Ticketmaster whipping boy no longer

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”

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.