Live Nation Admits To Scalping Tickets For Bands Like Metallica

I don’t know how to solve the problem. But for any concert anymore it’s getting to be a challenge to find reasonable tickets. Like hey, if you don’t plan on going, please let someone else buy the tickets instead of gouging people!
 
I don’t know how to solve the problem. But for any concert anymore it’s getting to be a challenge to find reasonable tickets. Like hey, if you don’t plan on going, please let someone else buy the tickets instead of gouging people!


I do. Tickets can be resold for face plus fees. None of this auction bullshit. I know the bands make more money, so they approve of all this, but it really sticks it to the actual fans.

I just don't go to shows like I used to. If someone wants to pay $600 to see a band, great, go for it.
 
"Live Nation says it did it because bands know face value of its concert tickets are often lower than market value ... so the tactic allows them to recapture a cut of that money. "

Hmm...because artificially creating a supply shortage of 88,000 tickets doesn't at all impact the market value of the tickets.
 
This is why I haven't seen a U2 show since 2005. When I saw three guys walk away from the selling booth (it was before online sales only) holding 6 tickets each and I just knew 2/3rds of those tickets were going to be on auctions sites that same afternoon, that's when I knew the system was broken. And it was pointless to try and get U2 tickets in the future. And everything I heard since proves to me that the system is only getting worse.

I think we should stop going to concerts altogether, until these bands get it that we're fed up with this broken system. Being a fan doesn't mean having to be a walking ATM machine for the artist and all the other leeches in the music industry to gorge upon. Because we're fans and we have to support the artists. Within reason that is, cause I want to support the artist but not be taken advantage of. Reasonable prices, no scalping, a functional way to sell available tickets. If these reasonable demands cannot be met, because neither bands nor live nation are interested in tackling this, then too bad for the bands, we shouldn't be seeing them anymore. In order to save the village you have to be willing to burn it. That's how you win wars. And we are in a war, where Live Nation have seen that suckers (a.k.a. fans) are willing to pay double digits for 2nd hand tickets, so why cut out the middle man and raise those prices to double digits already. We will be squeezed, and squeezed, and squeezed. And they will keep doing it until the market finally collapses and people stop going to concerts. And then bands will have ruined their last remaining source of revenue.

//end of rant, off the soap box now.
 
Caught wind, or got caught? ;)

Pearl Jam was one of the few bands that dared to stand up against Ticketmaster, and they even went to court and to Congress over it. And Ticketmaster won. That was in 1995. Now they've become Live Nation and everything Pearl Jam warned us about and more. As Pearl Jam learned the hard way, it's next to impossible to book venues that aren't under legal contract with this monopoly. So you either play the game, or don't play at all. Still, if fans and bands were to act as one we might bring this monopoly down. But if bands keep on screwing their fans over for a slice of this pie, and fans keep on loyally forking out overinflated prices for a ticket, then I don't see it changing. The US Congress and the EU Parliament only responds to whichever side has the most powerful lobby, and so far that's not us fans.
 
Problem is, you'd never get even 10% of the fans to boycott shows over this. There are enough people that don't care that will buy the tickets.
 
If the band condones the practice, then what is the problem? It’s their product, their show, their time, talent, effort and risk. They can price their shows however they want.
 
If the band condones the practice, then what is the problem? It’s their product, their show, their time, talent, effort and risk. They can price their shows however they want.


Then be up front about it and just charge a couple of hundred per ticket. Doing this bullshit where you price them at $60, but have the ticket company immediately dump 80% of the tickets to an auction site that you're getting a cut of is less than genuine.

I know why they do it. They still look okay in the public eye, as they let a middle man take all the hate.

If I had to bet, I'd say even the resale on the auction site is heavily manipulated. Easy to make it look like tickets are scarce, get people to pay higher prices, and you can just sort of trickle them out when needed. I mean, a buyer isn't going to know that the ticket are being resold again or not.
 
I knew this was happening but I had it a little wrong. I assumed they were ripping the artists off and only paying them based on the the face value on the ticket. I should have known the only ones being ripped off were the fans, but I wanted to give the artists the benefit of the doubt. To know that at least some acts are colluding with them makes it a real bitter pill.
 
I enjoy watching high def concert footage on YouTube through my studio monitor system.

No parking costs, traffic, the beer is cheaper, and the “ticket” was free

Live music is great, but paying over $200 for a show isn’t.... just like live sports

Not paying $800 for a family to go to a NFL game when we’ve got a nice 65” tv and a kitchen full of snacks at home lol
 
Problem is, you'd never get even 10% of the fans to boycott shows over this. There are enough people that don't care that will buy the tickets.

True. And that is why we can't have nice things. Because there are legions of fans still willing to fork out money. That's why Live Nation and the bands scalp tickets and inflate their prices, why movie franchise after movie franchise goes woke and why our politicians remain scumbags. A minority complains, the rest just keeps on showing up. We truly live in Clown World. Honk honk.

If the band condones the practice, then what is the problem? It’s their product, their show, their time, talent, effort and risk. They can price their shows however they want.

If they were honest about it, yes, but as has been said, they are not honest about it. They're asking us to be part of a game, and that game is rigged so badly against us the only way to win is not to participate at all.
 
Maybe I’m just lucky in only going to metal/death metal/etc shows, but the last few concerts I’ve been to were headlined by Messhugah, BTBAM, and Gojira (3 separate shows) and I didn’t pay more than 30 bucks a ticket to each one. Was going to try and catch slayer/lamb of god but the timing didn’t work out, pretty sure that was also around 25 bucks. I’ve just never looked into a concert to go to and seen ridiculous ticket prices like you guys are talking about. Absolutely not saying it’s not happening, just that it hasn’t seemed to affect any of the shows I’ve been going to. Oh and I use Ticketmaster for all of them iirc.
 
Maybe I’m just lucky in only going to metal/death metal/etc shows, but the last few concerts I’ve been to were headlined by Messhugah, BTBAM, and Gojira (3 separate shows) and I didn’t pay more than 30 bucks a ticket to each one. Was going to try and catch slayer/lamb of god but the timing didn’t work out, pretty sure that was also around 25 bucks. I’ve just never looked into a concert to go to and seen ridiculous ticket prices like you guys are talking about. Absolutely not saying it’s not happening, just that it hasn’t seemed to affect any of the shows I’ve been going to. Oh and I use Ticketmaster for all of them iirc.

Best part of being a metalhead. We're not even remotely popular, so even a lot of notable bands play in small clubs, and yeah, $30 is the outside for a ticket. Most are $15 or so.
 
Maybe I’m just lucky in only going to metal/death metal/etc shows, but the last few concerts I’ve been to were headlined by Messhugah, BTBAM, and Gojira (3 separate shows) and I didn’t pay more than 30 bucks a ticket to each one. Was going to try and catch slayer/lamb of god but the timing didn’t work out, pretty sure that was also around 25 bucks. I’ve just never looked into a concert to go to and seen ridiculous ticket prices like you guys are talking about. Absolutely not saying it’s not happening, just that it hasn’t seemed to affect any of the shows I’ve been going to. Oh and I use Ticketmaster for all of them iirc.

What size were the venues you went too and what were the service charges? Because that is how Ticketmaster/Live Nation got their hooks into the music scene. By increasing service charges (that's what Pearl Jam took them to court over) and by getting exclusive contracts with the big venues. They probably don't consider the metal scene as interesting enough to run their usual games over. Although I wouldn't be surprised if you paid more then $2 in service charges, as they still want their cut.
 
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