I get where Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard is coming from in his post to the company’s blog about fees and charges added to the price of concert tickets. Shame the post was written in such a way to leave the impression that he (and his business) thinks the average punter is stupid.

Interesting email from Irving Azzof to Bob Lefsetz on Azoff’s ‘full disclosure’ tweet. Azoff wrote:

“Correct. Since acts, promoters and venues are fighting full disclosure all-in pricing that consumers want, TM is unilaterally doing this. Needless to say a major promoter has already written to us demanding we stop. Go ahead and print if you want Bob. Thanks. Irving”

I love the double spacing. Anyhow, if the live music industry cannot sort out this business in-house we’ll see a full scale PR war.

I draw your attention to Hubbard’s post, where he wrote:

Most of the parties in the live event value chain participate in these service fees either directly or indirectly – promoters, venues, teams, artists, and yes, ticketing companies – and service fee rebates are our largest annual expense at Ticketmaster.

Ticketmaster has for a long time been the whipping boy that angry punters blamed for turning reasonably priced concert tickets into a pocket gouging exercise.

It has been long known in the industry that promoters and artists receive kickbacks on the service fees charged by Ticketmaster. And know the public knows, directly from the proverbial horse’s mouth.

What would be good to see is Ticketmaster breakdown where each portion of their service fees go. Exactly how much are artists and promoters receiving? Who is really gouging who?

The concert going public deserves to know and the industry must become more transparent if it is to resurrect what are now failing fortunes across all industry sectors.

If there is any doubt that the music industry thinks we’re all stupid one need only consider the opening paragraph in the first post on the new Ticketmaster blog Ticketology.

Today we’re excited to announce three important changes to the way we interact with you.

How We Present Pricing and Fees

We get it – you don’t like service fees. You don’t like them mostly because you don’t understand what the heck they are for.

Oh, we understand what they’re for. It’s called profit. Big fat profits.

But the reality of the live entertainment business is that service fees have become an extension of the ticket price.

It might be your reality dude-who-wrote-the-blog-post, but that doesn’t mean the punters accept it. Be honest, it’s a rather lame justification for not really wanting to change your business practices.

Most of the parties in the live event value chain participate in these service fees either directly or indirectly – promoters, venues, teams, artists, and yes, ticketing companies – and service fee rebates are our largest annual expense at Ticketmaster.

I love corporate speak: live event value chain. Sounds good doesn’t it? Bamboozling even. Good to know that our entertainment has a value chain. Shame the average punter isn’t seeing much VALUE!

And TM just let it be known that even artists are taking a cut of the fees. Long live rock ‘n roll …

Paul McGuinness, arguably one of the most astute minds working in the music industry in the past THREE decades, wrote a profoundly insightful article on QC UK: How to save the music industry.

Unfortunately it was insightful for all the wrong reasons.

Mr McGuinness (yep, I revere the guy enough to call him Mr) basically regurgitated a two year old argument that ISPs should be ‘taxed’ because they are responsible for the theft of music and the industry’s current parlous state.

While I agree that a simple subscription model of a couple of dollars a month for ALL the music EVER released EASILY accessed is a good idea, it is a practical impossibility courtesy of well established music industry rights licensing models.

I posted the following on the QC website in response to Mr G’s rant:

What Mr McGuinness does not seem to understand is that whereas previously copyright was the monetisable asset for the creative industries this is no longer the case. Relationship is now the monetisable asset.

Old thinking from the old guard.

And FWIW, great artists don’t need great record companies, they need great investment vehicles that don’t have such an absurdly narrow risk spread.

The fundamental issue moving forward for investors is how to make money from an asset – relationship – that they actually have no involvement in or control over. After all, it is the author/songwriter/performer and the end consumer that share the relationship and no-one else.

And while I have you, check out this dialogue between Seth Godin and Bob Lefsetz on the McGuinness article.

A good bud of mine recently blogged I am Officially Getting Old…, when deciding whether to fork out A$110 to see Ice Cube at a club show (you read that right) in Melbourne or do other stuff with the cash, like:

# imagine the dinner I could have at a lovely Italian restaurant with my wife & son for $110, or
# I could buy 3 cubic meters of good soil for my veggie garden for less than $110!!!

He also added:

# it’s a week night, so I will be tired the next day for work

Notwithstanding my friend pondering his appreciating chronological state of being, what does this say about the business of music?

It is little wonder the industry is in such a parlous state when a club show for an artist such as Ice Cube costs $110. [I wouldn't call myself a fan but I do own a couple of his recordings.] Having worked in the biz for more than a decade I understand why it would cost that much, but I also know that only hard core fans will pay that much. It’s not a great growth strategy.

Industry king maker Irving Azoff recently tweeted:

@irvingazoff so if you want ticket prices to go down stop stealing music.

Hard to argue with the logic if a record company remains the pinnacle investor in the industry. Perhaps that’s the problem. The industry needs not just a new investment paradigm but also a new investment vehicle.