With the economy in difficult straits, now was the best time for Live Nation and Ticketmaster Entertainment to merge, principals in the deal told investors during a conference call earlier today.
While the proposed merger is far from complete, the two companies believe they will close on the deal sometime in the second half of the year, provided they receive federal regulatory approval.
Barry Diller, who will become Chairman of the Board of Live Nation Entertainment, which the new company will be named, said that he had hoped to bring the two companies together for some time, but the current “economic difficulties and uncertainties,” coupled with the unique skill sets of Live Nation CEO and President Michael Rapino and Ticketmaster Entertainment CEO Irving Azoff made the deal particularly attractive.
But Diller, anticipating the chief complaint about the deal, namely that ticket prices could rise because one company would control the vast majority of the concert landscape, emphasized that artists and their representatives set ticket prices at the primary level, not Ticketmaster or Live Nation. In addition, he believes fans will benefit from the merger because of improved technologies and better ticketing options.
In fact, Diller took great pains to specifically try to play down a recent class action lawsuit filed in Canada against Ticketmaster and its TicketsNow subsidiary over the way the two have handled ticketing for some shows.
Claiming the matter was “misunderstood” and was due to a “glitch in the technical system,” Diller said credit card company VISA was partly to blame for the incident, where fans were rerouted to TicketsNow where tickets cost more, when they had tried to buy tickets at face value on Ticketmaster’s Web site.
“Ticketmaster is not in the business of denying anyone tickets to then push them to our secondary ticket marketplace,” he said. The company has also been criticized for similar measures in the U.S., most recently surrounding ticket sales for upcoming Bruce Springsteen shows.
Live Nation’s fledgling ticketing operation is barely a month old, and already it has experienced a rough start because of trouble the platform had handling Phish ticket sales.
“The better job we do at getting the right fan in the right seat at the right time, the more money our clients will make,” Rapino said, echoing Diller’s comments. He added that Live Nation will continue to use its newly created ticketing operation and will honor its contract with German ticketing company CTS Eventim, the company that helped build the platform.
Ticketing may have been a focus of the conference call, but Azoff also wanted to stress that he did not believe that promoters and venues will suffer as a result of the deal despite the two companies potentially controlling so much of the concert landscape; estimates place that percentage at upwards of 70 percent.
“There’s plenty of room for promoters to operate,” Azoff said. “And, we think this combination will bring together lots of marketing opportunities.”
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This is an interesting article. Barry Diller says ticket prices or decided by the artists and their representatives. While this I’m sure is true, he fails to acknowledge the ridiculous ” So Called ” convenient charges. I understand the ticketing agencies are a business, and the goal of a business is to make money. But lets get real. Here’s a real breakdown of ALL their charges they charged me for 6 LAWN tickets to see Jimmy Buffett:
Face Value: 33.00 x 6
Their convenient charge: 10.00 x 6 ( or 30.3% )
Total Building Facility Charge(s) US $3.00 x 6
Additional Tax US $3.00
Order Processing Charge US $5.45 ( I guess this is differnt then convenient )
TicketFast® US $2.50 ( My Paper My Ink my electricity )
TOTAL CHARGES US $286.95
So to purchase tickets that have a face value of a total of $198.00, you have to pay 31% extra. Doesn’t that seem steep.
Barry Diller, what was your BONUS this year?
Also, I wonder why these ridiculous convenient charges change. Whether I pay $5 or $5000 for a ticket, isn’t a ticket a ticket. It’s a piece of paper. the processing is the same. Why the price change?
One final note before I close out on this book I just wrote. I hope in the future their are more options for ticket buyers to choose from. I believe the more competition, the better the prices and services. That’s my take.
“…this is going to help artists gain secondary income that is currently being lost to other people…”
Doug.. I agree with what you’re saying… the part that you’re leaving out is that those fees don’t all go to Ticketmaster. Promotors and venues participate in those fees too.
The fees are still way to high. I’d rather see a higher face value on the ticket rather than 5 different add on fees. Even if the cost is the same. 30%+ for fees is a JOKE. And I’d guarantee if their were other choices to purchase certain tickets at REASONABLE fees, and they threatened Ticketmasters sales, changes would be made. Since Ticketmaster pretty much has a monopoly on ticket sales ( and will have a HUGE monopoly when joining with Live Nation ), they can charge any fees they want and laugh all the way to the BANK.
And I just can’t understand how I get charged $2.50 to print my own tickets. It’s not the $2.50, it’s the principle of it.
Think about your customers Ticketmaster.
Huh ???
“Diller, anticipating the chief complaint about the deal, namely that ticket prices could rise because one company would control the vast majority of the concert landscape, emphasized that artists and their representatives set ticket prices at the primary level,”
And Live Nation/CCE/SFX had nothing to do with astronomical artist guarantees in past years which put us in the situation we’re in? They conditioned talent to expect high revenue for shows, squeezed venues out of their share of profits from the primary ticketing end, and will now look to squeeze promoters, venues, etc out of any share of the profits from conv fees.
CTS Eventim is going to get so screwed in this deal. Wait, so is everyone else (including, I bet, the shareholders of the new LiveNation… since they’ll have to pay for all the legal costs).
And did Diller really blame Visa for their deceptive business practices? Classic.
Some State Laws requre ALL etxtra FESS (that are not charge at the venues box office) to be listed on the face of the ticket. so an all in one pice on a ticket would break some state laws. I buy and resell tickets every week, have been doing it for 20 years. I have seen alot of changes and the new ticketmaster outlet programs suck. you can get better tickets on-line or on the phone than you can at most outlets now. It does also have alot to do with how many seats are sold to the public the day of the “Public” onsale. All I know is for a fact it was very comon for me or who everelse was frist in line at an outlet to get 12 tickets in the first 10 rows to every show I wanted. 12 is what the limit of tickets use to be, now they are 4 -8 and there is usully only 12-20 tickets in the first 25 rows to buy at the “public onsale” Before internet presales (just another clever way they trick the public into thinking there is not much to sell for the “public onsale”) and before they owned ticketnow (for the reseach to report to the Artist and their Reps what the going rate of tickets is in the seconday market so they can set the price as high as the market will fetch) there would only be 12-20 missing from the “public Onsale” Before they took over ticketnow and added the ticket exchange they had issues and tried to stop people from buying and reselling tickets, now they spend just as much if not more on advertising the resale of tickets than the actual sale of the tickets or where ticketmaster can be found. With the ticket exchange and redirecets to ticketnow they can make more on service/convince charges on the same ticket they already made money on.