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Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino’s total compensation package rose to $139 million in 2022, up from $13.8 million the previous year.
Rapino’s compensation included a base salary of $3 million, up from $2.6 million in 2021 (which came as Rapino agreed to take a pay reduction during the pandemic). Live Nation entered into a new employment agreement with Rapino in July 2022, ending Dec. 31, 2027, which meant he also earned a $6 million signing bonus.
The executive also earned a $12 million annual cash performance bonus for 2022 and stock awards of $116 million, some of which vest in early 2024, while others vest in four installments through 2027 if the company reaches certain stock price targets.
CFO Joe Berchtold also saw his overall compensation jump to $52.4 million in 2022, up from $5 million the prior year. His base salary increased slightly to $1.3 million from $1.1 million, and he also earned a signing bonus of $6 million and an annual cash performance bonus of $2.5 million. Berchtold received $42.4 million in stock awards.
These pay bumps come after a rocky year for the company.
The Ticketmaster, which falls under Live Nation Entertainment, has faced backlash since its site experienced errors and site slowdowns during its Taylor Swift presale for verified fans in fall 2022. Since then, the company has faced pushback from lawmakers over its merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation and is said to be undergoing an investigation by the Department of Justice. At the same time, concert attendance has been on the rise, as has the company’s revenue.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Richard Blumenthal’s new legislation aims to take on Ticketmaster by clamping down on the use of long-term contracts to lock up the exclusive ticketing rights of U.S. venues and festivals. But it could backfire in a way that would negatively affect venues and fans.
Titled the Unlocking Ticketing Markets Act, the legislation — introduced on the same day as a second bill from Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that would ban hidden ticket fees — is a clear attempt to break Ticketmaster’s grip on the ticketing industry, although it never actually mentions the Live Nation-owned company by name. (A press release announcing the Unlocking Ticket Markets Act says today’s concert marketplace is dominated “by one company” with a “70-80 percent market share” thanks in part to the long-term contracts its clients sign for its services.) But while Klobuchar and Blumental believe shortening ticketing contracts will promote competition, the proposal doesn’t seem to consider the benefits these contracts offer the venue clients.
Ever since Ticketmaster dethroned Ticketron as the top ticket seller in the 1980s, the company has built its dominance by offering large upfront cash payments in exchange for exclusive deals. This practice has become commonplace from ticketing companies in live entertainment, and venues and sports teams have come to rely on these advances — which can equal hundreds of thousands of dollars for smaller venues and millions of dollars for arenas and stadiums, increasing in value based on the length of the term — that are paid off over the term of the deal through fees added to the face value of each ticket.
This is a bargaining tool the ticketing companies use to acquire more venue customers, but within that, it’s at the venues’ discretion what kind of deal to take, passing the cost of that loan onto their customers as ticketing fees. If venues haven’t repaid the advance at the end of the contract term, they typically have two options: cut a check to the ticketing company to cover the difference or re-up their deal and borrow more money.
Klobuchar and Blumenthal’s bill would essentially shorten the length of the exclusive ticketing contracts by ordering the Federal Trade Commission to “prevent the use of excessively long multi-year exclusive contracts,” according to a press release announcing the proposed legislation. (The text of the Unlocking Ticketing Markets Act is not public, so it’s not clear how “excessively long” is defined, though average ticketing contracts are about five to six years.) If the FTC opted to limit ticketing to half of the average terms, Ticketmaster’s competitors would have twice as many opportunities to bid for those contracts the company holds.
Shorter contracts would either mean less money for venues, or greater risk that they would fail to repay the advances — in which case venues would either need to repay the remaining balance or negotiate that debt into a contract renewal. For example, a temporary four-month downturn in business is going to have a greater impact on a two-year, $2 million loan than it would on a four-year, $4 million loan. To protect themselves, ticketing companies would likely increase the fees added to tickets to recoup faster, thereby reducing the heightened risk of default — likely meaning higher costs to consumers.
