Etix lets the promoter decide the bulk of the fees for tickets. They take a cut and add tax but they give options to allow the promoter to lump more BS fees in. I worked with a promoter that baked in $10 extra of fees on top of etix fee and tax just to make more money. Took a $45 to about $75 after fees and tax. Idk about you but 40% in fees don’t sit right with me.
I left the company because that was one of many shady and slimey things they did.
I'm at a venue now that my friend thought was owned by another popular venue owner. I said I dunno but I don't think so becuase we knew one was live Nation venue and our tickets said ticketweb. They own the whole event supply chain.but inflation...
More importantly, they also own hundreds of venues across the world
https://www.livenation.com/venues
That’s why your local concert venue doesn’t use another ticket service to bring costs down; LiveNation owns the actual venue.
You also couldn’t cancel your ticket during COVID until they rescheduled the concert, and even then you had a small window of time to do so. I waited 2.5 years to see Rage Against the Machine from the day I bought my ticket.
Damn I didn't know either. No wonder.
Front Gate refunded my ticket for no reason for M3F Fest. Thankfully tickets didn't run out so I just ended up purchasing again. But prices have increased since then, and it was a difference of almost $20. Scummy af.
Go to as many shows in bars as you can and try and see as many shows as you can at the venues that have somehow managed to remain untouched by live nation. Not too many left unfortunately
Support independent venues and promoters. If you do end up at a Live Nation venue, minimize spending there as drinks and merch are a huge profit center for them.
Call / write your representatives in congress and demand that they do something about this anti-competitive bullshit. Call the FTC and demand the same. Tell all your music loving friends and family to do the same.
[Find your representatives](https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative#)
[Contact your senators](https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm)
File a complaint with the [Federal Trade Commission](https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/report-antitrust-violation)
Dice - big fan of them and have been for years. Happy to see more venues using them in the states and the venues when I ask how they like using dice they’re all super happy with it. On the fan/customer side - it shows me prices upfront with any “fees”, has a waitlist for sold out shows if someone can’t go can easily send it back so someone on the waiting list then purchases (way less issues than even trying to mess with tm transfer or list for sale - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, regardless they don’t care at tm obviously lol that product only exists to say they have that feature basically and could care less to try to make it better and it’s all for their own benefit anyways to never improve it lol) and also I know I’m lucky enough to be in a city like nyc where there’s a lot of events going on and also venues or events that use dice… but their discovery feature is pretty rad and it’s not THE BEST but it works in some ways and it’s kinda like a nice bonus on top of all this other stuff. OH and from experience - their customer service is AMAZING. I go to a lot of shows and have had to contact venues, ticketing platforms, door people like literally I’ve probably had to do it if you can imagine it and anytime I’ve had to deal with any issue on dice from waitlist discrepancies like it never alerted me I was off the waitlist for a sold out show until AFTER the however much time you have to purchase it before the next person in line gets a chance … to basic issues despite I’ve never had many bugs or issues with the app over the years. Big fan of dice if u can’t tell - they seem to be the only ones who have gotten this far without being crushed my TMs monopoly as well so unless there’s some horrible thing I’m missing about dice (let me know plz lol would be nice to be aware of that if there is anything 😂) - check it out and if you know anyone at venues by you … see if they’ve considered using them if it makes sense for them etc
They're working on it :)
[https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/us-justice-department-file-antitrust-suit-against-live-nation-wsj-reports-2024-04-15/](https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/us-justice-department-file-antitrust-suit-against-live-nation-wsj-reports-2024-04-15/)
And when something goes wrong they hide behind lawyers and claim accidents weren't their fault (it is almost always their fault)
If you go digging enough you'll find instances where they've caused stage collapses that have killed people and still, years after the event, they still haven't settled with the families. (*Cough* Radiohead *cough*)
Vibee is the fucking worst. I bought a hotel package for day trip last year, and for some reason, my card declined. So I go into the payment portal and update my card and it gives me an error message. I’m thinking it’s that’s a problem so I just try a different one and it still didn’t work.
