The tickets are worth what they're worth

So what will happen? Will ticket brokers out bid up thereby upping the cost for good seats even further (add more middlemen and the price just has to go up). I can not see this being good as it will legitimize the higher prices for scalped tickets. I guess this will not work for general admission shows, but I guess they will work around that with some bogus VIP section stuff at some venues.

In the end, another nail in the coffin of the music industry. If they don't get their act together and deal with their greed issues then live shows will go the way of the recording industry.

Speaking of which, there was an article in Money Magazine (or something like that, it was while getting my car fixed) which had a big article about how bands are again making money solely from touring and how their recording labels are trying to get in on that action too by wanting a portion of the concert money.

Originally posted by Sir HC:
So what will happen? Will ticket brokers out bid up thereby upping the cost for good seats even further (add more middlemen and the price just has to go up). I can not see this being good as it will legitimize the higher prices for scalped tickets. I guess this will not work for general admission shows, but I guess they will work around that with some bogus VIP section stuff at some venues.

In the end, another nail in the coffin of the music industry. If they don't get their act together and deal with their greed issues then live shows will go the way of the recording industry.

Speaking of which, there was an article in Money Magazine (or something like that, it was while getting my car fixed) which had a big article about how bands are again making money solely from touring and how their recording labels are trying to get in on that action too by wanting a portion of the concert money.

a relative of mine and ex-Universal employee told me once that less than $1 of a CD sale was given to the artist, while less than 10% of concert money was given to the label.

Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
I'm curious about what happens to the money. Does TM get to keep the excess profit? Or, does it go to all parties involved in the concert?

This was exactly one of the things that I wondered about. I don't trust those bastards for a second!

Though I didn't bother to read the article, I also wonder about the service charges and suspect that the conivers will turn to a percentage fee for auctions recognizing that they will haul in truckloads more money for higher priced tickets.

I've already heard that there is software (for a fee) for people to bid on ebay so that it sends your bid in at the last minute or so so that you can win a bid at the lowest cost. I'm sure it's usually professional resellers who use it. And I'm sure that the brokers and scalpers will be the most likely to use something like this to screw the true fan out money and of yet another means of access to their music.

Originally posted by Sir HC:
Speaking of which, there was an article in Money Magazine (or something like that, it was while getting my car fixed) which had a big article about how bands are again making money solely from touring and how their recording labels are trying to get in on that action too by wanting a portion of the concert money.

I read that the Polyphonic Spree ponied up some of their future concert revenue for their new contract.

I agree with Mankie here. I love Social Distortion, but the thought of seeing them at the MCI Center for the Boom Boom Huckjam thing was absurd. I'd rather pay $25 to see them at the 930. If the price is too much, then that's it…just don't go. If people stop paying a certain amount for certain bands, they'll be forced to tone down the huge production and big budgets and just narrow it down to a smaller venue and an audience that will pay less cash.

The New York Times has a more in-depth article that discusses other new TicketBastard ideas. It makes my blood boil. I must boycott TicketBastard completely. They *charge* you to print your own ticket, goddamn motherfuckers!?!?!?!

September 1, 2003
Ticketmaster Auction Will Let Highest Bidder Set Concert Prices
By CHRIS NELSON

Three years after Ticketmaster introduced ticketFast, its online print-at-home ticketing service, consumers have so embraced it that the company now sells a half-million home-printed tickets for sporting and entertainment events each month in North America. Where ticketFast is available, 30 percent of tickets sold are now printed at home, said the company, which is by far the nation's largest ticket agency.

But consumers â?? many of whom have complained for years about climbing ticket prices and Ticketmaster service charges â?? may be less eager for the next phase of Ticketmaster's Internet evolution.

Late this year the company plans to begin auctioning the best seats to concerts through ticketmaster.com.

With no official price ceiling on such tickets, Ticketmaster will be able to compete with brokers and scalpers for the highest price a market will bear.

"The tickets are worth what they're worth," said John Pleasants, Ticketmaster's president and chief executive. "If somebody wants to charge $50 for a ticket, but it's actually worth $1,000 on eBay, the ticket's worth $1,000. I think more and more, our clients â?? the promoters, the clients in the buildings and the bands themselves â?? are saying to themselves, `Maybe that money should be coming to me instead of Bob the Broker.' "

EBay has long been a busy marketplace for tickets auctioned by brokers and others. Late last week, for example, it had more than 22,000 listings for ticket sales.