A bill focused on contract length also fails to address long-standing complaints that venues often work with Ticketmaster because of a perception that it means parent company Live Nation will bring more events to their building. This sort of business practice is prohibited under the consent decree that has governed Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s operations since merging in 2010, but that hasn’t stopped accusations of anticompetitive behavior. While Live Nation has long denied this charge, during a January Senate Judiciary hearing probing Ticketmaster’s botched sale for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, Sens. Klobuchar and Blumenthal indicated they believed that Ticketmaster’s relationship with Live Nation was the main reason Ticketmaster held a such a large market share of the ticketing business. Term lengths of the company’s contracts, however, were rarely mentioned.
In response to the introduction of the Unlocking Ticketing Markets Act, a Ticketmaster spokesperson told Billboard, “The ticketing industry is more competitive than ever. Ticketmaster wins business because it offers the best product available for venues, and the length of contracts is generally decided by venues and the guaranteed payments they want to help support their expenses. We do not expect any of the proposed changes to have a material impact on our business as we historically add clients in competitive marketplaces.”
Changing the terms of those loans, as Klobuchar and Blumenthal seek to do by limiting exclusive ticketing deals, could either cause venues to earn less money on the ticketing deals or increase the fees they charge consumers to repay those loans — making ticket prices even more expensive in a climate where most Americans already feel they’re paying too much.
The Cure‘s Robert Smith continues to fight back against high concert ticket prices. After weeks of battling to knock out or knock down what he called Ticketmaster’s exorbitant extra fees for the band’s upcoming North American tour, Smith was at it again over the weekend.
Smith revealed that “approx. 7K tickets across approx 2200 orders have been cancelled.” The singer claimed those tickets were acquired with fake accounts and/or listed on secondary resale sites. “TM have identified specific locations from secondary postings,” he said. He then asked fans who think their tickets may have been wrongly cancelled to reach out to TM fan support (@TMFanSupport).
The Cure leader also had another notion about the ongoing imbroglio over ticket fees and the secondary market, writing, “A WEEKEND THOUGHT… THIS ONGOING TM ‘CONVERSATION’ IS NOT TAKING PLACE IN A VACUUM… THE SYSTEM THAT VALUES PROFIT OVER PEOPLE IS REALLY WHAT NEEDS TO BE CHANGED…”
To date, spokespeople for Ticketmaster have not returned Billboard‘s request for comment on Smith’s ongoing battle against fees and the secondary market.
In the lead-up to the veteran group’s upcoming The Lost World North American tour, The Cure had hoped to keep seat-buying fair and simple for their fans by opting out of dynamic pricing and shielding against scalpers with non-transferable tickets. But when the sale opened mid-March, customers were disappointed to find that the Ticketmaster had tacked on sky-high fees to tickets that totaled more than the price of the actual tickets themselves.
At the time, Smith went on a similarly all-caps Twitter rant, writing that he was “AS SICKENED AS YOU ALL ARE BY TODAY’S TICKETMASTER ‘FEES’ DEBACLE” before promising to investigate what went wrong. Soon after, he took to social media again to announce that Ticketmaster would be offering refunds and lower fees.
Last week Smith warned fans of a scam in which scalpers offered to sell account login details to get around TM transfer limitations. ANY/ALL TICKETS OBTAINED IN THIS WAY WILL BE CANCELED, AND ORIGINAL FEES PAID ON THOSE TICKETS WILL NOT BE REFUNDED,” he wrote, adding that the fees from those tickets will be donated to human rights organization Amnesty International.
The Lost World tour is slated to kick off on May 10 at New Orleans’ Smoothie King Center and run through a July 1 gig at Miami’s Miami-Dade Arena.
See Smith’s latest tweets below.
‘IHBT’ #? “Approx 7k tickets across approx 2200 orders have been cancelled. These are tickets acquired with fake accounts / listed on secondary resale sites. TM have identified specific locations from secondary postings” #ShowsOfALostWorld2023— ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) March 31, 2023
A WEEKEND THOUGHT… THIS ONGOING TM ‘CONVERSATION’ IS NOT TAKING PLACE IN A VACUUM… THE SYSTEM THAT VALUES PROFIT OVER PEOPLE IS REALLY WHAT NEEDS TO BE CHANGED… X— ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) March 31, 2023
Robert Smith continued to blast Ticketmaster on Thursday night (March 30), taking to Twitter to warn fans of a scam in which scalpers offer to sell account login details.
