Is there a competitor to Ticketmaster?

Ticketmaster has long dominated the ticket sales industry, but in recent years, several competitors have emerged to challenge its stranglehold on event ticketing. Here are some key questions and answers about Ticketmaster and its alternatives:

What is Ticketmaster?

Ticketmaster is a ticket sales and distribution company based in Beverly Hills, California. It sells tickets for concert, sports, and theater events on behalf of event organizers. Ticketmaster has exclusive contracts with many major venues and artists to sell their tickets. It sells tickets through its website, Ticketmaster.com, as well as Ticketmaster-owned outlets and call centers.

How did Ticketmaster become so dominant in ticket sales?

Ticketmaster gained its dominant position through a series of mergers and acquisitions starting in the early 1990s. In 1991, Ticketmaster bought Ticketron, its main competitor at the time. In the 1990s and 2000s, it bought up companies like Sideshow, Musictoday, and Paciolan to expand its services and control more aspects of event ticketing.

It secured exclusive deals with major venues, sports leagues, and promoters to become the authorized ticket seller for their events. These exclusive contracts locked out competitors and helped Ticketmaster establish a near-monopoly in primary ticket sales.

Why do people dislike Ticketmaster?

Ticketmaster is extremely unpopular with many consumers due to its high fees which can add up to more than 25% to the face value of a ticket. It also does not allow ticket resale through 3rd parties, forcing consumers to resell tickets through Ticketmaster owned resale sites at higher prices.

Common complaints about Ticketmaster include:

• High convenience, service, and delivery fees added to every ticket purchase
• Dynamic pricing – Ticket prices can fluctuate based on demand
• Restrictions on ticket transfers and prohibiting ticket resale on 3rd party sites
• Poor customer service

Its position as a near-monopoly in primary ticket sales means consumers have little choice but to use Ticketmaster despite its unpopularity.

Who are the major competitors to Ticketmaster?

The major players challenging Ticketmaster’s dominance are:

AXS

AXS is a ticketing company founded by Anschutz Entertainment Group, one of the world’s largest sports and entertainment companies. It sells tickets for many AEG venues and events. It has exclusive deals with large venues like Staples Center and O2 Arena.

Eventbrite

Eventbrite is an online event management and ticketing website. It allows event organizers to self-ticket events and sell directly to attendees. It focuses on smaller music, arts, food, and community events.

SeatGeek

SeatGeek is a mobile-focused ticket marketplace connecting primary and secondary ticket sellers. It competes aggressively on buyer fees and has partnered with several NFL and NBA teams for ticketing.

Vivid Seats

Vivid Seats is a large secondary ticket marketplace focused on ticket resales. It has a loyalty program and rewards buyers with points on ticket purchases. It claims to offer better prices than Ticketmaster for resold tickets.

StubHub

StubHub, owned by Viagogo, is one of the largest online secondary ticket marketplaces for ticket resales. Buyers and sellers can trade tickets securely on StubHub.

How are these competitors challenging Ticketmaster?

Ticketmaster’s competitors have taken the following approaches to compete against its dominance:

• Offering lower/no buyer fees – Eventbrite, SeatGeek and others attract buyers by charging much lower or no fees
• Focusing on mobile experience – SeatGeek and AXS emphasize convenience through mobile ticketing and payments
• Encouraging ticket resale – StubHub, VividSeats enable ticket resale that Ticketmaster heavily restricts
• Offering exclusive deals – AXS leverages the power of its parent company’s venues and relationships
• Rewarding loyalty – Vivid Seats’ rewards program builds loyalty even on resale tickets
• Self-ticketing tools – Eventbrite allows event organizers to self-ticket and sell directly to attendees

These companies aim to shift consumer preference by offering better prices, convenience and selection. Several have gained traction for particular event types – for example, Eventbrite for smaller events, and StubHub for ticket resales.

Is Ticketmaster losing market share?

Ticketmaster still dominates primary ticket sales, but its share of the secondary resale market has dropped substantially in the past decade thanks to competitors. Ticketmaster controlled 90% of the combined primary and secondary ticket market in 2010 but that dropped to around 70% by 2018. Its share of just the secondary market decreased from 35% in 2010 to under 20% in 2018.

Ticketmaster has lost significant ground in secondary ticket sales to StubHub, VividSeats and other secondary exchanges. However, it still dominates primary ticket sales through its exclusive deals with major venues, promoters and leagues.

Can Ticketmaster’s competitors replace it completely?

It is unlikely any single competitor can completely unseat Ticketmaster in the near future. Reasons include:

• Ticketmaster has over 200 exclusive deals with major venues, sports leagues, and promoters for primary ticketing rights. These deals will be hard for competitors to displace.
• Competitors lack Ticketmaster’s scale and resources – they will find it hard to match its ability to service massive venues with tens of thousands of tickets.
• Ticketmaster has strong relationships and goodwill built up over decades in the industry.
• The ticketing market relies heavily on key distribution partners – getting access to them will take competitors time.
• Ticketmaster has cultivated strong links to artist fan clubs to help sell presale tickets.

That said, competitors like AXS, SeatGeek and Eventbrite can probably continue to chip away at Ticketmaster’s dominance by offering superior consumer choice, convenience and pricing.

Does Ticketmaster help or hurt consumers?

There are two sides to the Ticketmaster debate when it comes to consumer impact:

Ticketmaster helps consumers by:

• Offering a convenient centralized “one-stop shop” for ticket sales
• Investing heavily in technology and analytics to optimize ticket pricing and sales
• Providing consumer protections against fake/invalid tickets
• Enabling hassle-free rescheduling after event cancellations/postponements

Ticketmaster hurts consumers by:

• Charging excessive fees that can more than double ticket prices
• Prohibiting third-party ticket resales and setting higher resale costs
• Unclear pricing with hidden fees often added late in purchases
• Lack of customer service responsiveness to complaints
• Possible misuse of market position to charge higher fees

There are reasonable arguments on both sides of this debate. Ultimately, more competition in the ticketing industry should benefit consumers by forcing Ticketmaster to provide better value through lower fees, clearer pricing, and improved customer service.

Conclusion

Ticketmaster has dominated event ticketing for decades but competitors like AXS, Eventbrite, SeatGeek and StubHub are significantly expanding consumer choice. Ticketmaster will likely retain its commanding position in primary ticket sales in the near term thanks to its exclusive venue deals and longstanding promoter relationships. However, competitors have demonstrated much consumer demand for transparent, low fee ticketing and more options in the secondary ticket resale market. Although Ticketmaster remains dominant, competitors have successfully increased competition in ticketing and given consumers more power to choose alternative providers.