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

52 pointsposted 11 hours ago

32 Comments

blackhaj7

5 hours 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

5 hours 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!

SpicyLemonZest

4 hours 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-...)

linotype

4 hours ago

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

JumpCrisscross

4 hours 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.

Glawen

2 hours ago

Your comment hits home, I come across this reasoning a lot at work. I propose to improve a part of the product, something for most users. And I usually face a littany of "yeah but it will not solve this guy's edge case so it is not good".

linotype

an hour ago

That’s not what I was saying at all. AT&T, for instance, has mostly reassembled itself. I’m in favor of breaking them up but steps should be taken to prevent the problem from happening in the future.

linotype

4 hours ago

JumpCrisscross

3 hours ago

> it already having happened

I see three providers at the bottom and one at the top. 3 > 1 [1].

Also, a lot in the middle, which was fortunate, since it’s around when dial-up and cell phones were becominh a thing.

[1] citation needed

navaed01

9 hours 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

comprev

2 hours 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 :(

ryandrake

6 hours 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?

ghaff

4 hours 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.

guitarbill

5 hours 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.

ryandrake

5 hours ago

I’m specifically curious about how “experience are more valuable to generations today.” I don’t think there’s much difference between today’s generation and past generations in terms of their enjoyment of concerts, festivals, and other live events. Surely Michael Jackson fans in the 90s were as excited to see him as Taylor Swift fans are today, maybe even more so. Michael Jackson, the Stones, U2, Bruce Springsteen, heck, The Beatles: all of these acts’ had super-fans and their tickets had nearly inelastic demand. In their heydays, they could have charged any price and filled stadiums.

People in those days demanded “experiences” just as much as people today.

guitarbill

4 hours ago

Wasn't alive in the 60s and don't have a US perspective only a UK/EU one. My parents did see the Stones in the day and I distinctly remember them struggling to decide whether they should go see them in the 00s because tickets were 100€+ (seems cheap now!). But they are not "super-fans" I guess.

I also remember festivals getting more expensive 15-ish years ago, so my friends and me often decided to go hiking instead. IDK if that's a typical case but there are alternative "experiences". With the rise of social media I could understand there's additional incentive to go to more well-known events for the photos, over smaller live-music venues. At least it seems like a lot of photos are taken.

This is all anecdotes, so makes for an unsatisfying answer. But I think it's possible (certain) "experiences are more valuable to generations today". It's at least interesting to consider.

ghaff

4 hours ago

It’s probably true that there were fewer of the eye watering ticket prices that top stars demand today in many cases. Someone told me they were actually flying from the US to Brazil to see Taylor Swift because it was cheaper than getting a local ticket. My sense is highly in-demand concerts was more of a lottery than an auction in the past.

MichaelZuo

4 hours ago

How do you know it’s ‘just as much’ instead of proportionally higher?

maxperience

5 hours ago

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

justonenote

3 hours 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.

intellix

2 hours 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.

maeil

8 hours 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.

SunlitCat

11 hours ago

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

eesmith

10 hours 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.

mytailorisrich

10 hours 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.

eesmith

7 hours ago

I feel like you are not rebutting the points made in the video but instead making a comment that is at best tangential and at worst promoting a narrow ideological belief which rejects the existence of monopoly power.

To start with, who are you quoting with "too expensive"?

Second, your analysis does not explain why it is cheaper to fly to Europe to see Taylor Swift on the same tour as in the US. https://apnews.com/article/taylor-swift-europe-eras-tour-fan... attributes the cost difference due to "restrictions on ticket fees and resales", rather easy of purchasing.

Just like in the video.

mytailorisrich

7 hours ago

I am not trying to rebute anything or to be argumentative so I don't really get your somewhat aggressive tone.

Ultimately concerts and events tickets are optional leisure/luxury items and, as I mentioned, we can argue all we want about bad monopolies but as long as the tickets sell it means the price is fine, so why would they be cheaper? It's not an ideological belief about anything or a rejection of anything.

This is a natural monopoly anyway. There are no competing Taylor Swift concerts for instance and, at least for popular events the number of available tickets is going to be smaller than the number of people interested and the basic law of supply and demand applies.

When we see how prices often still massively inflate on resale it seems to me that official prices could often still be higher if they wanted to but it then becomes a PR issue. We've recently seen that here in the UK with dynamic pricing for tickets to the Oasis reunion.

Perhaps they are simply getting more effective, and with fewer qualms, at extracting the best prices possible.

dastbe

6 hours ago

whiles taylor swift has a natural monopoly on taylor swift, you can always have more venues. and each of those venues could compete on price/margin to court taylor swift and all of the other artists. and for venues that want to compete, there could exist alternative platforms that also compete on price/features. this all could lower prices AND put more money in the artist and venues pockets.

ticketmaster ensures this doesn’t happen by controlling the market, so venues that don’t use them get locked out from artists and artists who don’t play ticketmaster only venues get locked out from too much of their audience.

eesmith

2 hours ago

Because it's become increasingly clear you aren't actually engaging in the video but have your own axe to grind. The monopoly power discussed was about control over venues and artists, which you seem to completely ignore, to talk about ticket pricing.

namaria

7 hours ago

So it's ok to price gauge as long as it's profitable?

mytailorisrich

2 hours ago

It is not price gauging. It is the market price as tickets sell, and people even miss out and are willing to pay even more from resellers/touts.

Odd that so many people feel that they are somehow entitled to low prices for something that is totally optional and by its very nature always in short supply.

namaria

19 minutes ago

Denouncing monopoly price gauging is hardly acting entitled and the fact that you affirm so is a win for owning class propaganda.