As I am sure most of the world is aware of the monopoly that Ticketmaster have regarding events, I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to defeat them little by little or otherwise.
I have seen many campaigns, including one from before live nation was formed, in an attempt to prevent it. The juggernaut that it is, easily bats away any attempt to take it on, they are not even afraid of the US government trying to break up the monopoly.
They have been caught many times globally breaking and bending laws, and have a very unethical form of practice. Ticket prices just keep going up along with nonsense charges.
Would love to see ideas to help defeat them.
It’s tough since you’re basically stuck with having to use whatever the promoter / venue is using for ticketing. I do hate it when shows are using Ticketmaster / TicketWeb, like why is that even necessary when other options exist?
In the NYC area I’ve seen shows use other ticketing systems like Dice, See Tickets, Eventbrite, KYD, etc. so other stuff does exist beyond the Ticketmaster monopoly. Personally I think Dice might be the best one, it’s nice to have the ability to let the venue resell your ticket via waitlist if you can’t go to the show for some reason - I think it only works for sold out events but still seems useful. Or the reverse, you can put yourself on a waitlist for a sold out show and maybe score a ticket if someone else decides they can’t go.
Ticketmaster basically locks venues into contracts where they are only allowed to host ticketmaster bands. And ticketmaster signs contracts with bands where they can only use ticketmaster to sell their tickets. So since they have exclusive contracts with all the biggest bands and venues, no one can defect without basically making themselves irrelevant.
Not sure if that applies to smaller venues, or Ticketmaster’s other brands (TicketWeb). There are shows at a small venue I go to that are usually sold with Dice tickets, yet there is this one promoter whose own shows at the venue are always sold on TicketWeb. These are all small indie type shows, small venue… my hunch is that the promoter is just too lazy to switch to anything else.