Ask HN: Why hasn't there been a real competitor to Ticketmaster yet?

mdni007

Rant: Trying to buy tickets for the Knicks game at MSG. Is it really impossible to have a ticketing platform that prevents scalpers from marking up prices to an insane amount? $10000+ for a ticket that originally costs around 2k should be illegal. Most of these tickets will go unsold I'm sure.

byoung2

They merged with LiveNation and they own half of the venues. The other half of the venues have exclusive deals with TicketMaster, who provides them with software to run venue logistics (TicketMaster for business), creating vendor lock-in.

mschuster91

> With all the hate Ticketmaster has gotten and all the other ticketing platforms out there, I'm surprised Ticketmaster still has a hold of pretty much the entire market. That's the thing. Everyone hates Ticketmaster... but forgets that the venues and even many high profile artists could easily cancel their contracts with Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster takes the blame, rakes in the cash and distributes the cash to venues and artists. Everyone in the industry is complicit. On top of that, I 'member the times here in Germany before the big gun Eventim took over, getting tickets used to be a clusterfuck before as your average 1000 seats venue just can't be expected to build a system that doesn't collapse under (often literally) hundreds of thousands to millions of fans. The fix would be legislation, but given the amount of money in live events... it just won't happen.

yogibear678142

Oh yea ticket master owns the venues. The artists can't revolt if they want to put on a big show. Software companies can't compete without dipping their toes into big money real estate property. Software start ups are all about that 0 cost replication of software. One webserver spawns millions of threads for free. Start ups crack under the pressure of real world costs. Like sure anyone can make a website where users send tweets to each other. But if you have to spend billions of dollars constructing stadiums so Swifties can have an ex-ticket master experience... That's a hard sell to the software guys.

yrcyrc

Bono, Geldof, livenation, cartel.

rrrpdx1

I always wonder why ticketmaster/live nation isn't making more money? Given they are a monopoly, I'd expect them to be making a ton of profit. But it doesn't really seem to look that way: https://www.google.com/finance/quote/LYV:NYSE

ChrisArchitect

Tho not exactly a direct solution, Related: Spotify will start reserving concert tickets for fans https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48225357

alloysmila

Distribution.

christina97

As others pointed out, it only sucks for the buying side. The actual customers instead get price gouging and taking-the-blame as a service.

dfxm12

Ticketmaster has more vertical integration. They own the ticketing, ticket resale, the clubs, concert production, promotion and talent management. When you own the venue, you can lock out other ticket sellers. Artists are probably looking for a one stop shop for putting a tour together. As an example, stubhub can sell/resell tickets, but that's about it.

nemoniac

Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) gave a good explanation many years ago already: https://stereogum.com/58831/trent_reznor_blasts_ticketmaster...

2OEH8eoCRo0

They're a monopoly. We already have a thriving marketplace of seating- it's called the airline industry. You can buy a seat on a plane from dozens if not hundreds of sellers online.

everyone

Corruption.

massysett

I frequent a small venue that sells all its tickets through this vendor. They have other venues as well, also using this vendor. https://www.axs.com/

tinyhouse

I try to always buy tickets on TickPick when I can (no affiliation). No fees and total prices are often much better than Ticketmaster. But my usecase is almost always buying from resellers. I never up-to-date to buy official tickets.

maerF0x0

One component of the total picture also is that many of these stadiums/arenas are being funded by the public / tax payer often by tax breaks etc. and the politicians / lobbies are using their relationship to monopolize that public good. IMO every event at an area should go through a public auction / RFP of who is the ticketer for that event (maybe artist gets right of first refusal to pony up the difference for their preferred ticketer?)

gobdovan

I heard they had a real good employee that was the smartest programmer to ever live and built his own OS by divine command.

ngcazz

Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow's Chokepoint Capitalism dedicates a chapter to the mechanisms through which TM enforces a virtual monopoly over live music.

emodendroket

It seems like it would be very easy to blacklist any artist/venue that works with the competition and make it practically crazy to do.

wolvoleo

Why hasn't there been a real competitor to youtube yet? Similar question. Some markets really are screwed.