Posts filed under ‘LiveNation’
Ticketmaster functionality catching up?
I find it indicative that Live Nation Entertainment is making big noises about ‘improvements’ to the Ticketmaster online functionality, but rather than highlighting better service it is all about increasing revenue.
“Live Nation is readying some new online features it hopes will improve its e-commerce revenue.“
Additionally, the wondrous new functionality is pretty well standard already for most other ticketing software:
- Shopping Cart
- Seat Maps
- Social Media
READ FULL ARTICLE ONLINE: Ticketmaster Prepping New Online Features>>
20 July, 2010 at 12:26 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Restrictions of Paperless Tickets Policed
The State of New York has set an interesting precedent enacting a law that requires artists, promoters, sports teams and venues to purchase traditional paper tickets if the seller does “not allow consumers to transfer their tickets independent of the operator.”
Transferability is the issue here and the right of consumers to pass on the right to attend an event if they so choose and to whomever they choose.
It is interesting that the technological innovation of paperless ticketing has been hijacked by Live Nation Entertainment as a means to block the secondary market. I am not commenting on the validity of the secondary market and the potential downsides of scalping and touting. However, it is a good start that the rights of consumers are being protected here, the right of transferability.
In addition, strategic limitations upon the increasing market power of Live Nation Entertainment can not be a bad thing. Great concern has been expressed over the dominance of the vertical integration of the Ticketmaster ticket agency and the Live Nation venue and artist management business. While the merger has been approved, it makes no sense to also allow Ticketmaster monopolise the control, of inventory down to the individual consumer level.
Lets hope that the issue of the secondary market is not used by Ticketmaster and Live Nation to justify a reduction in the rights of consumers.
READ FULL ARTICLE ONLINE NY Law Puts Restrictions on Paperless
19 July, 2010 at 11:44 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Mobile ticketing adds value but does it create revenue?
“Recent weeks have seen two of the UK’s five mobile operators make further inroads into the £800m ticketing market. Orange is trialling a discounted ticketing service called Last Second Tickets from Orange, while Vodafone has launched its Vodafone VIP service through a tie-up with Live Nation.“
“The trend is regarded as an attempt to emulate the success of Orange Wednesdays, which has won the approval of every UK cinema chain to allow the network’s subscribers two-for-one entry each Wednesday. Pizza Express jumped on the success of the scheme and joined the promotion in early 2009.“
“Although these schemes are unlikely to generate much in the way of new revenues, they are good at attracting new and keeping their existing subscribers” for the mobile operators. But there is no indication that it develops attracts new audiences to the events or assists in retaining existing.
“Such schemes also give (mobile) operators an alternative to competing in a price war to keep subscribers.“
“…it’s difficult to see how they’re making money for partner brands, particularly since the key proposition is discounts.“
So in summary, the mobile operators are attempting to add value to their brands to avoid purely competing on price as a commodity. The value they are adding is a discount on another product or service, in this case music events. The value the mobile operator gains is at the expense of the value of the partner product or service. Unless the discounting is attracting new audiences (that will return without a discount), then it is just discounting the value of existing customers and generating no new or additional revenue.
16 July, 2010 at 10:10 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
The marriage of Ticketmaster and Live Nation: Say hello to the $400 ticket?
Is Broooce showing his discomfort at the merger?
Live Nation Entertainment CEO Michael Rapino in Is This Merger Just The Ticket? “In my business, the cheaper the ticket price the better. I’d love for more consumers to walk into an amphitheater, park, have a beer and eat a hot dog. There’s no advantage to me to have anything but sold-out shows.” – LA Times 12 Feb 2009
However, just over a year later Rapino’s tune has changed in the 1st 1/4 2010 Conference Call: “Our fundamental belief at Ticketmaster/Live Nation is the answer to grow our business is less about trying to make $5 or $6 million in service fees off secondaries and much more important to figure out how to capture that $1 billion in up-sell on the face value of tickets,“
The merged entity, Live Nation Entertainment, now seems less concerned with fees and wants control of the price of tickets.
