Ticketmaster And Live Nation Agree To Merge
That booming evil laughter you heard echoing across the sky earlier today came from the board room where Live Nation and Ticketmaster agreed to an all-stock merger between their two blighted companies. Ticketmaster Chairman Barry Diller says the merger will benefit customers, who are frequently "frustrated by their ticket buying experiences." Oh! So by merging the two companies most responsible for those frustrations, we'll cancel them out! This is doubleplus good, right?
Diller blames artists for your lousy ticket experiences, by the way:
"Ticketmaster does not set prices, Live Nation doesn't set prices. Artists set the prices," Diller said on a conference call. "Everyone else is just a distributor or a service provider."
Lawmakers say they'll give the merger a supposedly thorough review:
The agreement would "send ticket prices through the roof," U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said today in an e-mailed statement.
"I will take a very close look at this merger before anything moves forward," said Schumer, who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee and called on the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission to view the deal skeptically.
The new company will be called Live Nation Entertainment, which Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff confirmed on a conference call was a deliberate attempt to get away from the negative associations of his current company.
Oh, also, it was Visa's fault that they couldn't sell those Springsteen tickets more fairly. Diller said so.
"Live Nation, Ticketmaster to Merge in All-Stock Deal " [Bloomberg]
(Photo: gruntzooki)
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Comments:
Combine to form....Asstron!
I'll only see bands in small venues that don't go through Ticketmaster or their ilk. Too bad for me I won't see mega huge stars in person from 1/4 mile away for $200...I guess.
Oh hell no.
What's that? A $10 merger fee per ticket? Excellent.
Artists may set the prices but Ticketmaster does not set prices, Live Nation doesn't set there own fees and other mark ups.
It's endlessly amusing to me that Halliburton won "World's Worst Company" instead of Ticketmaster. In my eyes, there is no company more evil than Ticketmaster. It's the only service I've seen that is capable of turning 2 $15 concert tickets into a $55 bill. Truly amazing.
Having just paid $13 in fees for an otherwise $30 ticket (which I couldn't buy at the venue...thanks), I can only hope that this merger is blocked. The system is effectively so close to a monopoly now that it'll just be gratuitous highway robbery.
Death to Ticketmaster.
It appears that the Bush years aren't over yet...
What's funny is that Ticketmaster has service fees, but there is no service given. Everything is automated so there is no person that must be paid to process your transaction. It reminds me of when companies say "for your convenience" and it's really for theirs at your expense. My motto is if you can't beat them, join them. Time to start scalping!
@Joeb5: not. TM sets their own prices via the ridiculous service charges, and LN does the same, and will act as the reseller with another set of fees.
Wow, they're only 10 minutes old and they're already top contender for WCOTY!
Congratulations Live Nation.
I paid $7.50 in fees on a $25 ticket recently. That's a 30% markup on the cost of the ticket. Scam artists.
The $100 ticket cost may not be set by TM or LN, but the egregious fees slapped on to every ticket certainly are. And that's not even getting into the fact that they also turn a pretty dime off of their own in-house scalping system.
@jennyplain: Don't forget the additional $5 Acquisition Fee required for both companies to "coordinate" the sale of the ticket together.
the reason why i dont go to live events is because of the astronomical fees placed by the 'ticketing' industry.
"hey look honey we can see xyz show for 30 bucks a tickets...that's 60+tax....checkout time....oh way, it's 120 with all the fees. lets stay home and watch tv instead"
this merger is preposterous, i hopo they deny this merger....it's like xm and sirius....jacking prices and there's no competition to stop em'.
all about the GREEEEEEEEED!
This country should change it's name to United States of GREEDY Americans! sadly enough :(
A few problems I have with this:
1) Isn't it illegal to contract w/venues and essentially shut out all non-Live Nation subscribing artists?
2) If even the biggest civic minded artists (Pearl Jam, U2, Springsteen) are too small to run around these two, its a MONOPOLY.
3) This merger should be stopped dead in its tracks.
This merger is the music buisiness equivalent of "breaking the seventh seal."
I'm sick of the fees, and I see it just getting worse.
I can't believe I actually miss standing outside the local record store on Saturday morning in order to buy a concert ticket...
@chiieddy:
Note to lawmakers - this company respects its customers, and should be used to compare and contrast:
[www.brownpapertickets.com]
"Brown Paper Tickets prides itself on providing the best possible customer service and the richest tool set, all for the lowest price in the industry. Ticket sellers pay nothing to use our service and ticket buyers pay only 99¢ and 2.5%"
@chiieddy: Thats... not that bad. I went to get Lily Allen (LiveNation) tickets this morning which were $20+$10.25 in fees each. Uh, no thanks.
Hey, my cable provider has Palladium Channel. A high def, live performance channel. And the sound is great. I'll vote with my feet and stay put for now. No need to spend the big bucks when I can catch a performance from a year ago. Don't have to worry about vomit getting on my shoes either.
All hail Satan! Long live the death of live music!
@Preyfar:
The last time I tried to buy tickets through Livenation, there was a $4 "Ticket fee"! Seriously! Thought the price of the ticket was the ticket fee. I guess I was wrong.
Maybe we should avoid buying from Ticketmaster and start buying from their smaller competitors. If they don't make any money from the tickets then they'll have to charge more reasonable fees or go bankrupt.
