Comments on: Pirates Aren’t Just On the Water or Why Livenation is Now Dead to Me

By: EMHEdad

EMHEdad — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:12:02 +0000

Pat I feel your pain, and for the record Ticketmaster is not the saint they appear to be when compared to Livenation. It’s just that they have learned since being burned big-time by the feds to back off of some of their more egregious practices in the past. For example:
It was revealed that throughout the 80’s and 90’s that Ticketmaster was finding complicit venue owners/management and promoters by way of the good old fashioned kickback. A good example of this were the 2 biggest venues in the Washington D.C. area back in my day, RFK Stadium and the Capital Centre. In return for a cut of the ridiculous fees attached to tickets the promoters and venue management (who in this case were one and the same!) would guarantee that no competing venues in a given area would/could book shows in that area for a particular act. A good example of this would be Billy Joel or the Grateful Dead. Not your kind of music but just follow me. They knew each act would book at least two more shows because the first one would sell out in a matter of hours. So they would tack on unscheduled/additional appearance fees for each additional show to the price of each ticket, to be shared between the ticket service and the promoter/venue manager, each more than the last. This kept cheaper outdoor venues like Merriweather Post Pavillion west of Baltimore out of the loop and guaranteed their market. It was the latter of the two that finally tripped up Ticketmaster when they actually started taking over the management end of the venues which in all honesty they had been doing all along. They tried to hide it; The Capital Centre changed hands on paper with the same management in place and was renamed USAir Arena, and they tried to make their control of RFK official with a so-called contract with the city of Washington D.C. The feds weren’t fooled and smacked Ticketmaster with a big old antitrust suit, forcing them to relinquish control of the promoters and venues all up and down the East Coast and pay an 8-figure fine. The cool thing about this is it was a hardworking roadie who realized that he and his buds weren’t getting the percentages they were promised on paper (they were paying a work guarantee service chgarge!) that brought Ticketmaster down. How cool is that?

By: Kalebarkab

Kalebarkab — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:18:31 +0000

I want to find good pop music. Help me please.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:22:20 +0000

I really hope that more people start to notice this too. It would be nice if there was enough of a backlash to their policies to change them. I can’t believe they are actually trying to float ‘It saves time at the venue’ for the parking fee. I would much rather wait in line and hand someone $6 for my car full of people than park right away and be out $30. This No Service Fees Wednesdays also kind of goes to show that their fees aren’t at all necessary because if they expect to make money off the tickets and they expect a lot of people to buy on those days then they must be able to make money without service fees…oh yeah I guess that is the extra money they are picking up from excess parking fees. Jesus.

By: tdod

tdod — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:02:47 +0000

Did you hear that LiveNation is now promoting “No Service Fees Wednesdays” this summer. Apparently, tickets purchased on specific Wednesdays will not have any service fees — at least that is how a semi-reasonable person would likely interpret the promotion. There is only one problem: people discovered that tickets bought under this promotion still contained service fees:

http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2009/06/03/live-nations-no-service-fee-wednesday-puzzles-buyers/

I always find it interesting to hear how they try to spin this…