Monopoly in Tickets?! 10 Takeaways From Today’s Panel!

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At the US Capitol today, there was a panel on monopoly power in tickets with an excellent panel of ticketing professionals and folks with antitrust experience.

I took a bunch of notes and I’ve been following along with the #BreakUpTicketmaster folks, but I wanted to put down some initial takeaways that stuck with me after this morning’s panel.

There is a competition problem across the economy, not just tickets:

This isn’t just about tickets, but about tech, food, and more. Senator Klobuchar has introduced a bill to fight anti-competitive practices in big tech that she says had the most lobbying money spent against it ever.

Competition isn’t just about surface issues, it goes deeper:

Lower wages.

Higher prices.

Fewer jobs.

Mono-channel distribution is bad for sports and customers:

No competition. All the fees.

Who wouldn’t want all of that?

Even now, most tickets on the secondary market are at face value or below:

That’s been consistent over the last few years.

It does bring up the challenge of marketing and branding of teams and events, but it spins the “evils” of the secondary market in a different way.

Holdbacks are getting more attention:

The panel discussed how holdbacks can be used to manipulate pricing and skew customer decision-making.

I saw this in real-time at the Pearl Jam show at Madison Square Garden in September.

Attention is brought to fans getting priced out of events in stadiums that taxpayer dollars funded:

My POV on everything is through the eyes of the customer.

So I was glad to see this idea brought up in the panel.

We’ve all been around long enough to recognize that fans often get little more than lip service.

The question was raised: “Do you trust Live Nation with your biometric data?”:

This question was brought up as the example of SafeTix being used to prevent transfer and control data was discussed. The conversation veered into other technologies and tools might be used going forward to control transfer, tie a ticket to a customer, and control the data.

It is a good question and goes beyond Live Nation.

Do you trust anyone with that kind of information?

Diana Moss calls Live Nation’s ability to have a stake in every part of the market, “sweeping”:

This led to a discussion about how having so much influence at all levels can lead to opportunities to exert control in ways that are direct and indirect, implicit and explicit.

Bruce Springsteen is a big name, but think about the treatment of the smaller artists:

The stories about $5,000 Bruce Springsteen tickets is one thing, but Bruce has the power to get concessions. The bigger point was made that most artists aren’t Bruce Springsteen and their treatment is much different.

Jay Himes brings up a bunch of really important points:

• Customers are helpful because they aren’t shy about complaining. Even though it was about fees in banking, 2/3 of complaints to CFPB on “Junk Fees” were about tickets.
• Even if you have people sharing their experiences and their issues around monopoly power, you can’t get them to go on the record.
• In these kinds of cases, intimidation can happen without anyone having to say a word.
• Remedies to fight monopoly power in tickets aren’t limited to just having companies split up. There are more remedies that the court and legislatures have.