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“BEWARE ANOTHER SCALPER SCAM: OFFERING TO SELL/SEND ACCOUNT LOGIN DETAILS TO GET AROUND TM TRANSFER LIMITATIONS… ANY/ALL TICKETS OBTAINED IN THIS WAY WILL BE CANCELED, AND ORIGINAL FEES PAID ON THOSE TICKETS WILL NOT BE REFUNDED,” he wrote, adding that the fees from those tickets will be donated to human rights organization Amnesty International. The Cure frontman, however, did not share plans to regulate and spot the scammers.
1 OF 2BEWARE ANOTHER SCALPER SCAM: OFFERING TO SELL/SEND ACCOUNT LOGIN DETAILS TO GET AROUND TM TRANSFER LIMITATIONS… ANY/ALL TICKETS OBTAINED IN THIS WAY WILL BE CANCELED, AND ORIGINAL FEES PAID ON THOSE TICKETS WILL NOT BE REFUNDED… #ShowsOfALostWorld23— ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) March 31, 2023
2 OF 2…ORIGINAL FEES PAID ON THOSE TICKETS WILL BE DONATED TO @amnesty AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, AND THE TICKETS THEMSELVES WILL BE RESOLD TO FANS #ShowsOfALostWorld23— ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) March 31, 2023
As the band gears up for its first trek in seven years, The Lost World North American Tour, The Cure had hoped to keep seat-buying fair and simple for their fans by opting out of dynamic pricing and shielding against scalpers with non-transferable tickets. But when the sale opened mid-March, customers were disappointed to find that the Ticketmaster had tacked on sky-high fees to tickets that totaled more than the price of the actual tickets themselves.
At the time, Smith went on a similarly all-caps Twitter rant, writing that he was “AS SICKENED AS YOU ALL ARE BY TODAY’S TICKETMASTER ‘FEES’ DEBACLE” before promising to investigate what went wrong. Soon after, he took to social media again to announce that Ticketmaster would be offering refunds and lower fees.
Last July, fans fumed over the high cost of Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing — the model that responds in real time to consumer demand and can cause prices to skyrocket, especially at on-sale — for Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band’s 2023 tour.
Then, in November, Ticketmaster’s presale for Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour sold over 90% of the trek’s inventory — breaking the record for the most tickets sold in a single day by a touring artist — but online traffic stranded millions of infuriated fans in digital queues and caused website outages. Ticketmaster canceled the general on-sale for the remaining inventory, and Swift lambasted the company in a statement: “We asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand, and we were assured they could. It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.”
Soon, politicians were calling for accountability, and in January, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on competition within the ticketing industry, including whether the 2010 consent decree governing the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster has worked — or if the company has monopolized the sector.
Ticketmaster effectively controls major live-music events in many North American arenas and stadiums: It’s the primary ticketing system for 27 out of 32 NFL stadiums and Live Nation-promoted arena shows across the continent. But since its merger with Live Nation, viable alternatives have emerged.
“With ticketing systems, you may not know who they are, and that’s a good thing. Frankly, when a ticketing system makes the news, usually something went wrong,” says International Ticketing Association president/CEO Maureen Andersen, who adds that millions of tickets for music, sports and other live entertainment are sold every day on various platforms in North America without a hitch.
“There is a lot of ticketing technology available,” says Andersen. “A lot of ticketing companies [are] coming to the U.S. to test the waters and see what kind of market share they can get. That rings to me as healthy competition.”
