Ticketmaster and Live Nation Think Ticket Prices are Too Cheap
The average ticket price for the largest tours in the U.S. is approaching $100, but executives for Ticketmaster and Live Nation think they should be even more expensive.
According to a new report from Marketwatch, executives at Live Nation, which merged with Ticketmaster in 2010, have said that they think tickets are currently underpriced and represent a potential area of growth for the company.
Live Nation Chief Executive Michael Rapino recently told investors in Liberty Media Corp., which owns 33% of Live Nation, that concert tickets are an “incredible bargain” and that increasing ticket prices represents “huge opportunity for our bottom line.” Live Nation President Joe Berchtold “echoed the sentiment” to Marketwatch.
Meanwhile, average ticket prices for the top 100 worldwide tours in terms of gross dollars have already risen 23% in the past five years, and spiked 250% since 1996, bringing them to an average of $96.17 in 2019. Those increases have far outpaced inflation.
Berchtold pointed to amphitheater shows, where tickets average just $48 thanks to plentiful availability of lawn seats, as evidence that concerts can still be affordable. But in the same breath he used the booming secondary market (StubHub, etc.) to buoy his claim that tickets are currently undervalued, saying that fans are clearly willing to pay higher prices for tickets and that money may as well end up with artists instead of resellers.
The revelations come amidst news that Live Nation reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, extending into 2025 a decree, which was entered into when Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged in 2010 and was set to expire in 2020, that prevents Live Nation from strong-arming concert venues into using Ticketmaster for its ticketing services. There is little evidence Live Nation is following that decree, but the company’s stock jumped 9.2% the day of that announcement and was up 43% overall in 2019 as of December 28.
[via Ghost Cult Mag]
