The Fight
In case you haven’t spoken to a Swiftie in the last four months (or paid attention to the Taylor Swift lyric–laced Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, co-organized by Senator Amy Klobuchar), most people aren’t thrilled with the monopoly corporate giants such as Live Nation—which merged with Ticketmaster more than a decade ago—holds over ticket purchasing. (For reference, Ticketmaster controls around 70 percent of the ticket-buying market for major venues in the U.S.) And local venues, which need some kind of ticket provider to get digital stubs into consumers’ hands, are feeling the effects.
The Process
A quick lesson on ticketing: “Venues have contracts with a ticketing provider, so an artist or promoter will use the ticketing provider contracted with each venue,” says First Avenue’s VP of marketing, Ashley Ryan. “Artists don’t generally have a say in this.”
Since First Ave is an independent venue, the team gets to decide who its ticketing partners are, and they do not contract with Live Nation/Ticketmaster (unlike larger venues like U.S. Bank Stadium and the X). Others, like Icehouse, opt to use Eventbrite, which charges lower fees.
“I work with the artists to decide what’s the best ticket price—how to guarantee we’ve got enough folks willing to show up at a given price while making sure that the artists earn enough,” says Icehouse’s booking director, Dave Power. “We’re a smaller venue, so we haven’t experienced any scalping or ticket-grabbing bots.”
The Future
Klobuchar’s goal is to break up monopolies like Live Nation/Ticketmaster, adding more competition into the market, reducing prices, and creating a better experience for consumers—because the last thing anyone wants is for people to give up on live music.
“At the end of the day, we want real fans to be here enjoying the show,” Ryan says. “We want tickets to get directly into the hands of fans as seamlessly as possible.”