Artists looking for ticketing alternatives in 2023 will fare better than Pearl Jam did nearly 30 years ago when the band tried — and failed — to route a tour without using Ticketmaster in protest of the company’s service fees. In December, country singer Zach Bryan released his album All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster (Live at Red Rocks) — the Denver-area amphitheater is ticketed by AXS, the Ticketmaster rival owned by the second-biggest North American promoter, AEG Presents — and took to social media: “I am so so tired of people saying things can’t be done about this massive issue while huge monopolies sit there stealing money from working class people.” Within weeks, he announced and sold out a 28-date tour, exclusively ticketed by AXS. “We sold all the tickets in 3 waves to actual fans, we hired teams to limit bots, and we sacrificed a lot of personal things to give real people, real seats,” Bryan posted afterward.
And in March, when fees for some dates on The Cure’s Ticketmaster-ticketed arena tour exceeded face-value prices, frontman Robert Smith called on the company to correct the matter — which it did in short order, issuing $10 credits to many purchasers.
Ticketing platforms in both the primary and secondary markets — which facilitate sales from rights holders and resale from other consumers, respectively — are experimenting with new features and working to keep prices in check. Billboard highlights some of the notable companies increasing competition in the sector.
AXS (primary and secondary markets)
Founded: 2011The Gist: Ticketmaster’s most significant U.S. competitor duplicates many of Ticketmaster’s strengths, including its ability to handle high-volume on-sales and a lottery system called Fair AXS. (AEG previously licensed Ticketmaster technology as a condition set by the U.S. Department of Justice in its approval of the 2010 Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger, but used other software to build AXS.) Following the 2019 merger of AEG Facilities and SMG, AEG now owns, manages or operates more than 350 venues, many of which use AXS for ticketing.
CashorTrade (secondary)
Founded: 2009The Gist: With roots in the jam-band community, CashorTrade eschews a first-come, first-served model, instead allowing buyers to plead their case to sellers, who are required to upload receipts to prove they’re selling at face value. Buyers can’t offer more than face value for tickets but can “creatively barter,” most often by pitching trades of other concert tickets or artist merchandise, in order to be selected. After The Cure’s tour went on sale, the band publicly endorsed CashorTrade and Twickets, a U.K.-based resale platform operating in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, for resale of its tickets.
DICE (primary)
Founded: 2014The Gist: DICE entered the U.S. market in 2019 with a bold promise: to help eradicate scalping. Digital tickets are locked to a buyer’s smartphone, and back-end technology prevents the resale of tickets above face value. DICE also blocks tickets from the secondary market by allowing fans to return them to sold-out shows, which are then redistributed to customers on waitlists.
Lyte (supplementary)
Founded: 2013The Gist: Lyte works with primary ticketing platforms to eliminate scalping and get in-demand tickets to actual fans. Partners like See Tickets integrate Lyte’s technology to field ticket requests and credit card information prior to on-sales, allowing fans to return tickets that are then offered to preregistered fans at fair market price (which can exceed face value).
SeatGeek (primary, secondary)
Founded: 2009The Gist: SeatGeek established itself as a secondary ticketer similar to resale giant StubHub — and continues to expand its reach in that market, including through new resale deals with MLB and college-athletics ticketing giant Paciolan — but has since become the primary ticketer for a handful of NFL and NBA teams, Broadway theaters and other venues. (Major League Soccer and Brooklyn’s Barclays Center recently ended partnerships with SeatGeek in favor of Ticketmaster.) The ticketer also introduced SeatGeek Swap in 2021, which allows the return of eligible tickets, no questions asked, for credit at 100% of the purchase price.
See Tickets (primary, secondary)
Founded: 1991The Gist: Since opening a Los Angeles office in 2014, the U.K.-based ticketer has steadily grown, including working with boutique North American festivals and independent clubs and theaters. After becoming a National Independent Venue Association sponsor in 2020, See signed deals with 100 new indie venues and promoters in a 12-month period. The platform’s tools include fan-to-fan resale technology.
This story will appear in the April 1, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Robert Smith still hasn’t found a permanent cure for Ticketmaster’s ill-priced fees. After blasting the company earlier this month for applying exceptionally costly service charges to ticket sales for The Cure‘s upcoming tour, the frontman is now calling out the entertainment giant once again.
