It’s been a busy time in the ticketing business since I last posted about it….
Ticketmaster has bought a secondary ticketing company (a ticket broker). This gives them more access, systems and a larger footprint in the broker/secondary ticketing market. They are already putting it to use by linking to them via their website for events that are sold out in the primary ticket market. They’ll make their money back on this purchase quickly….
Over at Live Nation, the chairman as resigned over a “turf war” with the CEO of the company… very interesting. It’s been written up all over the place, so I won’t bother going into those details, but… What’s the ex-chairman going to do? He tried and failed to buy his old company back recently. He has a non-compete with them re: the concert/promoting business. Taking a couple years off from this business can be deadly, trust me…. Not only has it impacted me, but Fred Rosen, the former head of Ticketmaster is still in demand, but not like he used to be :-)… the business has changed so much that it’s tough to stay on top of trends…. and many who ran it in the past are stuck in those times.
One of Live Nations “other” issues… they are leaving Ticketmaster this year to do their ticketing in-house so that they can garner more revenue from it. Good Luck! I’ve developed a couple of ticketing companies and know that just replicating what Ticketmaster is doing isn’t going to win over any hearts/minds. If you want to make money in ticketing, you have to change the business model, which I’ve been screaming from the mountain tops about for a while….
Which is a good segue to the latest ticketing news… Ticketmaster is being spun off from IACI. Again, you can read about the details elsewhere. It will be interesting to see if Ticketmaster can be more nimble as a solo entity. The reports mentioned that they will expand internationally, which is good, it’s where the growth is for them. It also mentioned that this growth will overcome the potential loss of revenue due to Live Nation leaving.
Wanna know more… ping me and let’s start a conversation!