15 May, 2010 at 1:06 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Ticketmaster And Live Nation Cleared Merger Again
The UK Competition Commission (CC) has again concluded that the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation in the UK “would not result in a substantial lessening of competition in the market for live music ticket retailing or in any other market in the UK, including live music promotion and live music venues“.
“The CC has also reiterated that, while the merged entity might have the ability to use its position as a ticket retailer, promoter and venue operator to harm its competitors in different parts of the supply chain, either by reducing the supply of its services or by supplying its services on worse terms, it would not have the financial incentive to do so. Specifically, the CC has found that, if the merged entity tried to harm its competitors in these ways, it would suffer significant short-term losses in pursuit of very uncertain long-term gains“.
We will wait to see those leaps of faith justified …
Read the Full Article on the Government Monitor
10 May, 2010 at 7:28 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia 1 comment
Apple is patently on the move into ticketing
Concert Ticket +
Some journalists have suggested “move over Ticketmaster”.
I am not so sure that this will stop TM and LN in their tracks, but on the back of the MySpace offering ticketing and event related services, Apple’s Concert Tickets + is cause for concern at the very least. Afterall their track record at innovation and leap frogging extant competitive offerings is pretty impressive.
The Apple patent is discussed in detail here.
It is proposing to completely do away with hard or paper tickets and deliver the ‘ticket’ electronically and the article details system architecture, electronic ticket management, kiosk delivery, wireless delivery and interaction via NFC and RFID (removing the need for scanning and turnstiles) and seat views.
It is very interesting that they have already considered other possibilities beyond concerts, including: Sports (of course), Weddings invitations and Conference accrediation, School events and so-on. Oh and of course, they have also incorporated merchandise, music and catering value added expenditure.
On second thoughts, be afraid Ticketmaster and Live Nation be very afraid. This is one business you won’t be able to just buy to remove competition in the market.
19 April, 2010 at 9:00 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia 3 comments
Pricing for The Eagles an Experiment
10 tiers added with dynamic pricing to shift 40% unsold inventory http://ow.ly/1ggdM
10 March, 2010 at 7:06 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Live Nation Exec Tries to Spin Ticketmaster Merger
“How’s it a monopoly?” Gerry Barad, chief operating officer of Live Nation’s global touring, said during a discussion of the live music industry at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. “One’s a promoter, and one’s a ticket company.”
It IS a monopoly Mr Barad, Live Nation own venues as well!
Barad is deliberately avoiding the issue (or is economically very challenged), it is a monopoly through vertical integration. Owning the venues as well means that touring artists DO NOT have a choice due to the dominance of ‘venue exclusive ticketing contracts’. There is no stronger venue exclusive ticketing contract than the venue owning the ticketing service as well. allowing the creation of one vertical monopoly limits choice and opportunity for artists, other promoters, other ticketing services AND consumers!
1 March, 2010 at 11:33 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Live Nation Entertainment to switch ticketing from CTS Eventim to Ticketmaster
The whole interpretation of this can alter based on the substitution of the terms “software” for “service”.
It is very hard to conceive that Ticketmaster’s two decade software is superior to CTS Eventim’s much more recently developed and updated software.
The question is whether LiveNation committed the right amount of skills and resources to implement the CTS Eventim software effectively. It is a common underestimation for long term agency clients.
Read the full article online<<.
27 February, 2010 at 10:48 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
FTC criticizes Ticketmaster concert sale
FTC criticizes Ticketmaster concert sales practice http://ow.ly/19IaS “Buying tickets should not be a game of chance.” – FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz
The Federal agency has accused Ticketmaster of “deceptive bait-and-switch tactics”.
“Ticketmaster kept the sales proceeds,” the FTC said in a statement, “without a reasonable basis for believing it could fulfill the orders.”
As an example cited by the FTC, the same set of 38 tickets for the Springsteen concert in Washington were sold and resold 1,600 times.
22 February, 2010 at 10:56 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
