Regulator sniffs around Live Nation, Ticketmaster merger

Acquired Savant Syndrome ..... Alien String Strain.

"The UK’s competition watchdog is continuing to probe a possible merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation, to determine whether such a deal would stifle competition in the live music market."

MeThinks a Virtual Union would Energise Competition in the Live Theatre Market .....Reintroducing Very Shakespearean Concepts for Live Projects and NonEntity State Actors. ...... for Total Informational Awareness TherapeutICQs ........ Virile Viral VXXXXine and AIMedication. A Recombinant Retro Viral.

I wonder what Mr Pratchett would say?

So TM doesn't have a monopoly now?

So the Compy quango is looking "to determine whether such a deal would stifle competition in the live music market"

More importantly, what's the competition in the live music market to which they're referring? Last couple of times I've tried to book tickets, the options have been:

(a) buy from touts;

(b) buy from other fans;

(c) buy from Ticketmaster;

(d) buy from the venue (only some allow this) who basically buy from Ticketmaster, and then charge you a 'handling charge' on top of Ticketmaster's prices.

As far as I can tell - in the UK at least - Ticketmaster have a near monopoly on the major gigs, and a pretty sizable slice of the medium level too, (but maybe I'm just unlucky and it's just the area I live in?). And the result of this is that Ticketmaster seem to feel that they can charge pretty much what they like - the last stadium gig I went to, the kickbacks to Ticketmaster (admin charge, credit card fee, etc) amounted to more than 10% of the total ticket price - this is downright ludicrous when all they've got to do is take your money, and then post you out a couple of bits of paper..

Okay, they might argue "value added" services, but as far as I can tell all they've done for me is send out a weekly list of tickets available (which is actually quite useful) and then sign me up for some ticket eBay (for which I presume they collect a fee for each transaction) which I definitely didn't want. I'm on Live Nation's email list too, and these days all they seem to do is repeat what's on Ticketmaster's mailings.

Not only should they block the merger, but really should also be looking into the current ties between venues and Ticketmaster!

Pratchett

amanfromMars 1 wrote: "I wonder what Mr Pratchett would say?"

I don't know but I'm guessing it would be a joke - almost entirely derivative of his earlier works, it would contain many of the same gags and as a result would please his fans endlessly.

There would undoubtedly be some speech by Death in gothic script and block capitals. There would probably be some witches and a few confused wizards.

It wouldn't feature a walking suitcase though. That's long gone (along with any originality and humour that once existed in his writings)

Not just fans

This merger is helping Live Nation and Ticketmaster continue to stamp on the smaller, independent theatres. They are struggling enough with the recent reduction in Arts Council funding (partly due to public and lottery money being diverted to the 2012 Olympics).

Large conglomerates (sp?) are reaping all the benefits of the resurgence in interest in live theatre by locking in to exclusive tours of high profile shows. The public think they are being all arty and cultured by going to see Connie Fisher etc but in reality they are being drawn into a funding feedback-loop with the cash cow without helping out the actual cause of British art and theatre in the slightest.

Anonymous due to field of work and employer... which you can probably guess. Disappointed by the lack of 'luvvie' icon so Badgers will have to do.

Ticketmaster are a bunch of Thieves

Booking fee on every ticket plus card surcharge - there is only one word for it: robbery. They want investigating now, never mind if they <strike>merge with</strike> swallow up Live Nation.

They make me so f*cking angry AAAAAAAAAAAARGHGSD;KUJGDGSK;UJSDFGGUO/

WE are Ticketmaster

All your ticket fees belong to us.

Ticketmaster IT note

Back in the day TM ran some crazy stuff. Their core stuff was licensed from the US. It ran on DEC hardware with VMS totally stripped off. Custom OS + bespoke DB package. They claimed HW which ran c 4-1 users on VMS ran about 400 (mostly remote via serial lines through modems). It ran live, backup copy with live update and a 3rd cold system on seperate site with 2 seperate comms system. The most serious DR/backup system I have ever seen in a for-profit company.

Their back office processing was run thorugh custom apps in FoxPro (Will MS still sell you a copy ?) using IIRC their program generator and Automator MI to stich multiple disperate apps together and give them a sort of unified command language (still a neat idea BTW) by reading each apps screen messages and recognising them (easier in DOS but should have been possible in Windows).

TM certainly shafted customers big time back them. Looks like they still do. letting them merge and get any bigger is unlikely to make their prices any more reasonable but will make their profits bigger. Nice enough to work for though and they kept a lot of resting actors, actresses and dancers employed. They also had some spectacular own goals as well.

AC because I don't want my past retching up with me.