This time, the issue comes with the discovery of some tickets labeled by Ticketmaster as being “face value” in spite of the fact that they cost a lot more money than a standard ticket normally would, much less one supposedly charging a minimum amount. “I AM ASKING ABOUT THE WEIRD OVER PRICED ‘FACE VALUE’ TICKETS THAT ARE POPPING UP HERE AND THERE… X,” Smith tweeted on Tuesday (March 28).
For reference, one fan commented on the guitarist’s tweet with a screenshot of two “face value” tickets that cost nearly $1,400. “That’s nuts,” someone else replied to the fan. “I gave almost the same seat for Toronto and paid $160. In USD, that’s around $115!!!”
On Ticketmaster’s website, the face value ticket exchange is defined as “an artist-driven marketplace where fans can sell their tickets to other fans at face value.”
As the band gears up for its first trek in seven years, The Lost World North American Tour, The Cure had hoped to keep seat-buying fair and simple for their fans by opting out of dynamic pricing and shielding against scalpers with non-transferable tickets. But when the sale opened mid-March, customers were disappointed to find that the Ticketmaster had tacked on sky-high fees to tickets that totaled more than the price of the actual tickets themselves.
Afterward, Smith went on a similarly all-caps Twitter rant, writing that he was “AS SICKENED AS YOU ALL ARE BY TODAY’S TICKETMASTER ‘FEES’ DEBACLE” before promising to investigate what went wrong. Soon after, he took to social media again to announce that Ticketmaster would be offering refunds and lower fees.
See Smith’s tweet below.
I AM ASKING ABOUT THE WEIRD OVER PRICED ‘FACE VALUE’ TICKETS THAT ARE POPPING UP HERE AND THERE… X— ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) March 29, 2023
That’s nuts. I gave almost the same seat for Toronto and paid $160. In USD, that’s around $115!!!— mejane🇨🇦🎶📈 (@mejanetoo) March 29, 2023
Ticketmaster has rolled out crypto wallet integration for Avenged Sevenfold’s upcoming tour, allowing NFT holders from the heavy metal band’s fan club — Death Bats Club — to get priority access to tickets and reserved seating with no queues.
Fans have already used the feature to purchase tickets for events at New York’s Madison Square Garden and The Forum in Los Angeles ahead of the general public. Now the initiative will now go live for the rest of the dates available on Ticketmaster. “We have integrated Death Bats Club into Ticketmaster,” confirmed singer Matt Sanders on Twitter, “assuring that fans get the best tickets at the best prices without bots, scalpers and long wait-times.”
Shadows was instrumental in pushing the Ticketmaster integration forward, and has been an early advocate for NFTs and Web3. The band launched the Death Bats Club in 2021 — a collection of 10,000 NFTs with unique visual traits that unlock real-life perks such as care packages, meet-and-greet opportunities, and now early-access ticketing.
Ticketmaster has already issued more than 5 million NFTs as commemorative tokens for major events including the Super Bowl, but this is the first token-gated integration for purchasing tickets directly. Currently it is a pilot program but may roll out to more artists based on demand. “Avenged Sevenfold used the capability to offer first access to tickets, but there are a variety of ways it can be used by artists in the future,” said David Marcus, Ticketmaster’s executive vp of global music, in a statement. “From unlocking premier seats to special experiences like sitting in on soundcheck.”
Ticketmaster’s token-gated sales are currently compatible with tokens minted on Ethereum and stored in dapp wallets, such as MetaMask or Coinbase.
“Token-gated ticket sales are available as part of our expanding Web3 services and other features that help artists set their own terms on how tickets get to fans,” said Marcus. “Any artist who is minting their own NFTs or partnering with another independent community can explore with token-gated ticketing now.”
This marks the latest mainstream Web3 wallet integration after Spotify recently launched token-gated playlists as a pilot feature with several NFT projects including KINGSHIP and Overlord. Holders can connect their wallet and listen to exclusive playlists curated by their communities.
The Web3 fan club model — such as Death Bats Club — has emerged as a resilient use-case for blockchain technology even as the hype around NFT trading fades. Artists such as The Chainsmokers, Steve Aoki and Portugal. The Man have found token-gated communities as a way to engage more closely with their biggest fans and deliver exclusive perks and content.
