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BILLBOARD OFFICES
BY DON VACCARO
The potential merger talks between LiveNation and Ticketmaster, which came tolight recently in the Wall Street Journal,may make good business sense for thecompanies involved. But it’s bad for every-one else in the industry: venues, artists,managers, agents, promoters and fans.
I don’t think the deal can be com-pleted. With a new sheriff in Washing-ton, D.C., a merger that is so bad foreveryone involved in and affected by liveentertainment—a business that touchesso many of us on a consistently positivebasis—won’t be allowed to happen.
Who will hurt by this deal? I think thebetter question is, who won’t be?
Venues: Venues top the list of industryplayers that would suffer in such amerger. SMG’s recent move to switchits ticketing operations from Ticketmas-ter to Live Nation created real bitternessat Ticketmaster, causing then-CEO SeanMoriarity to issue a statement insinuat-ing that his company might enter thevenue management business if SMGfollowed through with its plans. Themessage was clear: If you play in mysandbox, I’ll look for ways to hurt you.
If a merger goes through, it would beeven easier to find new ways. Not onlycould venues lose revenue sharing fundsfrom ticket service charges, they couldface restrictions on the companies theycould partner with. Perhaps worst of all,
venues would have to balance their needto book the right entertainment at theright price with the risk of alienating aconcert giant and thus losing shows thatcould have played the building.
Artists, managers, agents: The pro-posed merger could restrict the oppor-tunities of artists who aren’t part of thecombined entity to play at the venuesserved by Ticketmaster and those runby Live Nation. Managers and agentswould also lose their ability to work withtheir clients as well as they had beforethe merger. Could certain marketing op-portunities be reserved for clients of
Front Line, the management companyowned by Ticketmaster? What about thebest on-sale dates or set times?
Promoters: Promoters and other tick-eting companies would obviously havea hard time competing against such adominant entity.
Fans—and the Boss: If so much of liveentertainment is controlled by one com-pany, it’s inevitable that ticket priceswill rise. So will service fees. Ultimatelytickets could go directly to the second-ary market.
That’s why Bruce Springsteen and hismanager, Jon Landau, wrote a letter tofans that came out against the merger.Other artists and event producers willjump on the bandwagon with similarstatements. Artists will vent their frustra-tions with the tanking economy, but theiranger will focus on the possible merger.With consumers hurting and Wall Streetgreed fresh in the minds of Americans,the negative reaction will have legs.
Whether you’re in the music businessor just a fan of live entertainment, thespecter of a live entertainment superpower should frighten you. ••••
Don Vaccaro is founder/CEO ofTicketNetwork.com, an online ticketexchange. He has more than 25 years ofexperience in the secondary ticketmarket, including a decade in industry-related software development.
4 | BILLBOARD | FEBRUARY 14, 2009
Ticket Monster?A Possible Live Nation-Ticketmaster Merger Could Hurt The Music Business
OPINION EDITORIALS | COMMENTARY | LETTERS
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SUBSCRIBE. Go to billboard.biz/subscribe or call 800-658-8372 (U.S. toll free) or 847-559-7531 (International). Letters should be concise and may be edited. All submissions published shall become the sole property of Billboard, which shall own the copyright in whole or part, for publication.
FEEDBACKBILLBOARD.COM
POLLHow is the economy affecting your
music habits? TOTAL VOTES: 9,034 33%I’m only
buying a
few songs
and albums by my favorite
artists this year.
19% I’m not buying any new music.29% Recession?
What recession?
8% I’m going to fewer concerts.
11% I’m only buying music; no
merch or concert tickets.
VACCARO
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