When the U.S. Senate held hearings last month on the Taylor Swift-Ticketmaster fiasco, the consensus on Capitol Hill was overwhelmingly Taylor Swift, good, Ticketmaster, bad.
But Tuesday, during the Pollstar Live! conference for the concert and live music industry in Beverly Hills, a different picture developed during a panel that included country star Garth Brooks, long a champion of reasonable prices and fair access to tickets for his fans.
Here it’s fair to say the view was Ticketmaster is benign, bordering on good. The secondary market resellers such as StubHub, SeatGeek and old-school scalpers are the baddies. And Taylor Swift – and Bruce Springsteen and Beyoncé and Adele and any other artists whose demand for tickets outstrips their supply – are good, no matter the craziness that occurs when their tours go on sale.
Irving Azoff, CEO of Azoff MSG Entertainment, led the Pollstar panel discussion and said he was inspired to put together the talk after watching the Ticketmaster hearings on C-SPAN in January.
“There’s been a lot of talk about what’s wrong with ticketing,” said Azoff, who was CEO of Ticketmaster for three years after his previous company merged with the ticketing giant. “There’s a DOJ investigation, congressional hearings and proposed legislation in several states, including here in California, all from people outside the industry who don’t really understand how it works.
“No one cares more about fans than the artist and the artist team,” said Azoff, whose company, in addition to interests in venues including the Kia Forum and Madison Square Garden, also manages artists including the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Harry Styles and Lizzo.
“The biggest issue is that demand sometimes exceeds supply for many artists,” he continued. “More people want to see Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Adele or Garth than there are tickets for sale. There’s not a congressional hearing in the world that fixes the reality that demand exceeds supply. There’s nothing that Ticketmaster, the building, the promoter or the artists can do to fix that.”
Azoff said that instead of targeting Ticketmaster efforts to rein in the wild west of the modern-day, concert ticketing should focus on “bad actors looking to turn desperation into profit,” by which he meant the scalpers or resellers who often scoop up large chunks of available tickets before everyday fans get their shot.
His other proposed solutions included improving ticket-pricing transparency to include fees in the sticker price and taking on the technology used by resellers such as automated bots used to game ticket sales. Banning speculative ticket sales for shows that haven’t been finalized yet, such as U2’s fall performances in Las Vegas, should also be done.
Or, the industry could simply do what Brooks came back to again and again throughout the 45-minute panel discussion.
“But isn’t it true, though, if we just get rid of scalping this goes away?” he asked after panelist Makan Delrahim, a former U.S. assistant attorney general who focused on antitrust issues, suggested using the Federal Trade Commission to tackle part of the problem.
The large ticket resellers took the brunt of the criticism from the panel. James Dolan, CEO of Madison Square Garden Entertainment, noted that while Ticketmaster also offers a way for ticketholders to resell their tickets, at least theirs are verified so that purchasers know they have a real ticket and don’t face disappointment when they show up and find out they don’t.
During the question-and-answer period that ended the event, an official with the 9:30 Club concert venue in Washington D.C. suggested that resales be limited to a 15 percent increase over the original price. Azoff said he thought the industry would be open to that idea, mentioning 25 percent as a possible markup, adding that the exorbitant hikes some resellers charge end up hurting the artists.
“That fan, when he spends the money, if he’s got a scalped ticket, he automatically thinks, ‘Oh, Garth charged me that,’” Azoff said.
“It really doesn’t hurt me,” Brooks replied. “I get the same amount of money either ways. It’s the people that allow you to get to play music. Hell, if I thought it was worth more than the ticket price I would charge it.
“But I’ve seen the show,” he added, prompting laughter from the audience.
“I disagree vehemently with him,” Azoff replied. “He’s worth more than he charges and I love him for it.”
Dynamic pricing, which shocked Springsteen fans as they saw prices for the most-sought-after tickets soar, also came under discussion. In that model, the increase over face value goes to the artist, not the resellers, and to Azoff and the others, that’s a fairer practice in their what’s-best-for-the-artist point of view.
When a questioner asked about recent stories of Springsteen tickets going for as little as $20, or even $6, Azoff and Dolan disagreed that that proves the market will correct itself, with Dolan arguing that’s what the resellers and their lobbyists long have argued.
Brooks remained the star of the panel throughout. After Azoff noted that musicians are better at writing songs than at organizing for business reforms he looked at Brooks and suggested he write a song about fixing ticketing.
“Sure, can it be something on shouldn’t we make scalping illegal?” Brooks replied to more laughter.
To him, it’s the music that matters most, and the ability of the performer and the audience to come together to share that experience for a few hours in concerts.
“For me, music is a thing that heals,” Brooks said. “It’s something that unifies. The less we can make a (bleep) show out of it with the robots and the more we can get rid of the people that really don’t give a damn about the music, they just want to make money on it, then I think you’ll get the artists and the people who allow that artist to be an artist in the same room.
“That’s when music is at its best, and I’d just love to find a way to get there.”
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