

Ticketmaster: Rocking The Most Hated Brand In America - gatsby
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/157/ticketmaster-nathan-hubbard-most-hated-brand

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Aloisius
I talked to the old CEO of TicketMaster years ago about the fees and when I
found out that most of the service fees are kicked back to the venues, I found
them far less evil. They take all the blame that should be directed at venue
owners.

~~~
orangecat
That supports my theory that TicketMaster's primary reason for existence is to
be a scapegoat. Venues want to charge market-clearing prices, but don't want
to be accused of "gouging" customers. So they bring in TicketMaster to take
the reputation hit, in exchange for splitting the profits.

~~~
wdr1
In my time there, I would agree with that. My theory was Ticketmaster did well
for theory reasons:

1) Venue relationships 2) Taking the fall on fees 3) Ability to scale

People are often surprised by #3. Having seen many startups try & fail (as
well as large entities like LiveNation), ticketing is a hard problem.

In my time at Yahoo & Google, I believe they have the technology to build a
ticketing company, but beyond on that, most -- startups to large entities such
as LiveNation & CTS -- had big problems handling onsales for large U2-sized
events. In fact, it always made me think "Good luck with that" when people
would talk about the design of ticketing systems using relational DBs. :)

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kloncks
The thing that irks me the most about Ticketmaster is their absolute monopoly
on this market. There's no denying just how crappy of a product they have,
which is likely due to not having an incentive or need to innovate as there
are no competitors.

Having the unfortunate experience of dealing with them every time I (attempt
to) buy football tickets for my college, I really am bothered by the simple
lack of innovation in this field. A friend summarized it really well in a
tweet a while back:

 _@Ticketmaster you have absolutely the worst product imaginable. Your
employees should be ashamed of the company they work for._

~~~
riffic
You (the consumer) are not Ticketmaster's primary customer.

Ticketmaster's primary customers are the venues and promoters.

The product is actually the best one available, which is a system in place
designed to sell large amounts of tickets, in some cases very quickly.

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techtalsky
Well, I'd like to take this time to recommend Brown Paper Tickets (out of
Seattle). They do a fantastic job, and it's very common to see them used in
Seattle. A great, ethical service with minimal fees. Especially for small,
local events. Even cooler: if your event is free, their service is free.

~~~
orionlogic
I second to Brown Paper Tickets, i love their perspective in ticketing
business. Please take time to read this old article:
[http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/03/14/ta...](http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/03/14/taking_aim_at_ticketmaster)

And here is the details from BPT website:
<http://www.brownpapertickets.com/faq.html>

Ticketmaster is evil, and it's not just in America, it has lots of child
companies all around world and doing the same unfair and awful business model.

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shadowpwner
Reddit has an interesting comment on Ticketmaster:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/gmyhv/over_ten_d...](http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/gmyhv/over_ten_dollars_in_fees_including_a_455_delivery/c1ortyh)

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andrewflnr
This Hubbard guy sounds really smart. My favorite quote was "If we don't
disrupt ourselves, someone else will." It seems like a lot of big business
failures would have been prevented if the companies had the courage to disrupt
their own business model. Microsoft and their foot-dragging on the web comes
to mind. Obviously they haven't failed yet, but wouldn't they be healthier if
they had embraced the change and pushed it forward instead of trying to hold
their position against it?

Anyway, I hope Hubbard has what it takes to pull off his vision.

~~~
cmer
A great book explaining exactly this: The Innovator's Dilemma
([http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Technologies-
Cause-...](http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Technologies-Cause-
ebook/dp/B004OC07GM/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2) \-- I don't
make money from this link)

I think every entrepreneur should read and understand the theories illustrated
in the book. It made me realize a lot of things, and understand better why
old/established businesses are often replaced by startups.

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cdcarter
The LiveNation merger certainly did seem to spark them to update parts of
their product, but the user experience is awful. Unfortunately, there's no
real major competitor now on that scale. Sure, there are solutions like
AudienceView and Tessi but they don't fit the same business model.

And who'd want to compete? LiveNation is owning more and more venues by the
minute.

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seannui
If you like going to the rock show, wrestling with algorithms that deal with
high currency, social media analysis on a crazy complete data chain versus the
regular induced douchebaggery, building a credible alternative to
TicketMaster, or just run-on-sentences, you should come join our team of
pirates at Ticketfly in SF.

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FreeKill
No big surprise with that. When you have a dominating monopoly on most of the
major venues in America, you probably don't lose any sleep at night worry
about user experience. The only way that is ever going to change is if people
vote with their wallets and stop going to Ticketmaster events...

