California is seeking to take down Ticketmaster’s monopoly

A California invoice is taking intention on the US’s largest ticket vendor, whose place of dominance of the market has typically left concertgoers annoyed on the costs and availability of tickets.

As famous by creator Pat Garofalo, the SB 829 invoice launched to the California senate in February seeks to undercut a key part of Ticketmaster’s monopoly: exclusivity.

The ticket gross sales large, owned by Stay Nation Leisure, dominates an estimated 70% of the ticketing market and over 80% of the share for main live performance ticket gross sales within the US. By its personal admission, Ticketmaster normally indicators 5 to seven-year exclusivity offers with live performance venues, although the agreements can typically exceed 10 years.

SB 829 would ban these sorts of offers. As the summary for the laws states: “This invoice would prohibit the operator of an leisure facility and a major ticket vendor from getting into right into a contract that gives for the first ticket vendor to be the unique ticket vendor for the operator of the leisure facility.”

The bipartisan invoice, sponsored by Republican Scott Wilk and Democrat Laura Friedman, would deal a heavy blow to Ticketmaster and Stay Nation’s enterprise mannequin. With the previous promoting tickets, and the latter dealing with concert events and artists, venues typically have little selection however to make offers with each firms—or threat being lower off altogether.

“Venue operators should take note of the very actual risk that Stay Nation Leisure is not going to route excursions by means of their venues if they don’t choose Ticketmaster as their major ticketing service supplier,” alleged one lawsuit filed in California towards the 2 firms in 2022.

The invoice is at present set for a state senate appropriations committee listening to on Might 8. Quartz has reached out to Ticketmaster and Stay Nation for remark.

Troubles with Ticketmaster, from Pearl Jam to Taylor Swift

Stay Nation purchased Ticketmaster in 2010, effectively forming a monopoly. Its current bungling of ticket gross sales for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, which kicked off in March, generated public outrage, congressional scrutiny, and legislative pushes to sort out Ticketmaster’s dominance within the trade.

However disputes with Ticketmaster date again to 1994. That yr, alt rock band Pearl Jam canceled its summer season tour when it found the corporate was slapping on a service cost far above their requested cap of $1.80. The group lodged an antitrust criticism towards Ticketmaster. Pearl Jam in the end misplaced its campaign, with the Justice Division closing its investigation on July 5 that yr.

“Getting attacked by a famous person rock band is rather a lot like being accused of kicking your canine: There’s a normal presumption of guilt till confirmed harmless,” Ticketmaster mentioned in a press release to Rolling Stone on the time. It added: “Fortunately the details have been on our aspect, and we prevailed.”

Pearl Jam determined to forgo Ticketmaster for its tour in 1995, a call that reportedly value the group tens of millions of {dollars}. It in the end canceled its tour within the US as a result of issue discovering venues.

Stay Nation is raking in file income

Yesterday (Might 4), Stay Nation reported a file $3.1 billion in first quarter income, up 73% from the identical quarter final yr. It introduced in $2.3 billion in live performance income, marking an 89% bounce yr on yr. The corporate has already bought about 90 million tickets in 2023.

A part of the bounce in income is probably going as a result of pent-up demand following years of covid restrictions.

“For the primary time in three years, all of our markets are absolutely open. The frequent theme we’re seeing world wide is that stay experiences are a excessive precedence for followers,” Stay Nation mentioned in a press launch.

The corporate is promoting tickets for a number of the greatest acts happening tour this yr, together with Beyoncé, Harry Kinds, P!NK, and Kalis Uchis.

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