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Watch Out Ticketmaster: Amazon In Talks To Offer Event Ticketing In US (reuters.com)
According to Reuters, Amazon is seeking to partner with U.S. venue owners to sell event tickets -- a move that could loosen Ticketmaster's powerful grip on the lucrative ticketing business. From the report: The Seattle-based company sees the U.S. ticketing market as ripe for attack. Consumers dislike ticket fees, and venue owners, sports leagues and teams want more distributors for their tickets as they seek to boost sales. Access to tickets could be another means to lure members to the Amazon Prime shopping club. For music acts and sports teams, selling tickets through Amazon could help sell their merchandise. Currently Ticketmaster, owned by Live Nation Entertainment, is the exclusive seller of primary tickets for many top venues in the United States. Would-be challengers have struggled to compete in the face of Ticketmaster's strong relationships with the operators of major U.S. sports stadiums, arenas, concert halls and other venues. Amazon has had success with ticketing in Britain, where it has been selling seats to West End shows since 2015, even outselling Ticketmaster for some events, according to one of the sources, who owns venues in that country. It is less common for venues in Britain to have an exclusive ticket provider.
If anyone can unseat Ticketmaster and their ridiculous and exorbitant fees, I say: please do!
Now it would be unfortunate if one unpleasant monopoly ended up simply replacing another one, but I'd love to at least see some competition in this area.
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Ticketmaster operates their primary ticketing market right next to their secondary ticketing market. I wouldn't be surprised to find they feed the secondary market illegitimately.
I see my shadow changing, stretching up and over me...
Even if it is Amazon, which is not ideal, anything that allows people to avoid Ticketmaster is a great thing!
See ya later Ticketmaster, don't let the door hit ya on the ass on the way out...
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Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
amazon's cloud is gonna dry up when 50+ million shoppers ( and bots ) try to snipe 2 of 12,000 tickets to _insert this month's tiger beat cover_ the very moment they are released for sale to the public.
(yes, tiger beat still exists!)
I just love how TicketMaster's claimed in the past it was powerless in the face of bots operated by scalpers buying tickets for resale, as if they couldn't possibly implement any type of time-limited processing to slow down these bots, you know like iOS/Android have done to limit the usefulness of brute-force attacks?
I look forward to see Amazon wiping the stage floor using TicketMaster's butt after each show.
AC comments get piped to
ticket resale specialist
Is that what we call scalpers now?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I'm glad to see Amazon (or any other competitor) bring disruption to a market that sorely needs it.
I wonder if they will allow prime members to pre-order before tickets are oficially released
Nullius in verba
Maybe Amazon will gouge less. (Meet the new Ticketmaster, same as the old Ticketmaster...)
they have there own bots the move tickets to Ticketsnow.
"in the face of Ticketmaster's strong relationships with the operators of major U.S. sports stadiums, arenas, concert halls and other venues."
Is that a euphemism for bribes?
The Ticketmaster parasites are widely hated in the UK too. Any company which charges buyers to print out their own tickets deserves to die.
Ticket Master (Ticket Master, Live Nation, Music Today) started buying venues some time ago. And yes they still charge fuck you fees for the venues they own. Great Idea, but nothing Live Nation, Music Today, Event Brite and e-Tickets hasn't already tried. We saw what happened to Live Nation and Music Today, Ticket Master took a play from Microsoft, Oracle and IBM and bought their competition.
Some competition in the market might help a little but, fundamentally, tickets are worth whatever people are willing to pay. When demand exceeds supply them prices go up. I don't understand why in capitalist America there's a view that it's wrong for the tickets to go to those who are willing to pay the most. What is it about event ticketing that brings out the socialist in people? Why are people always trying to outlaw scalping?
I've changed my mind on attending concerts where the Ticketmaster fee costs as much or more than the tickets to the show. Screw those guys. I've seen more great rock bands for $15 - no interest in spending $100.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
I think TicketMaster does a fine job as-is and this is much ado about nothing
Bullshit. They've been playing fast and loose with the rules for well over a decade. http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2016/05/ticketmaster-settlement-called-new-scam-on-top-of-old-one.html
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
I dislike ticket master for various reasons.