For example, Chainsmokers host a Discord community open only to NFT holders where the duo regularly talk directly with their fans and offer meet-and-greet exclusives. Steve Aoki launched the “Aokiverse” NFT club with six different levels of ownership offering discounts and backstage access. Santigold, Tycho and Sigur Ros have all launched free Web3 fan clubs using a white label tech platform called Medallion where fans get first access to exclusive content.
Neil Young has spent more than half a century as a dedicated road dog. But based on a heated screed the Rock Hall of Famer posted on his site this week, the road might have an end. Titled, “Concert Touring Is Broken,” the letter is a kind of addendum to the Don Quixote-like battle The Cure‘s Robert Smith has been waging against ticketing giant Ticketmaster over what both men say are its exorbitant added fees.
“It’s over. The old days are gone,” wrote Young under an all-caps opening line that claimed that TM fees are “at 30%.” Young wrote that he’s gotten letters from fans blaming him for $3,000 tickets for a benefit he’s doing. “That money does not go to me or the benefit,” he said. “Artists have to worry about ripped off fans blaming them for Ticketmaster add-ons and scalpers.”
“CONCERT TOURS are no longer fun,” said Young, who has mostly been keeping his road powder dry since before the COVID-19 pandemic (with the exception of a few benefit appearances). Young recapped the public battle Smith has been waging over the past few weeks surrounding his outrage over the additional fees tacked onto the price of tickets for his band’s upcoming North American tour, which, in some cases, exceeded the face value of the ticket.
Smith told his fans that the Cure were determined to make the tickets for their Songs of a Lost World tour affordable for fans and keep them out of the hands of price-gouging scalpers by going through TM’s Verfied Fans program and making them non-transferrable, with some seats available for as low as $20 each. But when Smith got wind of some of the fees added on, the goth rock icon went on a multi-day Twitter rampage that resulted in TM refunding fans $5-$10 on every order.
At press time a spokesperson for TM had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment.
Young’s post also linked to news reports about Smith’s battle with TM, which came after the company’s disastrous roll-out of tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour when TM’s servers were overwhelmed by demand (and an army of bots). The Justice Department has also held hearings looking into TM and sister company Live Nation Entertainment as part of an antitrust investigation.
The country’s two leading concert companies, Live Nation and AEG, are at odds over how Congress should address the future of ticketing after a disagreement over Taylor Swift’s record-breaking The Eras Tour.
Long before the pop star’s Nov. 15 sale dominated the news cycle, where hundreds of thousands of Swift fans experienced service disruptions that kept them from buying the tickets they wanted, the two companies had signed an agreement that many thought might take AEG out of the ticketing business entirely. In 2021, when AEG announced that its facility management division ASM had struck a deal to make Ticketmaster its preferred ticketing partner, many assumed that meant the company was on the way to shutting down its own ticking platform, AXS Tickets.
Instead, ASM’s contract with the Live Nation-owned Ticketmaster would pave the way for an expansion of AEG’s AXS, thanks to a provision in Ticketmaster’s exclusive agreement that granted AEG the right to use AXS to sell tickets to AEG-promoted shows at ASM venues, sources tell Billboard. AEG tours like Kane Brown, Elton John and Luke Combs could opt out of using Ticketmaster when playing ASM-client venues such as Soldier Field in Chicago, U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis and Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Ariz., and use AXS instead. This marked the largest carve-out in Ticketmaster’s exclusivity contract to date, potentially allowing hundreds of arenas, stadiums and performing arts centers to use AXS for the first time, like the new Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas — the highest grossing stadium on Billboard’s 2022 year-end Boxscore chart.
The provision was a sort of double victory for AEG, Live Nation’s leading competitor: The company was able to leverage its control over 350 ASM venues to get those clients large payouts for re-signing with Ticketmaster without forsaking its own ticketing service. AEG officials had also hoped this might mark the beginning of a more open ticketing ecosystem away from the sorts of exclusive deals that have helped Ticketmaster gain such dominance in the space. But less than two years later, AEG and Live Nation find themselves at odds, divided over the handling of Swift’s The Eras Tour.
