Comments on: Pearl Jam vs. Ticketmaster: A Holy War on ReaIity

By: Is Pearl Jam the Best Band Ever? After You Read This, You May Think So! | Simply-Showbiz.com

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:58:26 +0000

[...] Vedder – so hot!) you can’t deny they put their fans first. With countless live albums, their battles with Ticketmaster, their support of the West Memphis 3 – these guys go to bat for their [...]

By: Charles Bilodeau

Charles Bilodeau — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 01:54:04 +0000

I’d just like to say to all who’ve read this an commented, this article was written in 1994-5. The Internet did exist back then, but it was a much smaller place at the time. As a matter of fact, Pearl Jam actually tried to sell tickets online back then, but the functionality of Internet commerce simply was not there in the mid-1990′s, at least not enough to support a large tour.

Frankly, I’m surprised Ticketmaster survived once Internet commerce became common. It has superseded the argument I made 16 years ago – the fan would not have to travel 150 miles to get the tickets today. I suspect their survival is based on the venues having had Ticketmaster handle tickets for such a long time. It’s one thing the venues don’t have to worry about, and since the fees come from the user, they are invisible to the venue.

jose – the point was: a company selling tickets to a show in LA to someone in Bakersfield adds value, even if they didn’t do anything to the ticket. People were saying TM did nothing for its money. I was pointing out this wasn’t true. Any company that provided this service would add value.

To address Jay Fraz’s points, Ticketmaster has created barriers to entry by getting venues to want to deal with them. If you wanted to create a start-up to compete with them, you could, but it would have to be well financed, and would have to have a great idea behind it. It would take a lot of work to get venues to change, because that is the way people are – they will stay with something so long as it works for them. The other point I mentioned in the article is that there are venues that didn’t have dealings with TM back then, and they still don’t today. You (or someone) could convince acts (that people want to see) to play those venues. Admittedly, it would be an uphill fight. It would also be an uphill fight for anyone who wanted to compete with GE to start a light bulb manufacturing plant.

Having said all that, I can understand that people want their money back when a show is canceled. I don’t blame anyone for complaining. Especially since, as Jeff pointed out, pretty much anyone who can pay a week’s salary for a XHTML / PHP / Javascript programmer should be able to create a ticket website with as much functionality as TM’s. I’d say it’s laziness and inertia rather than stupidity, though.

Thank you for your comments.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 22:45:15 +0000

Ticket master is a rip-off. There is no logical economic reason for their fees other than the promoters/shows, etc are too stupid to do it themselves.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 08:33:36 +0000

I’m frustrated by Ticketmaster, especially considering opportunity costs as this author mentioned. The math never works out on my end when something goes wrong – the artist should eat the fees when they cancel, not us. Ticketmaster is essentially a datacenter and an application these days – if there was one application to make open source, this would be it.

By: A History Of Controversy: Pearl Jam and Exclusivity Deals in the 1990s « Changing the Game: The Live Nation Merger

Sat, 17 Apr 2010 00:02:51 +0000

[...] An interesting article by Charles Bilodeau, contributor to the publication The Freeman, however, turns the antitrust argument on its head from an economic angle. While everyone would to play on an even playing field, in some cases, one company is simply better than the other. Bilodeau states that with Ticketron already losing exorbitant amounts of money in its last years they were already proving to be inefficient. In some ways, Ticketron should ahve attempted to expand much earlier in its career to catch up with Ticketmaster. It’s hard to compalin when one is stuck sitting on his hands. Bilodeau also argues that the use of long-term deals also creates efficiency by helping promoters sell as many tickets as possible to prevent concert no-shows. [...]

By: This not their first rodeo | Manage The Tour

This not their first rodeo | Manage The Tour — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:36:53 +0000

[...] of the most visible was Pearl Jam vs. Ticketmaster in 1994. This opinion piece from May 1995 gives an alternative viewpoint, although I question his crossover of Ticketmaster’s [...]

By: Jay Fraz

Jay Fraz — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:44:23 +0000

Of course the entire argument rests on the assumption that Ticketmaster is CURRENTLY the most efficient delivery method. After all, if I thought I could create a better system than ticketmaster, not only would I have to start selling tickets, but I would also have to build the venues as all larger one are currently exclusively contracted to Ticketmaster. Ticketmasters position IS economically ineffecient 1) Ticketmaster has created significant barriers to entry in their market due to their size, smaller companies can not contract large venues 2) a more efficient company could NOT compete with Ticketmaster without actually building the venues for the purpose of competition, thus creating a significant barrier to entry, thus allowing ticketmaster to operate inefficiently and still crush the competition without competing because of *gasp* using economic principles to make more money and not have to compete. Look what science has done.

By: jose

jose — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:43:50 +0000

The Suzy example is a flawed one because it assumes that there is no other company out there that would be willing to sell her the tickets. Even without a third party seller, the box offices would create their own. That has actually happened with Broadway shows. With competition of different sellers comes competitive pricing in the service charges, and comes lower service charges. If the only place selling tickets to a venue is Ticketmaster then they can charge what they want, which is effectively what is going on.

Oh and I’ve purchased tickets from Ticketmaster for shows that have been cancelled by the artist and ticketmaster has tried to hit me with a dollar processing fee. I chargedback and got my money back! I shouldn’t have to pay for your services if you didn’t provide them. If ticketmaster wants to recoup their money for a cancelled performance then they need to take it up with the artists not the fans.