By Stacey Willets
Ticketmaster feels the heat in TicketNews.com’s exclusive weekly Top Ten Primary and Secondary Live Event Ticket Sellers Rankings for the week ending 6/19/07, released this morning. Here is a quick taste of where all the websites stand.
Ticketmaster may be the industry’s ticketing giant, but they aren’t necessarily jolly. The primary market Goliath still holds fast to the number one spot amidst another barrage of complaints and controversy. When Kelly Clarkson’s summer tour was recently canceled, ticket buyers were incensed to discover that Ticketmaster does not refund order processing fees, UPS fees, or TicketFast fees. Live Nation’s second week at number two suggests perhaps concert-goers have decided to take their business elsewhere.
The rest of the Primary Sellers top five also stay consistent with last week. Tickets.com remains at number three, TicketWeb at number four, and Etix.com at number five. Telecharge and Tix switch places, ranking at number six and number seven, respectively. TicketsWest moves up one spot to number eight, Groove Tickets follows to take number nine, and Brown Paper Tickets joins the chart at number ten . . .
StubHub! isn’t prepared to relinquish the number one spot any more than they are ready to pull their advertisements from Google. While the leader in the secondary market lets their slighted parent company eBay sing “It’s my party, and I’ll cry if I want to,” StubHub! continues its marketing efforts and enjoys another week atop the rankings.
StubHub! may be wise to stick with Google. Not far behind the site are TicketLiquidator at number two and TicketsNow at number three, either of which would seize the opportunity to snatch away the number one spot on the Secondary Sellers chart. Coast to Coast Tickets overtakes TickCo Premium Seating to claim the number four ranking. TickCo is pushed down to number five. GoTickets.com, RazorGator, and ABC Tickets remain at six, seven, and eight. Ticket Specialists climbs back onto the chart to appear at number nine, bumping Online Seats to the number ten position.
Someone woke a sleeping tiger. Live Nation picks up momentum and continues its climb up the Overall Ticket Sellers chart, reaching number two this week. While the website possesses only a fraction of the market share that top-ranked Ticketmaster has, every week a little more of that market share melts away from the number one seller and is siphoned off to Live Nation. It is a significant shift, especially as Live Nation’s contract with Ticketmaster expires soon.
The question on everyone’s mind is: Will Live Nation break away from Ticketmaster and sell directly to concert-goers? Live Nation is already distinguishing itself and winning the loyalty of ticket buyers in Chicago, for example, by making tickets for all their big summer shows available at the House of Blues box office. Without service charges.
If you thought service charges were associated only with the secondary market, you’re wrong. Ticketmaster tacks on up to 30% or more in “convenience fees” and other charges to the advertised price of the tickets, eliciting scorn from consumers when they read the face price. Who wouldn’t prefer Live Nation’s convenience fee-free tickets? Although Ticketmaster is undeniably a force to be reckoned with, the rapidity at which Live Nation is growing just in these last few weeks is cause for the giant to stand up and take notice.
As Live Nation battles Ticketmaster for a larger stake in the market, secondary sellers likewise look to gain some ground. This week they claim six of the ten Top Overall Sellers spots with StubHub! at three, TicketLiquidator at four, TicketsNow at five, Coast to Coast Tickets at seven, TickCo Premium Seating at eight, and GoTickets.com at ten.
To see all the Top Tens rankings, check out the press release in the Daily Buzz section of TicketNews.com. Visit the Industry resources section of TicketNews.com for full lists of the Top Twenty Secondary Ticket Sellers and the Top Twenty Overall Ticket Sellers, to read an explanation of how we calculate the rankings.