AEG is now refusing to join a coalition of music companies supporting Live Nation’s Fair Ticketing campaign, a piece of proposed anti-scalper legislation born out of the bot attack on Ticketmaster’s Nov. 15 presale for Swift’s tour. While Universal Music Group, Red Light Management, Irving and Jeffrey Azoff, and all four major talent agencies are backing the FAIR Ticketing reforms to ban scalping practices like “speculative” ticket selling and mandating all-in pricing across all ticketing marketplaces nationally, AEG has been taking a different approach to what they see as some of ticketing’s biggest problems. Sources tell Billboard that AEG executives have been quietly lobbying the Department of Justice to investigate Ticketmaster’s use of exclusive ticketing contracts to lock up the ticket market as a possible violation of its consent decree governing its merger with Live Nation in 2010. AEG leadership is also lobbying politicians to include restrictions on such exclusive ticketing practices in new legislation that could be introduced as soon as this week.
Sources say Live Nation executives have been careful not to engage with AEG publicly about its exclusivity agreements. Privately, they have accused AEG of trying to have it both ways, accepting the money that comes with exclusive ticketing contracts, while trying to expand AXS ticketing beyond the ASM deal into all NFL stadiums ticketed by Ticketmaster.
“This is a bad look for them,” one source at Ticketmaster tells Billboard.
Since Live Nation merged with Ticketmaster in 2010 and AEG launched its own ticketing platform in 2012, both companies have found they can earn more from the concerts they promote if they also control the ticketing, collecting more fees for themselves, while keeping data generated by the concert in house. The additional revenue for a promoter like AEG could be substantial, especially for an artist like Swift, who sold a total of 2.4 million tickets for The Eras Tour.
With Swift’s tour, sources say AXS was expecting to handle some of the ticketing under the ASM-Ticketmaster provision, since AEG was a co-promoter with partner Messina Touring Group. ASM managed five stadiums, representing 12 shows on the 52-date trek, and sources say AXS officials were hoping its ties to the tour could lead to it getting some, if not all of the tour. Except that Ticketmaster executives said their exclusive contracts with more than a dozen NFL teams (and the venues they own) superseded AXS’ claim. Under that reading of the deal, two of the 12 ASM dates — a pair of concerts at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. — would be ticketed by SeatGeek under its exclusive deal with the Arizona Cardinals. Making matters worse, two of ASM’s management clients decided to partner with Ticketmaster for the sale.
Down to just five shows at two stadiums, AEG dropped the matter. According to a source, AEG executives have since spoken with the Department of Justice, encouraging them to look at Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s use of exclusive contracts as anti-competitive.
Relations only worsened in the days following The Eras Tour presale. After the fiasco, Live Nation chairman Greg Maffei appeared on CNBC to defend Ticketmaster and cited the company’s arrangement with AEG in response to claims of monopolistic behavior. “AEG, who is the promoter for Taylor Swift, chose to use us because, in reality, we are the largest and most effective ticket seller in the world,” he said. “Even our competitors want to come on our platform.” AEG leadership was quick to respond with a statement, saying the promoter had no choice but to use Ticketmaster. “Ticketmaster’s exclusive deals with the vast majority of venues on The Eras Tour required us to ticket through their system,” an AEG spokesperson said. “We didn’t have a choice.”
AEG hopes its private lobbying of politicians and anti-trust officials will lead to regulatory change that could include abolishing exclusive ticketing contracts in the United States and ultimately move toward an industry more similar to Europe, where promoters generally don’t sign exclusive ticketing deals and work with multiple partners to sell tickets.
Despite the disagreement, the ASM-Ticketmaster deal remains in place, and AEG officials have had success convincing buildings like the Greek Theater in Los Angeles and the Quicken Home Arena in Cleveland to avoid exclusive ticketing agreements and remain open to multiple systems.
Live Nation and AEG declined to comment for this story.
Robert Smith’s furious tweet spree on Ticketmaster’s fees “debacle” for the Cure‘s forthcoming North American tour has had the desired effect — a “gesture of goodwill” from the ticketing giant and the promise of some money returned.