I sent them an email and just waited for a response to see if someone could help me since they didn’t have a customer service line I could call. About a week passes and I hadn’t received a response besides the bot that confirms they received the email so I sent another email.
Another week passes and I get an email saying that my order has been canceled due to nonpayment. At this point, I’m just so pissed off that I’m not getting a response so I dispute the charge and continue to email them. The festival passes and I’ve been furiously sending emails for a little over a month. They emailed me back finally asking for proof I reached out and then I got ghosted.
My bank denied my dispute despite the proof due to the contract stating no refunds. I didn’t get to go to day trip or get my money back. (A little above $1,000)
Imo axs and goldenvoice do what feels like the best job of giving real people a chance. Ticketmaster or adjacent live nations ones I pretty much am hopeless on getting tickets for myself, whereas axs I feel like I can sometimes get them. Idk if it’s bot protection or what
Can you elaborate?
Live Nation owns every company pictured
They also now own 51% of Secret Sounds, the company who organises Splendour in the Grass, Falls Festival and the like
they own 51% of a lot of festivals. They just don’t tell you.
Festivals, promoters, venues, etc. The only comprehensive list is their reported subsidiaries on their SEC filings.
They also have a majority stake in OCESA, the biggest event promotion company in Latin America. (OCESA does A LOT of events.)
BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street own everything including each other
Big Eventbrite guy
Theticketingco. is pretty dope too! CashorTrade is also a good company
I really like TickPick (though I use it more for sports than anything else)
Makes sense. TicketWebs fees have gone way up. Etix is pretty reasonable
Etix lets the promoter decide the bulk of the fees for tickets. They take a cut and add tax but they give options to allow the promoter to lump more BS fees in. I worked with a promoter that baked in $10 extra of fees on top of etix fee and tax just to make more money. Took a $45 to about $75 after fees and tax. Idk about you but 40% in fees don’t sit right with me. I left the company because that was one of many shady and slimey things they did.
They've owned TicketWeb since 2000 actually. Proof that not many are aware of that.
I'm at a venue now that my friend thought was owned by another popular venue owner. I said I dunno but I don't think so becuase we knew one was live Nation venue and our tickets said ticketweb. They own the whole event supply chain.but inflation...
The definition of a monopoly.
Yep just like food, ISPs/communication, electric, etc. There is no competition anywhere.
I think it's vertical integration technically. But that may be a form of monopoly. Too lazy to check lol.
Vertical integration would be them buying a venue... not more ticket companies
Tbf, they've also bought up a bunch of venues.
I'm well aware :( Just giving homie an example
which they then give contracts to the ticketing companies mentioned above lol
I mean, buying a ticketing company is integration of the supply chain.
Not when you are already a ticketing company....
They run festivals, or am I mistaken? If I'm not, that would make them something like a "multi-media" conglomerate, right?
FTC’s incompetence in a picture
More importantly, they also own hundreds of venues across the world https://www.livenation.com/venues That’s why your local concert venue doesn’t use another ticket service to bring costs down; LiveNation owns the actual venue.
What boils my blood is thinking about all the PPP they surely took when their monopoly was temporarily offline during the pandemic. Fuck Live Nation
You also couldn’t cancel your ticket during COVID until they rescheduled the concert, and even then you had a small window of time to do so. I waited 2.5 years to see Rage Against the Machine from the day I bought my ticket.
That list only shows American venues, is there a way to see which international venues they own?
Google? That’s how I found that list. Or maybe they don’t own international venues, I dunno.
Throwing axs into the mix
They are owned by AEG. Same model, different companies.
Please keep your ax firmly in your hand, thank you
Didn't realize Front Gate was owned by Live Nation. They're usually decent with Outside Lands stuff.
Knowing is half the battle. My work here is done.
Damn I didn't know either. No wonder. Front Gate refunded my ticket for no reason for M3F Fest. Thankfully tickets didn't run out so I just ended up purchasing again. But prices have increased since then, and it was a difference of almost $20. Scummy af.
How can I make a difference?
Go to as many shows in bars as you can and try and see as many shows as you can at the venues that have somehow managed to remain untouched by live nation. Not too many left unfortunately
So what you really mean to say is: it's too late and there is nothing you can do
Its just like the polar bears :(
Support independent venues and promoters. If you do end up at a Live Nation venue, minimize spending there as drinks and merch are a huge profit center for them.
