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In a Wall Street Journal article out today, former Ticketmaster CEO, Fred Rosen, denounces the Ticketmaster model that he essentially created in the 1980s and ’90s. Says Rosen, “The middle-man model is dead.” Rosen’s new venture, according to the Journal, is different because “…instead of listing and selling tickets for thousands of events on a single, centralized website, the new company plans to offer a so-called white-label service that will enable clients … to sell tickets to consumers directly from their own websites.” What a concept! Not to toot our own horn, but this is the model TicketBiscuit has espoused since we opened the doors in 2001.
Back before Google, Facebook, Songkick, Eventful, and the other myriad services and websites that help fans find events, Ticketmaster arguably provided a valuable service in aggregating events on one website. But now, that “service” does more to hijack event owners’ website traffic than it does to provide exposure for those events.
I often hear Ticketmaster clients claim that “people just know to go to Ticketmaster.” I disagree. They know to go to Google; they know to go to Facebook; and they subscribe to services like Songkick which notify them of events they’re interested in. This new paradigm frees event owners from having to get the word out about their events (let your customers do that for you) and lets them instead focus on building brand loyalty and establishing direct communication with customers.
The live entertainment biz is changing – for the better if you ask me. As the combined Ticketmaster and LiveNation struggle to maintain their outdated business model, event owners would do well to sidestep the “middle man.” Those who do not may find their life rafts getting pulled under by that massive sinking ship to which they are tethered.
TicketBiscuit CEO Jeff Gale is extensively quoted in today’s web cover feature for Alternative Press about the impending mega-merger. Author Luke O’Neil does a great job covering the multiple perspectives about the deal, and gives a shout out to our own Music Liberation Fund as well. Check it out:
http://altpress.com/features/coverstory_antitrust.htm
“This is a campaign that we came up with as soon as we heard about the proposed merger,” says Ticket Biscuit CEO Jeff Gale. “We pretty quickly concluded that that was going to be no good for anyone but Live Nation and Ticketmaster. We wanted to do what we could to preserve the independent spirit of the American music community, venues, artists and promoters outside of that umbrella. It was a portion of our projected revenue that we set aside to help further that effort by being able to make very attractive ticketing deals with venues that want to remain or become independent of that conglomeration, or artists or promoters that want to do the same thing.”
The approval of the merger looks likely at this point. If you are a venue operator or promoter looking for ticketing alternatives, check out our Online Ticketing and Box Office Software systems. If you’d like to learn more about how your organization can benefit from the Music Liberation Fund, call us at 1-866-757-8330.
A twitter friend brought this to my attention last week. I was at the beach getting some much needed R and R but felt that I should weigh in on it today.
According to this article by Al Branch over at Ticket News, Ticketmaster is advancing bills in Florida and Minnesota that would effectively give them greater control over concert presales. You can read the full text of the article here. Now, just the fact that Ticketmaster is lobbying in support of legislation on the ticketing industry should be enough to scare you into action, but if not…
I visited the websites for both the Minnesota and Florida Legislature to get the text of the actual bills- you can view them by visiting the links below:
Minnesota HF 819: Internet Sale of Event Tickets
And
Florida CS/ HB 1287: Resale of Tickets (summary and full text)
Interestingly enough – there are two other bills making their way through Florida as well – SB 1962 (summary and full text) and SB 2074 (summary and full text).
For those of you uninterested in navigating the legalese, I will simplify the gist of the legislation:
Ticketmaster is making a power grab to limit ticket presales and re-sells unless authorized by the primary ticket seller – in many cases, Ticketmaster. So Ticketmaster, in the midst of trying to establish a monopoly on the national scale, is now simultaneously looking to eliminate competition in the presale space and eliminate the reseller market altogether.
For those of you who aren’t savvy in this space, “presales” are tickets that go on sale before they are made available to the general public, often going on sale to, for example, fan clubs. They have been an established component of the concert industry for decades, but now Ticketmaster wants them stopped. Check this language in Florida HB 1287: “requiring that a person or entity that offers to sell or resell over the internet tickets to specified public entertainment or amusement events of any kind may not offer tickets for sale until such tickets have first been offered for sale via an event-provider –authorized outlet or offering.” The Minnesota bill has a similar anti-presale tilt: “The initial seller shall not divert tickets from the initial sale to be sold in any other manner.”
In other words, if Ticketmaster doesn’t feel like allowing a presale in Florida, it won’t happen. In Minnesota, it will be ILLEGAL to have presales.
There is also language in these bills that prevents or limits tickets from entering the secondary market. While in theory (and to the average state legislator) this sounds great, it sets a dangerous precedent. Some of you may recall many moons ago when I blogged about the Seven Principles of the Ticketing Industry. Principle four is what we see in action here- “Where there are nuisances, there are regulators.” It is dastardly (and again, should cause concern) that the very same company causing all of the nuisances is the one driving regulators to action. Of course, the well paid Ticketmaster lobbyists are keeping the true grim future scenario out of the minds of the regulators deciding the fate of the issue, as seen in Florida, where the bill has passed unanimously through two committees so far. If successful, Ticketmaster will both outlaw presales and resells, gaining a pretty tight death grip on the large entertainment venues of Florida and Minnesota.
So, if you live in Florida and occasionally buy tickets to live events, read HB 1287
(it won’t take long) and get in touch with the members of the General Government Policy Council Pronto. They are listed here: http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Committees/committeesdetail.aspx?CommitteeId=2469 . At least contact Representative Troutman and let him know that this legislation deserves further scrutiny and revision. Ditto for you Minnesotans: http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/members/hmem.asp
The answer to scalping is NOT to limit presales or introduce harmful regulation into this industry. The bottom line is this: scalping takes place because the face value of some tickets is significantly lower than the market value. Until all parties involved can agree on how to make these two values close enough at onsale to discourage scalpers, the practice will continue.