And the asshole of the year award goes to, drum-roll please, ...
Ticketmaster Chairman Barry Diller!
Let's give him a round of applause!
Yes, the artists set the ticket prices. TicketMaster sets the fees for their distribution services that bring the price you pay from $10 to $35. Oh noes! Consumers can parse fuzzy PR-speak too!
Also, I heart Senator Schumer.
Goodthinkful says "Ticketmaster is Live Nation. Ticketmaster has always been Live Nation. Any other thoughts should go in the memory hole."
So, maybe the ticket contracts should charge the *artists* (greedy, all of them!) those inflated handling fees instead of tacking them onto already inflated ticket prices for customers.
Yeah. I can see that happening. :-/
Burns: [chuckles] And to think, Smithers: you laughed when I bought TicketMaster. "Nobody's going to pay a 100% service charge."
@sonneillon: Ticketing companies have exclusive deals with venues. So the only way to avoid using them is to avoid seeing you're favorite artist if they choose to play a Ticketmaster venue. That's something most people aren't willing to do.
I'm sure Eddie Vedder is shaking his head in disgust right now. And rightfully so.
Have to say LOL to the George Orwell reference. Nice touch.
@rubyfrog: Halliburton probably got 1% of my salary last year without my asking. Ticketmaster got 0% with my asking.
I'll go with ol' Halli any day of the week. And I'm down with nominating Dick Cheney for the World's Worst Dick award for 2000-2008 too.
@yagisencho: Problem is the way the ticket market works, big companies like Ticketmaster pay the venue to use them. Brown paper Tickets can't afford to do that, so they lose out.
@Saboth: Most of the little places around Seattle use ticketmaster, it sucks. The only places that don't are crap venues with terrible local bands.
Let them jack up prices for unnecessary entertainment in the middle of an economic crapstorm. Hopefully they'll have to take the coke straw out of their noses long enough to Google "dollar vote".
"Ticketmaster does not set prices, Live Nation doesn't set prices. Artists set the prices," Diller said on a conference call.
It's not the ticket prices that bother me, it's the 50% SERVICE FEE!!!! Jackass!
@montecon: I once tried to get in on a $10/ticket presale that my radio station was promoting. So I went to the Ticketmaster website, picked two tickets, crossed my fingers, and magically saw the price change from $20 to $45. Yeah, I don't think so. With prices like that, I can't wait to see what happens with the merger! 200% markup standard, 300% if you want to print your ticket.
I try to avoid Ticketmaster as much as possible, but when even the competition is terrible, it doesn't really matter. I paid $4 to have a ticket from Tickets.com mailed to me. $4 to drop a ticket and maybe an invoice in an envelope! And that was on top of the $4 "service charge." You can't win short of never going to live events, and what's the fun in that?
@ras_d: Right. When I bitch about buying from Ticketmaster, I'm not bitching about the 50% of what I paid that goes to the actual ticket. I doubt that anybody else is either, despite Diller's attempts to suggest that his customers aren't singling his company out for its seven-layer fee frosting.
A quote from the article:
"Too many tickets go unsold and too many fans are frustrated with their ticket-buying experiences," Rapino said. The new company will work to simplify the ticketing process and increase attendance at events, he said.
As if. Ticket buying online is not in and of itself a difficult experience. The vast majority of the time, people are choosing to not go to shows because they don't want to pay a 30%-50% markup on their tickets, not because can't navigate the website. (Except for the whole Bruce Springsteen debacle. That's outrageous!)
Chuck Schumer's on it, everybody! Relax!
@EndlessMike: And, of course, if you had gotten e-tickets and printed them out yourself, you'd have paid a special fee for that, too.
You gotta love ticketmaster because they make everyone laugh. I mean, come on...they rip everyone off and people still buy tickets from them.
Regardless of prices people will still go.Ticketmaster knows this. It's like those dumb movies "Meet the Spartans" and "Teen/Date/Blah Movies." those are still made and people will still go. But Ticketmaster doesn't seem to get better, only worse. I predict in the future they won't have the fees added on to your ticket. But if you didn't pay the fees you get punched in the face at the gate.
I can't wait until that place burns to the ground.
I wonder how much it's going to cost now in order for them to process our credit cards in a "secure environment". Let's see, it costs me NOTHING to use my credit card at my local diner, but somehow to use my credit card online costs me 5 dollars. But even then, this fee only applies when ordering concert tickets. Every other product/service on the internet does not have an additional credit card or vaguely defined "handling fee" associated with it. But, apparently, Ticketmaster is getting screwed by whomever handles their internet security and are forced to pass this charge on to the consumer ( they must have signed a 30 year contract with the first ever company of this nature). I mean, if they didn't pass the charge on to the customer, their completely unnecessary middleman position, in which they provide a non-existent "service", would come to an end! And then where would we be?*
Ticket selling should be done online by each venue. Period. And I'm sorry, it doesn't cost Ticketmaster $10 per TICKET to "handle" them, especially in the case where people are printing their own tickets. In fact, I dare say there's barely any handling going on at all. And consumers should be the ones charging Ticketmaster a "convenience" charge, as it's awfully convenient for them to not have employees answering the phones or in ticket booths physically processing our orders.
* a lot better off and in possession of more of our money.
well isn't that just a C in the A for everyone who used to enjoy going to live music....