[mattmaroon]

The bands at the top are absolutely not profiting, they’re losing money over it. Instead of a healthy ecosystem of promoters willing to pay them market rates, they’re dealing with a monopsony that depresses earnings. They HAVE to go through TicketMaster venues, because TM has locked up 85% of large ones, which means they have to accept whatever fee the promoter (LiveNation, same company) is willing to pay them. That’s part of why AEG sued them, they are a giant international promoter who is effectively boxed out of the American market by TMs stranglehold on venues and vertical integration.

Venue owners are profiting. LN/TM can pay them a lot for exclusive rights thanks to their monopoly-inflated profits.

[TylerE]

The bands get more than a small cut of the various fees, and especially the upcharge things like Platinum tickets.

[mattmaroon]

No they don’t, that’s not how the money works in concerts. The bands get paid a flat fee by the promoter. You can Google this if you don’t believe me but I know from working with concert promoters.

Why would Ticketmaster/live nation pay them at all? They don’t have to, the bands don’t have any other places to play and they make most of their income from live shows.

[TylerE]

Platinum Tickets are priced by the artists who get the bulk of the revenue.

[JansjoFromIkea]

Just to back this up, Robert Smith references Platinum Tickets here https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-64975160

Choice quote: "It is a greedy scam and all artists have the choice not to participate. If no artists participated, it would cease to exist."

[mattmaroon]

It doesn’t say it goes to the artists. It says artists can choose not to participate. It says most of the fees go to the venue, which is true, that’s how they get exclusivity.

Perhaps they give artists a little to encourage participation in some ancillary revenue, I don’t know. I’ve mostly worked non-TM venues. But I’m sure the promoter gets most of that too and it’s not a lot of the overall ticket sales.

I can tell you for sure, everyone but the venues feels they would get more without the monopsony. There is not a functioning market for concert promotion once you get to the 10,000+ seat level, and TM is actually even buying up the ones below that too.

Your only end run around it is the festival circuit since a lot of them are out in a field rather than a venue, but guess who is buying those up now also…

[mattmaroon]

Also note how they say ticket master passes on fees to the promoter. That’s a clever way of phrasing because it makes it look like they’re not greedy, but the promoter is almost always LiveNation, which is the same company.

[mattmaroon]

I am fairly sure that’s not true, and also that platinum tickets are a small percent of tickets.

Do you have a source for that statement? The article about it linked below does not back up either assertion. I’m pretty sure they’re dynamically priced by a TM algo, and I’d bet little of it goes to the artists.