Ticketmonster No More?

Monday, June 23. 2008

Increased competition in ticket sales appears eminent once Ticketmaster spins off from InterActiveCorp (IAC) and its arrangement with Live Nation, the world's largest venue owner, comes to an end in 2009. Although the company will certainly still be a major piece of the ticketing pie, its stronghold over the industry will likely loosen as Live Nation begins ticket sales of its venues separately.

Live Nation has made headlines this past year with its exorbitant, multi-million-dollar marketing deals, or "360 deals," with megastars such as Madonna and Jay-Z for not only their concerts, but merchandising and record sales rights as well. Although revolutionary, these deals have also been a bone of contention between the company's CEO and chairman and recently cost the latter his job because of his overeagerness to execute such plans. Nonetheless, they still offer Live Nation a great opportunity for growth going forward as the company continues to latch onto new trends in the industry.

But rather than attempting to directly compete with Live Nation, Ticketmaster expects its main growth to come from ticket resales, in which it will end up going toe to toe with online resaler StubHub, a subsidiary of eBay, to which it lost resale rights to Major League Baseball tickets last year. (No doubt its suit against another professional sports team, then-client the Cleveland Cavaliers, played a role.) The company recently acquired exchange sites TicketsNow and GetMeIn! and plans to promote increased use of its online ticketing site in order to stay on top of the game.

Ticketmaster has long been criticized for its near-monopoly of the ticketing industry, most often because of sky-high service fees and lack of competing companies. However, as online retail has become increasingly popular, more and more sites have begun to crop up, from StubHub to Flash Seats and other smaller companies. Without the likes of major clients such as Live Nation or additional artist deals of its own, it's hard to imagine how Ticketmaster will maintain its previously strong footing in this industry.

Posted by Whitney Richardson at 16:14 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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