In the live music industry, Ticketmaster has become synonymous with ticket sales and distribution. Despite criticism over high fees and other controversies, the majority of major concerts and tours are still sold through Ticketmaster. This raises the question – why do bands and artists continue to use Ticketmaster when there are alternatives available?
The lack of viable alternatives
One of the main reasons bands continue using Ticketmaster is that there are no comparable alternatives in the marketplace. Ticketmaster has a virtual monopoly over primary ticket sales: according to a poll by Pollstar, over 80% of the primary ticket market runs through Ticketmaster. This gives the company enormous leverage when it comes to locking in exclusive deals with major venues and artists. For big touring acts, it can be extremely difficult to avoid Ticketmaster entirely when setting up a tour. The company has exclusive ticketing deals with most large venues and promoters across North America. Without access to suitable venues or the support of major promoters, it becomes close to impossible for artists to organize large tours and sell enough tickets.
Smaller ticketing companies lack the scale, infrastructure and relationships needed to fully replace Ticketmaster. Promoters and venues are reluctant to take risks on unproven ticketing platforms. As a result, any competitors have struggled to grow their market share. Ticketmaster parent company Live Nation also leverages its promotion and venue management businesses to reinforce its dominance in ticketing. This vertical integration further solidifies Ticketmaster’s stranglehold on the primary ticket sales process.
The convenience of an established system
From an artist’s perspective, Ticketmaster provides convenience and simplicity when coordinating complex tours. The company handles all the logistical details of ticket distribution and sales. Artists and promoters don’t have to build their own ticketing operations from scratch. Ticketmaster provides an established infrastructure to seamlessly sell tickets across multiple venues. This frees up bands to focus on their music while letting professionals handle the business side.
Ticketmaster also offers bands far greater reach than what they could achieve on their own. Through its vast network of venues and promoters, Ticketmaster can advertise and market shows to millions of customers worldwide. The company provides analytics and sales data to optimize ticket prices and tour routing. These promotional and operational benefits are hard to replicate without Ticketmaster’s scale and connections.
Limited viability of DIY ticketing
In theory, bands could handle their own ticket sales and distribution. In practice, this is rarely a feasible option at a large scale. DIY ticketing presents multiple challenges:
- Implementing an online ticket store and payment processing
- Anti-scalping protections
- Printing and distributing physical tickets
- Dealing with customer service issues
- Preventing bots and malicious traffic
- Mapping out seating charts for reserved venues
- Integrating with promotion partners
These tasks require expertise and technical integration that are expensive to develop independently. Bands risk alienating fans if they try managing ticketing but fail to get the details right. Without adequate fraud prevention, reserved seating management and scalping controls, DIY ticketing can quickly become chaotic.
Very few artists have the capabilities to build a ticketing operation at the level required for large tours. For example, Louis C.K. sold tickets to his comedy shows directly to fans through his website. But problems like duplicated tickets and scalping caused headaches for both C.K. and his fans. The DIY approach only works smoothly at a small scale.
The role of Live Nation
Ticketmaster’s dominance has grown further since their 2009 merger with promoting giant Live Nation. Live Nation is the largest concert promoter worldwide, responsible for producing tours and festivals for the top bands and musicians. The merged Live Nation-Ticketmaster entity manages artists across their entire touring lifecycle:
- Promoting the tour
- Booking venues/stages
- Marketing shows
- Selling tickets
- Managing fan club memberships
With Live Nation in control of so many essential tour functions, bands may feel it is easier just to let Ticketmaster handle their ticketing as well. While Live Nation does own major venues like the House of Blues chain, artists are not strictly required to use Ticketmaster in order to book Live Nation venues or promoters. But the convenience of keeping everything “in-house” leads many bands to utilize the full suite of Live Nation-Ticketmaster services.
Fan club presales
One key factor that keeps bands tied to Ticketmaster is fan club presales. Giving fan club members exclusive early access to buy tickets helps drive fan club membership. Ticketmaster facilitates this process by setting aside tickets for fan club presales before the general public on-sale. Without Ticketmaster’s technical integration and ticket allocating capabilities, it would be much more difficult for bands to organize presales on their own. Fan club presales also help limit scalping, since early tickets are restricted to loyal fans less likely to resell them. Given how important fan club presales have become for bands, moving away from Ticketmaster could disrupt this important fan relationship-building process.
endeavors
Some bands have tried to bypass Ticketmaster by partnering with other ticketing platforms. For example, Pearl Jam took on Ticketmaster in the mid-90s in an antitrust lawsuit over excessive fees. Although Pearl Jam initially outsold Ticketmaster venues using an alternative ticketing system, they eventually returned to Ticketmaster as organizers found the DIY approach too cumbersome. More recently, bands like Eric Church and Metallica have criticized Ticketmaster and opted to use other systems for certain tours. But these efforts have been sporadic and small-scale. None have sparked an industry-wide shift away from Ticketmaster.
Conclusion
Despite its unpopularity among fans, Ticketmaster maintains an entrenched position in event ticketing due to its far-reaching venue contracts, lack of significant competitors, and convenience for artists. The Live Nation merger only increased Ticketmaster’s dominance over tour promotion and ticket sales. For the time being, bands looking to play larger venues and reach bigger audiences have little choice but to sell through Ticketmaster. New technologies like mobile ticketing, dynamic pricing, and data analytics continue to emerge around ticketing. But until viable alternatives can match Ticketmaster’s scale and capabilities, the company’s reign over primary ticket sales remains secure.