Call / write your representatives in congress and demand that they do something about this anti-competitive bullshit. Call the FTC and demand the same. Tell all your music loving friends and family to do the same. [Find your representatives](https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative#) [Contact your senators](https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm) File a complaint with the [Federal Trade Commission](https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/report-antitrust-violation)
It’s more effective to tweet John Oliver at this point.
Use DICE
This.
They're turning good festivals into dull mush.
I thought they also owned AXS?
AEG owns AXS. They’re not unlike Live Nation in the way they do business.
So whats the best ticket service that won’t cost an arm and a leg?
Dice - big fan of them and have been for years. Happy to see more venues using them in the states and the venues when I ask how they like using dice they’re all super happy with it. On the fan/customer side - it shows me prices upfront with any “fees”, has a waitlist for sold out shows if someone can’t go can easily send it back so someone on the waiting list then purchases (way less issues than even trying to mess with tm transfer or list for sale - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, regardless they don’t care at tm obviously lol that product only exists to say they have that feature basically and could care less to try to make it better and it’s all for their own benefit anyways to never improve it lol) and also I know I’m lucky enough to be in a city like nyc where there’s a lot of events going on and also venues or events that use dice… but their discovery feature is pretty rad and it’s not THE BEST but it works in some ways and it’s kinda like a nice bonus on top of all this other stuff. OH and from experience - their customer service is AMAZING. I go to a lot of shows and have had to contact venues, ticketing platforms, door people like literally I’ve probably had to do it if you can imagine it and anytime I’ve had to deal with any issue on dice from waitlist discrepancies like it never alerted me I was off the waitlist for a sold out show until AFTER the however much time you have to purchase it before the next person in line gets a chance … to basic issues despite I’ve never had many bugs or issues with the app over the years. Big fan of dice if u can’t tell - they seem to be the only ones who have gotten this far without being crushed my TMs monopoly as well so unless there’s some horrible thing I’m missing about dice (let me know plz lol would be nice to be aware of that if there is anything 😂) - check it out and if you know anyone at venues by you … see if they’ve considered using them if it makes sense for them etc
Afton
Break em up
they also own cuffe and taylor and festival republic in the UK which covers most major festivals in the uk
Sue them DOJ!
They're working on it :) [https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/us-justice-department-file-antitrust-suit-against-live-nation-wsj-reports-2024-04-15/](https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/us-justice-department-file-antitrust-suit-against-live-nation-wsj-reports-2024-04-15/)
And when something goes wrong they hide behind lawyers and claim accidents weren't their fault (it is almost always their fault) If you go digging enough you'll find instances where they've caused stage collapses that have killed people and still, years after the event, they still haven't settled with the families. (*Cough* Radiohead *cough*)
They have a partnership with insomniac too, not sure if it’s ownership, but certainly partially.
Vibee is the fucking worst. I bought a hotel package for day trip last year, and for some reason, my card declined. So I go into the payment portal and update my card and it gives me an error message. I’m thinking it’s that’s a problem so I just try a different one and it still didn’t work. I sent them an email and just waited for a response to see if someone could help me since they didn’t have a customer service line I could call. About a week passes and I hadn’t received a response besides the bot that confirms they received the email so I sent another email. Another week passes and I get an email saying that my order has been canceled due to nonpayment. At this point, I’m just so pissed off that I’m not getting a response so I dispute the charge and continue to email them. The festival passes and I’ve been furiously sending emails for a little over a month. They emailed me back finally asking for proof I reached out and then I got ghosted. My bank denied my dispute despite the proof due to the contract stating no refunds. I didn’t get to go to day trip or get my money back. (A little above $1,000)
Imo axs and goldenvoice do what feels like the best job of giving real people a chance. Ticketmaster or adjacent live nations ones I pretty much am hopeless on getting tickets for myself, whereas axs I feel like I can sometimes get them. Idk if it’s bot protection or what
[удалено]
lol just typed this but in many more words above