1. They try to demand exclusive right to sell tickets*.
2. Prevent purchasing a ticket, then let someone else use it
3. Spamming. I've had employers order their netblocks dropped.
4. I don't believe that their added value is worth the cost - but sometimes you just have to deal with them*, or not see the event. I usually choose to not see it, and write to the act that "Sorry I missed you, but the only way to attend was via Ticketmaster, and I won't deal with them."
*If I recall correctly, but honestly, it's been a number of years so I could be mistaken.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Being scalped leaves a bitter taste about the concert and long term harms the bands and the music. Recently went to a concert for which all decent seats were sold a couple of days after they went on sale and were only available through 3rd parties at ~100% markup. Yet at the concert itself some of those good seats were empty. Wouldn't buy again.
Don't regulate scalping, let organizers and band and competition find a way to fight it.
The 3rd party I bought from was SeatGeek. Their 3D model of the venue made the seats look much better than they were, it was clearly designed with deception in mind. Plus I waited for 6 months to get the tickets. Never buy from SeatGeek.
Don't just regulate scalping, CRIMINALIZE it, especially where t he company selling the tickets in the first place is involved. Criminalize it and start seizing property.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Say what you want about his politics, he has mastered a method of killing off scalpers:
1. Announce show date
2. Tickets sell out
3. Announce added show date
Repeat steps 3 & 2 until tickets stop selling out. He keeps his tickets cheap, too - the expensive seats are usually the same price as the cheapest seats at most other concerts. His fans know the drill, so they don't go rushing to buy out tickets as they know more will go on sale. Scalpers know the drill, too, and they don't bother. Bruce Springsteen does the same thing, I hear.
Kinda funny, but this is *basic economics* Demand is fixed, so to lower prices, you increase supply.
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This is really good news. TIcketmaster needs to die a painful death. And this will be good for bands too. I personally have never bought anything through ticketmaster or any scalper or anything crazy like that. $1-2 in "fees" is OK, anything more just to be the man-in-the-middle and produce NOTHING of value is not. So I just don't go to these shows. I assume I am not the only one, no? Sure, lots of suckers out there, but still... perhaps you are missing some 20% of possible attendees.
When demand exceeds supply and prices go up, that is supposed to induce more producers to enter the market (seeing the large profit available in that market) and provide more supply. Remember, low barriers to entry and all that other free market stuff? Well when there's only one act with a limited number of shows (most times just 1), that's impossible. So you have a fixed supply and if the demand isn't met by that fixed supply, that of course leads to prices going up.
As someone else mentioned below, the way some acts solve this problem is by announcing more shows after the first show is sold out, which puts more supply into the market. After all, if demand isn't exhausted with 1 show, more shows at the same venue on subsequent nights (which is quite low marginal cost relative to that first show) will lead to greater profit for the act, and lower prices for the consumers.
Very nice post.
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Probably won't be available to Prime Members, unless they pay even more. Just like their Prime Pantry and Prime Fresh programs.
The true evil of Ticketmaster is that their fees are non-refundable. I purchased tickets to a concert that was later canceled. The cost of the ticket was refunded, but I was stuck paying for the fees.
Ticketmaster is a complete scam and allowing them to merge with Livenation and others shows that the US gov is as anti-consumer as they come.
My problem with TIcketmaster isn't that they increase the price of tickets. It's that I am forced to give money to Ticketmaster.
I don't actually have any ethical problem with ticket scalping. It seems like an entirely legit activity that in any other arena would be called the "secondary market".
Ticketmaster is the mafia of venue ticketing. They have had a grip on many band's privates - use us or lose. I know someone from a major group who expressed colorful disgust with TM. On the positive side, Amazon can compete -- that can only be good for the rest of us consumers!
The last time I bought tickets through Ticketbastard was 1992. I noticed a shipping & handling fee of $10 - per ticket - for a 2inch by 7inch piece of cardboard stock with fancy embossing. Competitors have tried to muscle in on the business but Ticketbastard abused their monopoly to push them out. I refused to patronize those thieving bastards ever again, and I welcome Amazon's move.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10