Venue operators, promoters and performers will decide whether to participate in the Ticketmaster auctions, Mr. Pleasants said. In June, the company tested the system for the Lennox Lewis-Vitali Klitschko boxing match at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The minimum bid for the package â?? two ringside seats, a boxing glove autographed by Mr. Lewis and access to workouts, among other features â?? was $3,000, and the top payer spent about $7,000, a Staples Center spokesman, Michael Roth, said.

Once the auction service goes live, Ticketmaster will receive flat fees or a percentage of the winning bids, to be decided with the operators of each event, said Sean Moriarty, Ticketmaster's executive vice president for products, technology and operations.

Along with home printing, auctions are central to "a new age of the ticket," Mr. Pleasants said. In the second quarter of this year, tickets sold online, with or without home printing, represented 51 percent of Ticketmaster's ticket sales. The rest were sold by phone or at walk-up locations.

Ticket Forwarding allows season ticket holders for several sports teams (including the New York Knicks, Rangers and Giants) to e-mail extra tickets to other users, with Ticketmaster charging the sender $1.95 per transaction.

TicketExchange provides a forum for season ticket holders to auction tickets online. The seller and buyer pay Ticketmaster 5 percent to 10 percent of the resale price, a fee the company splits with the team.

In the case of the ticketFast home-printing service, buyers pay an additional $1.75 to $2.50 per order, with the fee set by the event operator. Home printing has won converts among people who want tickets immediately, instead of receiving them by mail or a delivery service or having to stand in line at a will-call window.

One satisfied customer is Brian Resnik, 29, of Tampa, Fla., who says the home-printing fee is a bargain compared with the $19.50 that Ticketmaster charges for two-day shipping through United Parcel Service.

But some other users, who praised the convenience of home printing, objected to being charged an extra fee.

"It's kind of mind-boggling to me," said Joe Guckin, 41, of Philadelphia, who used ticketFast to buy tickets for a Baltimore Orioles home game last season. "You're printing up the ticket, on your printer at home, your paper, your ink, etc. â?? and you have to pay for that?"

The company replies that home-printing consumers are helping to pay for the technology that makes the service possible.

Ticketmaster has spent $15 million to $20 million to outfit almost 700 stadiums, arenas, theaters and concert halls in this country and Canada with bar-code scanners that read and authenticate the tickets and computers that capture information such as which seats are filled and which doors have the most traffic, Mr. Moriarty said. In 2003, the company has sold 400,000 to 600,000 ticketFast tickets each month.

Some ticketFast customers, like Diane DeRooy, 52, of Seattle, complain that Ticketmaster assesses a lot of fees even before levying the print-at-home charge. A ticket to see Crosby, Stills & Nash on Friday at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, N.J., for example, carries $13.80 in venue, processing and convenience fees, plus a $2.50 charge for the home-printing option. Without the fees, a ticket costs $30.25 to $70.25.

Many of those customers are skeptical about Ticketmaster's plans to auction the best seats to concerts.

"The band's biggest fans ought to have the best seats, not the band's richest fans," said Tim Todd, 47, of Kansas City, Mo., who used ticketFast recently to buy tickets for a concert by the rock group Phish. Ticketmaster would be, in essence, official scalpers, Mr. Guckin said, voicing a sentiment expressed by some other customers.

Industry watchers agree that auctions will affect all concertgoers. Prime seats are undervalued in the marketplace, said Alan B. Krueger, a professor at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, who has studied ticket prices. He predicts that once auctions begin revealing a ticket's market value, prices as a whole will climb faster.

Gary Bongiovanni, editor of the concert industry trade magazine, Pollstar, predicted that all ticket prices would become more fluid. After a promoter assesses initial sales from an auction, remaining ticket prices could be raised or lowered to meet goals.

The notion of ticket auctions is annoying, Mr. Resnik said, but he is resigned to them.

"I guess the capitalist inside me would say, `Hey, if that's what they can get for tickets, I guess that's just something I can't afford, like a yacht and a Learjet.' "

Originally posted by ggw™:

Originally posted by Sir HC:
Speaking of which, there was an article in Money Magazine (or something like that, it was while getting my car fixed) which had a big article about how bands are again making money solely from touring and how their recording labels are trying to get in on that action too by wanting a portion of the concert money.

I read that the Polyphonic Spree ponied up some of their future concert revenue for their new contract.

are the Polyphonic Spree really going to sell that many more records while on a major? me thinks a great publist will be a better return on the money they are giving back to the record company.

me thinks that visa and mastercard are behind this one as well… think of the finance charges on all those tickets people really can't afford will add up to!

