Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says

What kind of show sell $700 tickets? Does that include an escort?

So many big shows these days, unfortunately. Not every ticket will be that much, but many of the best seats will.

That genuinely blows my mind. I can't even begin to imagine how a show could be so incredible as to be worth that much, but I guess that just means I'm not the target market.

I was stunned by the prices of shows these days. The closest venue used to be $200 for up close, EXPENSIVE seats. Now they're $350 for open lawn. This is only 5 years apart, and the only difference is they use Ticketmaster instead of selling themselves.

I know! Greedflation is out of control. That used to be the cost of decently prized intercontinental plane tickets 6 years ago (not the cheapest!).

Michael Rapino, the CEO of Live Nation regularly boasted about how for sports events people take pride in paying thousands of dollars for tickets near the front, and how he wishes it was the same for music.

Live Nation had been engaging in a venue refit programme to make a higher percentage of venue seating - 40% or so - ‘premium’ seating where they can charge far higher rates.

As someone in this thread pointed out the biggest problem with tickets is that (at the top end) musicians certainly but sports teams also sell tickets far below market rates.

It’s a catch 22: if you are a sports team and only sell $1000 tickets you might sell out the show but you alienate your core base who buy lots of other stuff like shirts and caps and beer. If you’re only selling to VIPs you slowly kill what makes your team valuable.

For music it’s harder: for superstar artists you could almost certainly sell out a stadium at crazy prices. But the fans are going to feel gouged and are going to be very vocal and for a lot of musicians that is a red line. There’s been a lot of controversy recently over airline style ‘dynamic’ demand-driven pricing for concerts, and a lot of big name artists have come out against it.

Again, it kills the golden goose. Better to have fans who will pay $100 a ticket every time you tour for the next 20 years whether you are fashionable or not than sell out three years for $1000 a ticket to people who won’t want to buy if you’re not the hot thing.

The kind where both System of a Down and Korn are playing, and we'd like to see them slightly closer than from an airplane window.

> It’s a catch 22: if you are a sports team and only sell $1000 tickets you might sell out the show but you alienate your core base who buy lots of other stuff like shirts and caps and beer.

That core base is also the taxpayers that fund your next stadium. If you get too greedy you'll be paying for it out of pocket.

Greed is sort of the root of capitalism? Every entity working in their economic best interest. IMHO the problem here is Ticketmaster's monopoly status and the total lack of competition, which otherwise is the only thing applying downward pressure on prices in capitalism.

It's a logarithmic curve, but if you go too far along it in either direction all the curve breaks because you pissed off a bunch of people.

Yep!

People seem to have the money to burn, if people stopped buying tickets that would reorient the market. I think a good transaction in capitalism involves the buyer and the seller coming away satisfied. Right now TM supports this secondary market, because it makes them more money, people still fill stadiums. North America's wealth is filled out by the middle man, it's another feather in the cap of conspicuous consumption.

Sadly that is not uncommon these days at all.

For major arena shows, face price floor seats can easily run $500+, going up to $1000+ for the first rows. Even lower level bowl seats can run you that much for front row.

And that's if you managed to get scalpers to them during the original sale. Resale can commonly range as high as 200% - 500% of face price.

For example, for Nine Inch Nails' recent arena tour, face price for pit tickets (GA floor) were around $150-$200, depending on the city. But they were nearly impossible to get, so most fans ended up having getting them on resale, where prices of $300 - $400 dollars were common. You can wait for tickets to drop the day of the show but that doesn't always happen. I know someone who ended up paying $800 for a pit ticket on the day of the show after they shot up to over $1200 at one point.

It is frankly completely out of control.

That's why I haven't been to a Ticketmaster-run show in years. Went to one crappy show that I paid $400 for and felt completely ripped off, haven't been back.

There are plenty of local concerts and events that are like $15 cover and significantly more fun.