Best Of: Does Ticketmaster Have A Monopoly On Live Events?
1A
NPR
4.3 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 22 November 2022
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Live Nation, Ticketmaster's parent company, owns concert venues, promotes tours, and sells tickets. Some say that leaves little room for competition, hurting fans, artists, and the industry at large.
We discuss Live Nation as a monopoly, who it hurts, and what's being done to address the lack of competition.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's been quite a month for Ticketmaster. Taylor Swift announced she was going back on |
| 0:12.3 | tour and it caused nothing short of chaos. demand for tickets was so high during the pre-sale |
| 0:18.1 | that it crashed Ticketmaster's website. The planned public day of sales was cancelled |
| 0:22.7 | altogether. Fans are angry and some politicians are too. Democratic House member from New York, |
| 0:28.8 | Alexandria, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted this, quote, daily reminder that Ticketmaster is a monopoly, |
| 0:35.2 | it's merger with live nation should never have been approved and they need to be reigned in, |
| 0:39.7 | break them up, end quote. And the Department of Justice is now investigating Ticketmaster for |
| 0:44.6 | potential antitrust violations. The criticism isn't new. After the break we revisit our earlier |
| 0:51.0 | conversation about whether Ticketmaster live nation is a monopoly. That episode was spurred by |
| 0:56.6 | the high price of tickets for another music star Bruce Springsteen. I'm Jen White, you're listening |
| 1:01.9 | to the OneA podcast where we get to the heart of the story. We'll be back with more in just a moment. |
| 1:13.6 | Springsteen tickets were on sale. I pre-registered so that I can get into the queue so that I can buy my tickets |
| 1:21.4 | when it was finally my turn to purchase the tickets. The tickets were the minimum $800 for one ticket. |
| 1:29.9 | I couldn't afford it and I know people that could afford the buy the tickets and refuse to because |
| 1:35.5 | of the exorbitant fees that they're charging for tickets. Springsteen is supposed to be the man |
| 1:42.2 | of the people. I don't see that. He should have done something completely different. I'll never |
| 1:47.6 | go to another concert again. Tickets for the 2023 Bruce Springsteen and the East |
| 1:52.7 | Street Band North American Tour went on sale in late July. But soon after, negative headlines started |
| 1:59.4 | popping up as Springsteen fans discovered tickets to the man of the people cost up to $5,000 a pop. |
| 2:06.2 | The reason? Ticketmaster's dynamic pricing model. Dynamic pricing sets prices based on demand. |
| 2:12.7 | The more people in line, the more the tickets cost. It's the latest controversy for Ticketmaster |
| 2:17.8 | who in 2010 merged with venue operator Live Nation. Fans and music industry insiders say both |
... |
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