Some of this, especially the home ticketing option, reminds me of some of what has destroyed the travel agencies. Years ago, I use to be a travel agent and I witnessed the airlines doing some things like this which helped to destroy the business. This was well before 9/11 and before all that many people were online.

For one, they conditioned the passengers to expect the agents to get seat assignments and print the boarding passes for them. The airlines use to pay for each pass printed. Then they stopped paying the agents but the passengers expected the printed passes. And you all know how damned expensive printer ink is, not to mention other stock. Then they cut the commissions to agents yet fees were continually levied on the passengers…..Well, that's a completely different story but I can see the same kinds of money games being passed onto the music fans.

it's just an example of a truly free-market economy in microcosm here, guys…if you really care, you must revolt and refuse to buy any tickets through ticketmaster at all…I don't think we buy many tickets through ticketmaster, actually…it is possible not to

Originally posted by kosmo vinyl:
are the Polyphonic Spree really going to sell that many more records while on a major? me thinks a great publist will be a better return on the money they are giving back to the record company.

No. I think the label (Hollywood Records, I believe) was smart enough to see that the draw of PS is as a touring act. Therefore, they asked for a cut of the touring proceeds as part of the contract.

What PS gets in return for this that makes it attractive for the band, well, that I don't know.

Originally posted by Celeste:
it's just an example of a truly free-market economy in microcosm here, guys…if you really care, you must revolt and refuse to buy any tickets through ticketmaster at all…I don't think we buy many tickets through ticketmaster, actually…it is possible not to

Amen.

Ticketmaster is providing a service. Sure, they suck. But if you don't like it and don't think it's worth the price they are asking, don't use it. Because every time somebody buys a ticket through Ticketmaster, they are implicitly saying that the service is worth the price.

Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:


What PS gets in return for this that makes it attractive for the band, well, that I don't know.

Well they have an album waiting to be released.

Robbie Williams deal meant the record lable got monies from his concerts. As he just played to half a million people in three nights it is easy to imagine how EMI might get their 80 milion back.

Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
Amen.

[Devil worshipper]

What happens if tickets are only availble via ticketmaster. say if the venue does not sell its own tickets? Isnt DAR that way?

Originally posted by bags:
Once the auction service goes live, Ticketmaster will receive flat fees or a percentage of the winning bids, to be decided with the operators of each event, said Sean Moriarty, Ticketmaster's executive vice president for products, technology and operations.

Well, it looks like I called that one right. :roll:

So I now remember, it was Forbes magazine and it was in general talking about how some of these acts (Jay Z was the main example) make all their money off everything but albums and now the labels want in but they have nothing new to offer most bands. Maybe PS was looking as they might just flop so get money now for the risk of failure (thought they are in a VW commercial right now). Still I have been talking with friend's in bands, and so far this year 3 bands I know have been screwed by their labels (60 watt Shamen, Nothingface, and The Toilet Boys). Not huge names, but you can't get there if no one will back you.

You can get DAR tickets at the venue on the day of show, presuming it doesn't sell out. Don't know if the service charge differs from ticketmaster.

Originally posted by Anton Newcombe:

Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
Amen.

[Devil worshipper]

What happens if tickets are only availble via ticketmaster. say if the venue does not sell its own tickets? Isnt DAR that way?

Ok I have a scenario,

the white stripes annonce they are playing a 3000 seater venue in 10 weeks time.

TM decides to release all tickets on ebay. But it only releases 150 pairs of tickets every week. It does not tell people there are more tickets to be sold at the end of the first or subsequent allocations.

There will be massive demand for tickets amongst fans. Bidding wars break out and for the first three weeks people are getting gounged for over a $100 a ticket, some paying considerably more.

Is that a good way for a band to treat its fans and a good way for TM to generate money? The most ardent fans will be the ones paying the highest prices.

Originally posted by Anton Newcombe:
What happens if tickets are only availble via ticketmaster. say if the venue does not sell its own tickets? Isnt DAR that way?

Then decide whether or not the show is worth the ticket price + $10, or whatever the service charges are.

Or, write the band and DAR and tell them that you won't be going to the show because it is impossible to purchase tickets for the advertised price.

Or. go down there the night of the show and buy tickets from some poor sap outside. But only pay him the face value of the ticket.

If someone pays $100 for White Stripes tickets I have absolutely no sympathy whatsofuckingever..they deserve to get ripped off.