Ticketmaster Senate Hearing

[dr_t_non-fan]

@notreallyme

…what will you do?

Change my offer amount or GTFO.

[notreallyme]

Oh, I did not realize you could do that dynamically. Please proceed.

In the meantime, I have billable work to do.

[dr_t_non-fan]

@notreallyme

Oh, I did not realize you could do that dynamically. Please proceed.

You can’t. That’s the issue. The website (Ticketmaster, StubHub, etc.) only allows the seller to set the price, not the buyer. Can’t even communicate with the buyer to negotiate.
My proposed method is better, economic-freedomly-speaking. Website could charge each side of the transaction and make bank!

Noted earlier:

@OutdoormanNowActuary

I love that idea…

[Mathman]

What about going with something more like eBay? Seller wants $100 firm? List it as ‘buy it now’ at $100, no offers allowed. Seller isn’t firm? Then list it as an auction with a fixed end date or allow buyers to throw out offers.

[Maphistos_Sidekick]

@Maphistos_Sidekick

Ticketmaster has become dominant enough that it doesn’t necessarily have to respond to competitive pressures, inviting regulatory scrutinty.

@OutdoormanNowActuary

Is this really true? I don’t go to enough events to know but every time I buy tickets there seems to be lots of options.

I just Googled the local low level professional hockey team who has a game coming up. My options were Ticketmaster, Ticket-center, StubHub, Vividseats, seatgeak, the arena’s website, and the hockey teams website (which took me to Ticketmaster). Seems to be a lot of options or do these websites just buy through Ticketmaster and resell on their site?

Keep in mind that Ticketmaster is owned by Live Nation, which runs many entertainment venues and has a concert-promotion business. Live Nation venues tend to have exclusive arrangements with Ticketmaster for primary ticket sales.

There is competition in the ticket resale market (although Ticketmaster plays there too).

I think a few years ago Pearl Jam wanted to do a tour in which they completely avoided Ticketmaster. They realized that they’d have to skip a few major markets if they held the “no Ticketmaster” line, because all the suitable venues in those markets had exclusives with Ticketmaster.

Ticketmaster’s market dominance isn’t the only unfortunate part of the entire ticket-sales industry, but they definitely contribute to the mess.

John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight looked at the industry several months ago. (NSFW for language): Tickets: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - YouTube