349
Who is behind the great rock’n’roll ripoff? How Ticketmaster swallowed the live entertainment scene
(www.theguardian.com)
Pearl Jam tried to save us.
this post was submitted on 04 May 2025
349 points (98.6% liked)
World News
46344 readers
3301 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Our governments put on a good show with their anti-monopoly commissions, but then you buy a ticket to watch your favourite band and the promoter, venue, reseller, march stand… even the touts are all the same company.
As much as the Savanna Bananas ticket lottery annoyed me, it's really cool that they sold their own tickets for a flat price instead of using Ticketmaster.
This monopoly is one of the best examples of our government being broken by lobbying. This problem is a least 30 years old and nothing has changed in all that time.
Concerts are the biggest way artists make money these days too. Support your local bands people.
Absolutely. Between Ticketmaster and LiveNation, almost every performing venue in the United States is completely dominated.
We desperately, desperately need legitimate anti-trust actions in the United States; we need something that will reintroduce some actual competition into the market.
The first failure of the federal government that led to this path was in the 1990s and the Microsoft Antitrust Trials. That was the point at which there really could have been another way--but the billionaires, at that point, had all the inroads to government that the Reagan Administration made possible. Because Microsoft could buy politicians, the vast majority of people on the planet have never used any operating system other than Windows, and the Microsoft company gets billions upon billions of dollars from state/federal/municipal contracts.
Google and Apple, then, just followed the path that Microsoft bought and paved through government regulations. And that made it easy for other billion dollar companies like Ticketmaster and LiveNation to do the same thing in other realms--simply buy the laws, buy the politicians, buy the system that's supposed to regulate them, and then use that system to remove all competition.
And that made it easy for other billion dollar companies like Ticketmaster and LiveNation to do the same thing in other realms--simply buy the laws, buy the politicians, buy the system that's supposed to regulate them, and then use that system to remove all competition.
Most notably, actual competition -- a supposedly great boon of capitalism that drives up value for the customer -- nowhere to be found in that formula. This is the exact same path i believe we watch every successful product or service eventually take.
Oh but it has. Things have been getting progressively worse.
They’re clearly an anticompetitive monopoly. Wish I could say I’m optimistic that the DOJ can pull off something positive in regards to this case, or anything really.
Guess I should try to start some sort of grassroots campaign accusing Live Nation of being woke
Live Nation of being woke
Many people are saying it. Good people, honest people.
A man came up to me... a big man.... a marine.... and he had tears in his eyes. He said to me, "Sir, please break up that woke Live Nation."
I mean, they kowtowed to Swift, that's pretty woke. :D
Great angle
They should at least outlaw the exclusive deals with venues and artists which they use to crush the competition.
Ticketmaster owes me a couple hundred dollars for a show that's been "delayed" for a year now. Meanwhile, I'm paying interest on the credit charges.
There's no way to get a refund or dispute the charges.
It should be illegal.
Just do a charge back on your credit card.
It's been too long. Most credit cards only allow a limited period of time to challenge a charge. I stupidly hoped that it would be rescheduled. You know, since Ticketmaster told me it would be. After 60-90 days, the money is theirs whether they deliver a product or not.
That is awful. Didn't realize there was a time limit on charge backs.
There is, but it's flexible depending on the purchase. I've successfully done one nearly a year later when I bought a used phone off eBay, shipped it back under warranty, and once the seller had it they stopped responding. Both eBay and my bank advised me to do a chargeback. I did, and got my money back.
Meanwhile, I'm paying interest on the credit charges
You wouldn't be had you been responsible and actually paid your card off at the end of the month.
load more comments
(12 replies)
I bought tickets through Ticketmaster for a concert that was happening in April ‘20. I bought them a few months in advance right when they went on sale, because of course I had no idea of the coming pandemic. The concert got rescheduled to the Fall of ‘20, then rescheduled again for early ‘21, then eventually cancelled. Ticketmaster said that they would refund my money back to my original payment method, my debit card. One problem, in the time that this had dragged on - over a year and a half - my debit card had expired, and the bank had issued me a new one. So the original debit card information was no longer valid, and the money wouldn’t go back on it. Ever try to get customer service from Ticketmaster? Yeah, good luck with that. They refuse to respond, and they make it so difficult that they eventually achieved their goal - frustrating me to the point of just throwing my hands up in disgust and giving up. Money gone. Have I bought tickets through Ticketmaster since then? Of course I have, because there were some acts that I really wanted to see, and what other choice do I have?!?
I hope their CEO broke his leg falling off of his third gold toilet that my money helped him purchase.
I buy tickets all the time from industries I hate in hopes that one day they realize they should treat customers better. Until then I'll keep buying tickets.
Because as I've gotten older and I can afford things, I realized there's no effort to prevent this from other people. So why would I miss out. It's not like we're on the right where they will protest and collectively not stop until they get their thing actioned.
Funny, I go the opposite route. If a company does something to bother me enough, I will easily forego whatever experience they are providing. There is no lack of meaningful entertainment in this world, why further encourage shittiness when I can just enjoy something else? I do the same with prices. Too expensive? Fuck it, guess I don’t do that anymore. Here’s looking at you Phish; nothing against the band and understand their pricing, but I am not paying over $100 (especially now back w ticketmaster no less) for a concert. It doesn’t bother me if others do, it just becomes ‘not for me.’ Like everything, to each their own though.
I've gone the other way. It's the people around me who all complain that they dislike things but don't do anything that have annoyed me. I've taken a radically different approach. I'll enjoy myself and encourage those industries until things get so bad it motivates these people to maybe take action instead of waiting until it's too late. I'll help make things worse.
I buy multiple YouTube premium accounts. I watch ads until the very end. Whenever I see a content creator who allows more ad breaks, I donate to their channel, upvote and subscribe. I participate regularly on Reddit subs like marvel, often creating posts like "who is your favorite marvel character to go on a coffee date with teahee" I become the content consumer they want me to be because what's the worst that can happen.
I buy tickets all the time from industries I hate in hopes that one day they realize they should treat customers better. Until then I'll keep buying tickets.
So keep enabling the problem, I guess. I'm sure that'll make them see the error in their ways...
What else am I suppose to do. Wait around for everybody else to get a backbone. I'll never understand why we can all muster the energy to protest a behemoth that wouldn't be impacted by boycott but fail to boycott smaller players that would feel it. It's all by design. There's no grass roots anything. It's all just what we're allowed to protest and boycott.
load more comments
(14 replies)
Repeat after me: FUCK TICKET MASTER.
view more: next ›