Ticketmaster To Auction Concert Tickets To Highest Bidder Instead Of The Normal retail

Mind you, the real target of these auctions are probably ticket brokers (i.e., scalper agencies), which buy up tickets for hot shows and resell them at a profit. I am curious to see how high people will bid for high-profile shows like Springsteen or Dylan.

It's been a long time since I've taken an economics class, but if this really happens, won't the market ultimately stabilize the prices around something reasonable that people can afford? If only rich people went to concerts, and there were tens of thousands of millionaires in ever city who really want to see Good Charlotte but can’t bear to wait in line, then this would be a big problem. But there are only a small number of people willing to pay $1,000 for a ticket (and yes, they will get the best seats, but the best product tends to cost the most in capitalism). I thought free market tended to bring down prices over time, not raise them.

http://www.uspirg.org/action/stop-the-ticketmaster-merger?id4=es
^^it's already filled out for you, just fill in your name to the right

SWIPE:
Ticketmaster is the king of fees. A handling fee, a processing fee, a just-cause-we-can fee. Frequently, these fees make up more than 30 percent of the overall price of the ticket.

And it could get worse. Ticketmaster wants to merge with Live Nation, its leading competitor, meaning that most of the tickets we could buy would be coming from the new mega-ticket conglomerate. And from past experience we know that the less competition, the worse these guys get with their handling, processing and other nonsense fees.

We can stop this ticket monopoly from forming: Send an e-mail to Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney.

Assistant Attorney General Varney is the Department of Justice official tasked with upholding anti-trust laws, and they are reviewing the merger right now. A trust is exactly what could form if Live Nation and Ticketmaster are allowed to merge.

Ticketmaster, along with its subsidiaries, contracts with roughly 200 artists. Live Nation owns or has exclusive deals with 139 venues, and manages about 150 artists. Live Nation is Ticketmaster's biggest competitor in the ticket selling business.

The new mega-ticket monopoly would be the gatekeeper to most major venues and artists, meaning that they would dominate most aspects of live concerts.

The fees are already extreme. For example, in a report by the Washington Post, Ticketmaster added $16.60 in fees -- $4.10 for "processing," $3.50 for "facilities," and a $9 "convenience charge" -- to a $56 dollar ticket, about 30 percent.

We need to stand up to their price-gouging now. Join me, and call on Assistant Attorney General Varney to stop the merger:

http://www.uspirg.org/action/stop-the-ticketmaster-merger?id4=es

It's too late baby, now its too late. The Justice Department modified the merger terms but allowed it.

http://futureofmusic.org/blog/2010/01/25/look-live-nationticketmaster-merger

'A public relations nightmare': Ticketmaster recruits pros for secret scalper program
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/a-public-relations-nightmare-ticketmaster-recruits-pros-for-secret-scalper-program-1.4828535

Box-office giant Ticketmaster is recruiting professional scalpers who cheat its own system to expand its resale business and squeeze more money out of fans, a CBC News/Toronto Star investigation reveals.

In July, the news outlets sent a pair of reporters undercover to Ticket Summit 2018, a ticketing and live entertainment convention at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Posing as scalpers and equipped with hidden cameras, the journalists were pitched on Ticketmaster's professional reseller program.

Company representatives told them Ticketmaster's resale division turns a blind eye to scalpers who use ticket-buying bots and fake identities to snatch up tickets and then resell them on the site for inflated prices. Those pricey resale tickets include extra fees for Ticketmaster.

"I have brokers that have literally a couple of hundred accounts," one sales representative said. "It's not something that we look at or report."

I'm shocked, *shocked* I tell you...

not surprised at all. the number of shows in the past year I've seen 'sell out' where the actual interest was negligible, only to see the aftermarket flooded with more expensive seats, I can't even count. Midnight Oil springs to mind.

4 david byrne shows at huge venues in the bay area sold out immediately. the one I attended was probably 75% full.

wanted to purchase The Beths tix for April, but the venue's ticket seller, dicefm, which i've never heard of doesn't have an "https" security designation at checkout. seems like a risk i don't wanna take. really don't wanna go through a second seller and pay double. anyone ever use dicefm, by any chance and vouch for them?