 10% and 30% of the ticket cost. LiveNation’s revenue is up 23% this year alone.
Taylor Swift and Coldplay concerts have shone a spotlight again on the parasitic nature of the ticketing business. But the problems are deeper. Most artists struggle to make ends meet, especially with the growth of streaming services.
Allegations have long surrounded Ticketmaster that they are happy to let bots and scalpers buy up tickets in bulk the second they go on sale. That way, Ticketmaster could take another cut when they’re resold.
Ticketmaster denies this, but investigations by news agencies in Canada in 2019 found that “Box-office giant Ticketmaster is recruiting professional scalpers who cheat its own system to expand its resale business and squeeze more money out of fans”.
When asked if ripping up the photo of the Pope ruined her career, Sinéad O’Connor replied “…they’re talking about the career they had in mind for me. I fucked up the house in Antigua that the record company dudes wanted to buy. I fucked up their career not mine.”
The only people who benefit from Ticketmaster are the suits who buy houses in Antigua. Not the artists, not the fans.
Ensure fans can afford to see their favourite artists, and ensure artists are fairly remunerated. Cut out the middleman. Cut out the Ticketshafter.