~~~
Anechoic
The problem is that those events are "Ticketmaster events" they are "events I
want to attend that are only handled by Ticketmaster."

So it really comes down to accepting the Ticketmaster model or pretty much not
going to any live concert or sporting events.

Of course the other annoying thing that the article didn't mention was TM's
habit of "sharing" your email address with partners (which you couldn't opt
out of) and then leaving it up to the individual to remove themselves from the
subsequent spam lists. I bought a ticket to an NFL game a couple of years back
and then spent the next six months trying to get TM partners to stop spamming
me.

~~~
SwellJoe
_So it really comes down to accepting the Ticketmaster model or pretty much
not going to any live concert or sporting events._

I haven't paid a TicketMaster fee in _years_ , and I go to live music events
all the time.

How, you ask? Indie music. It is alive and well, and the best bands working
right now are not playing in arenas. In any major city in the country on any
given night (and at least once or twice a week in most mid-sized cities), you
can see a great band for five to fifteen bucks. They'll be _ecstatic_ that you
showed up, you'll probably be able to sit or stand within spitting distance of
the band if you want, and you'll share a unique experience with 50-300 like-
minded individuals. You'll also meet more interesting people, be able to drink
good beer (not that swill they serve at arenas for 9 bucks a pop), and you can
do it all again the next night, and the next, if you want, without breaking
the bank.

I swore off of arena shows for reasons unrelated to TicketMaster, but it's an
equally valid reason to opt out of the bullshit commercial entertainment
industry and instead focus on artists for whom the work is the important
thing, and not merely the money they're paid to do the work.

~~~
acgourley
Ticketmaster runs tons of stuff that isn't arena scale. Warfield/Grand Regency
Ballroom/Fillmore in SF come to mind.

~~~
vegashacker
A number of the venues allow you to buy tickets directly from the ticket
window without the extra fees. (The Fillmore allows this during restricted
times, e.g.) I will usually try to do this as a way of not supporting the
Master--but, come to think of it, I actually don't know how the money is
divided when I purchase like this.

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tgraydar
It's a CEO Speedwagon! The story is a nice antidote to the Pearl Jammed
version of Ticketmaster's evilness. There's lots of nuance. And, though it
might have made a grab for fees early on, Ticketmaster--and Live Nation--
finally seem to be innovating, creating services that actually make concerts
better.

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pforpal
It's perplexing that they charge such a large premium when the industry must
be saving many millions of dollars a year in printing costs, box office
attendants, and sales.

~~~
commandar
One thing in this article that I found extremely interesting was that the
infamous charge to print your own tickets -- essentially charging the customer
for saving Ticketmaster and the box offices money -- is apparently driven
largely by the venues. It claims that Hubbard has been successful in getting a
third of their partners to drop the fee, which suggests that two-thirds of
venues are holding out, and more responsible for some of the egregious fees
than Ticketmaster themselves are.

I definitely came away with the impression that Hubbard may be the right guy
for the job. It seems clear he understands exactly what consumers hate about
Ticketmaster, and appears to be trying to address it as best he can.

~~~
jergason
I find it even stranger that they don't simply raise the price of the ticket
and hide the cost of the fee that way. If a ticket is $25 and then it has a $5
fee I would be upset, but I wouldn't notice if it was just a $30 ticket.

~~~
seannui
It's because the promoter pays the band based on the face price of the ticket,
not on the total price with fees.

At an incredibly high level, there are two historical economic forces at play:

1) The Irving Deal, which states that the goal of the band is to get 90% of
all earnings of any event, including concessions, popcorn, tickets, etc.
Obviously a very tough proposition in the event promotion business when some
of your events make you money, but most break even and some you lose quite a
bit on.

2) The Fred Deal, which is what transformed TicketMaster from being a company
that cost promoters money (you pay us $.50 for every ticket we sell for you)
to one that made them money (we'll charge the customer an extra $10 and give
you $8 of it, but you need to sign a multiyear contract and we sell ALL your
tickets).

If you're keenly interested in this, you should read the very excellent and
recently published book Ticket Masters goes through all of the history and
mechanics in great detail. Immediately upon finishing you should come work for
me at Ticketfly in San Francisco where we're solving these sorts of problems
on a daily basis. ;)

~~~
enko
Thanks for the book recommendation. Ordered.

