During a recent appearance at D7, the Wall Street Journal’s annual technology conference, Ticketmaster Entertainment CEO Irving Azoff said that without the company’s proposed merger with Live Nation it may not survive.
Azoff made the assessment during a casual discussion with the Journal’s Kara Swisher, and he believes that companies will need to take chances and continue to embrace new technologies. Click on the video below.
“We believe that everything right now revolves around the need and the desire to go see live music,” Azoff said.
He scoffed at the notion that linking Live Nation’s concert promoting and marketing prowess with Ticketmaster’s ticketing dominance will be a bad thing for the industry, even though Swisher referred to the merger as potentially “frightening” to many people. Azoff said Ticketmaster’s new business model is do whatever is good for artists and fans.
“I would say that Bruce [Springsteen, an opponent of the merger] is uninformed about what the potential of this could be for him,” Azoff said. “Everything that’s gone on in the music business has been frightening. They were frightened of Napster, they were frightened of iTunes. The business traditionally resists change, but this is just the normal evolution of where the business is going.”
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for the brokerage community the answer to its survival should be as follows
1.declare war weather we like it or not we are at war.
2.Ticket Master wants to get into our bussiness (secondary markett)we get into theirs (primary market)
3.Livenation can work with brokerage community on primary and secondary markets or we start making bid s on acts and get into promotion of shows no reason we cant own our own shows.
4.we need to put strategies in place and bring the brokers together with partners that can make this work.
Like was previously said, it is not the duty of the public or our government to make sure Ticketmaster survives, so if the only way TM can remain viable is through a merger that is not in the best interest of the public, then so long TM.
Yea i dont think they should be able to merge too. They will start to charge outragous fees if that happens
Lets get our panties in bunches because paying too much for live events is so much more important than everything else going on in the world. Hello! We are in a recession here. We are fighting wars in the middle east. Women and children are being slain in Darfur. Iran and North Korea are provoking their neighbors. More war anyone? Being able attend a live event is a luxury people! If ticket prices are too expensive for you, don’t go. You’ll live another day.
The only people who are ‘uninformed’ are the ones who are listening to and/or buying Azoff’s BS about all the wonderful benefits the merger would do for the industry. Secondly, I laughed when he whined about Ticketmaster being unable to survive without the merger. SO WHAT?!? Just because the only way your company can survive in our free market society is to form a monopoly with another company doesn’t mean that company is entitled to have the merger approved. If Congress does its due diligence, then there is no way this merger would be approved. The problem is that TicketMaster and Lie Nation has done a good job of convincing Congress that the problems of the ticket industry have not been caused by TM/LN but rather all the evil brokers, but the truth is TM’s manipulation of the market with help from TicketsNow is the real problem with the Hannah Montana, Bruce Springsteen concert tickets. As well, why hasn’t Congress pressed LN/TM on the ludicrous ticket fees?!? With one company, the sky will be the limit for the fees tacked onto tickets. This is just a raw deal for consumers all the way around, but Congress is too uninformed of the ticket industry to see it.
I think we all need to start organizing a protest against this merger. Ticketmaster and Live Nation can be partners as they are now, but not merged as one company.
Hey-
This is a website about tickets/concerts…and everything about them. Prices, mergers, cheaters, liars and thieves. You are correct; recession, war, Darfur and all are way more important than concert ticket prices. As far as I know, people don’t go on Amnesty Internation’s webpage and spout about concert ticket prices…I think you’re on the wrong website if you want to discuss those things here!!!
Who else noticed the “innocent” little message from EI about the Cyrus tix? Are they kidding? What’s next, “honor the wishes…” of all artists and venues to not resell their tickets?
Wait, wait…is that a hammer I see in the velvet pouch/rubber glove?
These are very big boys playing a very serious game of chess and right now, they’re winning – it looks like check-mate in 4.
All of a sudden there is both revived AND new legislation to restrict ticket sales and now pre-sales! Again, WTF?
If these ideas are not brought to the surface, vetted, and destroyed – we’re all at deaths door. The analogy would be: you purchase an item from any retail store (brick or online) that is out of stock for the item you requested. Per the proposed legislation, that would be against the law (or will be in the tix bus). I just purchased a floor jack from Sears, it took then 3 months to deliver it – busted.
If Azoff and Rapino can get the legislation in place (which seems to be working), control the listings for sale (last couple of EI messages), know our inventory, and merge TM & LN, everyone (artists, event crews, pre and post production crews, fans, labels, state and local governments – EVERYONE) except the brokerage industry will get hurt. I say except brokerage “industry” not the current players. There will always be a market for items of limited quantity and perceived value. What form that may take in the tix bus after the holocaust is anyones guess, but it will survive and thrive.
Too bad our legislators are more interested in knee-jerk votes and public opinion than in how this abomination is tearing at the very fiber of our democracy and free market.
~Older and Wiser – but Toothless