Rock & Roll Swindle
Ticketmaster -
February 11th, 2009
The evil empire just got a little stronger. Bitter rivals Ticketmaster and Live Nation announced yesterday that they were merging to form Live Nation Entertainment, a ticket-brokering, concert-promoting leviathan dedicated to squeezing every last red cent out of concertgoers. No, that was not a sonic boom, rather the collective thunderclap of music fans’ ass cheeks slamming shut.
|
15-50%
|
The markup range Ticketmaster has on a ticket after applying all their fees (service charge, building facility charge, processing charge, convenience charge). Almost as cool as the corkage fee at a BYOB. |
Music is spiritual. The music business is not.
 |
|
|
Van Morrison, six time Grammy Award Winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member.
|
 |
 |
360/Multiple Rights Deals
|
noun. 1. A contract that gives a record label a percentage of earnings from all of an artist’s revenue streams, including touring, merchandise, endorsements, and publishing.
Jay-Z, Shakira and Nickelback have all signed 360 deals with Live Nation. Previously only prostitutes had this type of arrangement with their pimps.
8 of the top 10 most expensive concert tickets of 2008 (according to average resale ticket prices from Ticketmaster) are acts that have been around over 20 years. Using this data we can deduce the following: 1) baby boomers will pay almost anything to hear “Hotel California” live, and 2) most of the new sh%t out there sucks.
Famous Monopolies
| NFL – Convicted of monopoly in the 1980s; the upstart USFL failed miserably anyway |
| AT&T – Telecommunications giant broke up in 1982; making another run with the iPhone |
| De Beers – Price fixing in the diamond trade; settled for $295 million in 2005 |
| Creed – Dominated sh%tty corporate radio slop; broke up in 2004 (Thank you, God) |
 |
To think, just a few years ago fifty bucks got us a concert ticket, a t-shirt and maybe a chilly sixer to suck down in the parking lot. |
loading...
