Eli5: why do bands have to use Ticketmaster?
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Ticketmaster is owned by Live Nation (who also owns 4-5 other ticket platforms), and LN owns many of the venues (House of Blues, for example), or has exclusive ticketing deals with them. For example, MLB.
Edit: Adding this link to the SEC that lists LiveNation companies: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1335258/000119312512075895/d277780dex211.htm
Edit 2: From LN site: https://www.livenationentertainment.com/about/
Many bands/venues are contractually obligated to use Ticketmaster
Many venues don’t even have any way off accepting tickets from other broker/resale platforms, since they use Ticketmaster equipped scanners.
Pearl Jam tried valiantly to take them on a couple of decades ago, and failed. Ticketmaster had grown too powerful to be controlled, and that in itself is worrying.
I use to work in the industry and most people are getting the answer wrong. The real answer is ticket master isn’t in the music industry, they are in the real estate industry. Owning the venues gives them a legal loophole Monopoly on selling tickets or whatever else they feel like doing in their private properties.
From what I understand, the Ticketmaster parent company owns most of the venues that band preform at. Since the bands are renting the venue from that company, the company can decide how tickets are sold, so why wouldn’t they make bands sell tickets in a way that would bring in profit for the company
They don’t. However, many stadiums and other venues have signed exclusive ticketing contracts with Ticketmaster.
Bands only have to use Ticketmaster if they play at one of these places. Any other event at one of these places would also have to use Ticketmaster. Bands are free to use a different ticketing service if they aren’t playing somewhere that’s signed such a contract, unless the band themselves have signed an exclusive ticketing contract with Ticketmaster
When the company (Live Nation) that owns Ticketmaster also owns the venues and is also the promoter contracted by the artist’s management, what choice do they have?
Its important to note that part of the service that Ticketmaster provides their clients IS being the bad guy. It used to be the case that customers never saw the ticketing fees – they were simply rolled into the overall price of the ticket, and then the production company would pay Ticketmaster directly, making it look like thats what the artist was charging. Ticketmaster split the fees off, meaning that the artist could publish cheaper rates for shows, making them seem more affordable even though you’d pay the same amount at the end. This was also good for them since Ticketmaster was now responsible for collecting the revenue from each ticket purchaser, so they had greater incentive to sell out shows since the more tickets sold, the more fees for them. And Ticketmaster would do all the work of regulating tickets and fraud and scalpers etc.
In exchange, the artist got to be the good guy, the cool one just here for the show, and ticketmaster the third party scapegoat corporate guy who could (and is) blamed for everything you dislike about the show or venue and getting/selling tickets. Thats what Ticketmaster signed up to do. It doesn’t mean they don’t provide an important service that needs to be done or reasonable rates to do it, and it doesn’t mean they dont do a good job, it means they purposely set it up to be hated because its better for everyone if the artist remains loveable.
(with all that said, yes they do overinflate fees and no they are not a great company lol. but they do do a lot more than people think they do and the negative PR they get is more purposeful than you’d think.)
So that they can be paid what they actually want to be paid to perform while having ticket master look like the villain.
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