In related news: The Grateful Dead may have introduced a solution to this problem. What do you think?
Last week both the House and Senate committees grilled panelists including Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff and Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino about the impending merger. Bill Wyman (@hitsville), myself (@ticketbiscuit) and a handful of others covered the events via twitter. You can check out the live stream here and here.
The Senate session was brutal. Seth Hurwitz of IMP Productions and Jerry Mickleson of JAM laid into the behemoth companies like cold assassins, and both Azoff and Rapino stayed on the defensive most of the time. The overwhelming feeling coming out of this session was that the merger would be very bad for independent promoters.
My favorite part of this session was when one audience member said to a panelist (probably Hurwitz) – ‘Dude, you were under oath!” After the cameras had quit rolling but the mics were still on. One telling moment was when Mickelson approached Azoff after the hearings in a sort of détente manner, assuming him that the testimony was not a personal attack. It is clear where the power is currently, and the consequences of upsetting the forces that be (see Pearl Jam).
Then came the House session, and it looked like Rapino had taken a crash course from Dale Carnegie. He was much more polished and convincing, helped somewhat by the undereducated committee and their softball inquiries. Robert W. Doyle, a partner with Doyle, Barlow & Mazard in DC had some excellent sound bytes, but despite his eloquent words and pointed delivery, I came out of this session pretty convinced that the merger will pass muster and Live Nation Entertainment will be born.
- Ticketmaster will jettison TicketsNow. I think they will have to for approval. And I think Azoff is cool with the idea. Joe Lewi (@eventpromoter) posted to his blog that he expects this as well.
- Live Nation Entertainment will try to do some cool things with the “Amazon” storefront concept- that you can buy tickets, songs, merchandise, etc. through one portal. Rapino mentioned this in his testimony. This will be convenient, but customers should also expect to pay for this convenience. Charging for convenience is how these guys make money. Since this whole move is about control, LNE will try to build / buy a competitor in the music distribution space. They will not even approach Apple’s market share because the interface will suck.
- Rapino seemed to gain some support in the house hearing when he said that the new company would hire people, instead of laying folks off. The committee didn’t ask him if the new jobs would be American jobs. In fact, a source of mine, a former Ticketmaster employee, shared that Rapino’s claim was unequivocally false. According to the source, Ticketmaster has been outsourcing both development and QA activities to their Shenzen office, which opened in January of 2008 – and the new development jobs will likely be in China instead of the US, since the Chinese only demand about 30% of the salary of their US counterpart.
- The market will striate – with LNE owning the “top end” arenas and amphitheatres, and the middle market pursued aggressively by viable ticketing competitors such as ourselves. LNE will soon look to expand its footprint in the middle market as growth on the top end stagnates, and fears will resurface regarding their abuse of leverage.
- Ticket prices will not come down. This merger never was about what is good for the fans. It is about control and profit, plain and simple. Convenience fees will probably go away, but ticket prices will increase to compensate for the lost revenue.
A question I get often is: what does this mean for us (TicketBiscuit)? From a business perspective, the news of this merger has had positive effects. Venues and promoters are looking for options. They see that this much centralization of power is not good for the overall ecosystem. With our Music Liberation Fund, we’re removing the risk of switching away from Ticketmaster. And, we’re the only ticketing company continuing to invest, daily, in tools that help our clients sell more tickets. It’s always been our position to compete well, execute flawlessly, and do the right thing for our clients. And we’ll do that, merger or not.
On Independent Ticketing
February 3, 2012 in Commentary, Musings, best practices | by jgale | Leave a comment
In years past, independent ticketing companies were challenged when it came to handling big spikes in demand. And when phone sales ruled, only the largest ticketing companies had call centers big enough to handle the volume. But times have changed. Independent ticketers are now the technology leaders. And telephone demand has fallen off dramatically. Massive demand spikes are no longer a problem for the leading independents.
So that leaves marketing. For a minute, let’s assume that a massive email database and domain name recognition are as effective at moving tickets as some of the tools and techniques offered by leading indies. I don’t believe for one minute that’s true. But let’s pretend it is. The question becomes, are the email list and domain name worth it?
What if you had an extra couple of bucks per ticket to spend on marketing – without increasing the total cost to fans? Could you use that extra money to market your shows as effectively? My bet is that you could do a better job. All promotion is local, right?
First, consider those happy times you find yourself with a show that’s going to sell itself with no marketing? With a major, you – via your customers – have paid for that email list and domain name whether you need it or not; with the right indie, those unneeded marketing dollars can fall to your bottom line.
Or what if you could lower the total cost for fans, without it impacting your bottom line, and without it dulling your artist’s image? Maybe that cost difference is enough to move the bulk of your sales into the advance column, saving you from the whims of weather and everything else that can decimate your door sales.
Have you considered the good will that a smaller ticket fee can engender amongst your customers? YOUR customers. With most indies, you have unfettered access to your customer data. You can slice and dice and data mine and analyze and target like never before. This, after all, is what good promotion is all about. It’s not just placing bets on bands you think will sell. It’s about having an intimate knowledge of your audience so you can match them up with the right events and take some risk off the table. Sometimes it’s about having some powerful data to give you the confidence to pass on the “next big thing” that’s not right for your customers – or to recognize that you can fill the house for an emerging artist while you can still afford them.
The real promise of independent ticketing is that it puts more of your fate back in your hands. If you don’t want that control, and the responsibility that comes with it, go play craps. Go play roulette. Promoting shows wasn’t always just about assuming the risk. A promoter is a marketer, an entertainment broker. To be successful, you must know the product and the market better than anyone. And you must have the tools and authority to put that knowledge to work.
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