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Earlier in the week, Smith unloaded on Ticketmaster when the band’s fans complained that fees attached to the Lost World North American tour were most costly than the price of a ticket.
The problems emerged Wednesday (March 15) when tickets were made available to those who had registered for Ticketmaster’s “verified fan” sale.
Smith went on the attack when, in some cases, the added-on service fees, facility charges and order processing fees added up to more than the cost of entry, all despite the band offering reasonably-priced tickets for the trek and ensuring the tickets will be non-transferable to minimize resale and keep prices at face value.
“I AM AS SICKENED AS YOU ALL ARE BY TODAY’S TICKETMASTER ‘FEES’ DEBACLE,” Smith blasted in one all-caps broadside against Live Nation sister company. “TO BE VERY CLEAR: THE ARTIST HAS NO WAY TO LIMIT THEM. I HAVE BEEN ASKING HOW THEY ARE JUSTIFIED. IF I GET ANYTHING COHERENT BY WAY OF AN ANSWER I WILL LET YOU ALL KNOW.”
He got an answer, and he let them know.
“AFTER FURTHER CONVERSATION, TICKETMASTER HAVE AGREED WITH US THAT MANY OF THE FEES BEING CHARGED ARE UNDULY HIGH, AND AS A GESTURE OF GOODWILL HAVE OFFERED A $10 PER TICKET REFUND TO ALL VERIFIED FAN ACCOUNTS FOR LOWEST TICKET PRICE (‘LTP’) TRANSACTIONS,” writes Smith in the first of a new batch of tweets.
“AND A $5 PER TICKET REFUND TO ALL VERIFIED FAN ACCOUNTS FOR ALL OTHER TICKET PRICE TRANSACTIONS, FOR ALL CURE SHOWS AT ALL VENUES;” he continues. “IF YOU ALREADY BOUGHT A TICKET YOU WILL GET AN AUTOMATIC REFUND; ALL TICKETS ON SALE TOMORROW WILL INCUR LOWER FEES.”
In a separate tweet, Smith confirmed that “Verified Fan” ticket sales have now ended.
The legendary British goth-rock band’s Shows of a Lost World North American tour will span 30 dates, kicking off May 10 at New Orleans’ Smoothie King Arena.
The Cure took their place in the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2019, with Trent Reznor on hand to induct the group.
See Smith’s tweets latest below.
1 OF 2: AFTER FURTHER CONVERSATION, TICKETMASTER HAVE AGREED WITH US THAT MANY OF THE FEES BEING CHARGED ARE UNDULY HIGH, AND AS A GESTURE OF GOODWILL HAVE OFFERED A $10 PER TICKET REFUND TO ALL VERIFIED FAN ACCOUNTS FOR LOWEST TICKET PRICE (‘LTP’) TRANSACTIONS…— ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) March 16, 2023
2 OF 2: …AND A $5 PER TICKET REFUND TO ALL VERIFIED FAN ACCOUNTS FOR ALL OTHER TICKET PRICE TRANSACTIONS, FOR ALL CURE SHOWS AT ALL VENUES; IF YOU ALREADY BOUGHT A TICKET YOU WILL GET AN AUTOMATIC REFUND; ALL TICKETS ON SALE TOMORROW WILL INCUR LOWER FEES— ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) March 16, 2023
I WILL KNOW IN A BIT – AND LET YOU KNOW – WHAT SHOWS HAVE TICKETS LEFT FOR SALE TOMORROW… ONWARDS X— ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) March 16, 2023
SO… ‘VERIFIED FAN’ SALES HAVE NOW ENDED – A NUMBER OF TICKETS FOR ALL CURE SHOWS (EXCEPT LA + DETROIT… A MISCOMMUNICATION? sigh… ) WERE HELD BACK FOR ‘GENERAL’ ON SALE FRIDAY 17TH AT 10AM LOCAL TIME – LINKS WILL BE POSTED IN A BIT… GOOD LUCK X— ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) March 16, 2023