via Facebook:

"This couldn't have happened to a more high-profile artist, at a worse time, or in a worse place. And now, New Jersey Congressman Bill Pascrell is promising action and the reintroduction of the BOSS Act, which calls for secondary market oversight and restrictions on companies like Ticketmaster.

The meltdown started Friday, when fans attempting to purchase tickets to Bruce Springsteen's upcoming 'Wrecking Ball' tour on Ticketmaster were frozen out - except, marked-up tickets were readily available on StubHub and other markup sites (and maybe even Ticketmaster's own secondary marketplace, TicketsNow.)" [Digital Music News (via)]

In the Opinion Pages of the NY Times today, Albert A. Foer, "a lawyer formerly with the Federal Trade Commission [who] is president of the American Antitrust Institute," writes that:

AT this moment, all over the United States, consumers are buying tickets to games, concerts and other live events under the impression that they have the right to give away, donate or resell the tickets they purchase. They assume that they can do so whenever and with whomever they wish and (as long as they don't violate the few remaining laws against scalping) at whatever price they choose.

But those consumers may be mistaken. In recent years ticket sellers, along with promoters, producers, artists and sports teams, have increasingly taken a new approach to selling tickets. This approach, marketed in the name of innovation, convenience and protecting purchasers, restricts those fundamental freedoms long rightly taken for granted.

The practice is so-called paperless ticketing...

We already knew that Bjork had plans for multiple 'Biophilia' shows in NYC, "tentatively in early 2012", but as of yesterday there was still no news on exactly where or when. Then last night tickets mysteriously popped up on Ticketmaster for four Bjork shows at Roseland Ballroom: 2/22, 2/25, 2/28, and 3/02. Those ticket links have since been removed, but not before a bunch of people saw it. Stay tuned!

UPDATE: Not only is she playing these shows, but there's six more somewhere else too.

"Just passed by the Radiohead line at Roseland & there is definitely a woman in that line with ACTUAL MENTAL ILLNESS. Weird scene." - Ahmad Bilal

Radiohead plays their first of two shows at Roseland Ballroom tonight (9/28) with Four Tet and friends. Tickets went on sale Monday morning and naturally sold out instantly. People are already in line to get in (see above), though I doubt they have been there as long as some waited to try and get in to SNL (or have they?).

Huffington Post wrote an article about how people are mad at not getting Radiohead tickets, and it included this statement from a Ticketmaster rep:

"There was tremendous demand for Radiohead's New York shows and in comparison, there were a relatively small number of tickets available. This is an example of where paperless ticketing -- currently restricted in New York -- could have created a great fan experience and ensured that all of the available tickets were purchased by real fans instead of some being scooped up by scalpers."- Ticketmaster

The above photo comes from Gothamist who also aggregated some funny scalper listings.

Walmart announced yesterday that it has teamed up with Ticketmaster to sell event tickets in 45 of its stores.

The touch screen kiosks will be available at 26 New Jersey stores, 18 New York stores and one store in Pennsylvania.

Ticketmaster, a division of Live Nation Entertainment, sells tickets for family entertainment, concerts and sporting events.

"By integrating ticketing into Walmart stores, we are able to offer fans this very convenient way to learn about upcoming events, purchase and take home tickets without leaving their neighborhood," said Nathan Hubbard, CEO of Ticketmaster. -[NJ.com]

"This week a new nonprofit group, the Fans First Coalition, announced itself with a mission of protecting ordinary consumers from predatory ticket scalpers. The group appeared to have broad support from the industry, including prominent artists like R.E.M., the Dixie Chicks, Maroon 5 and Jennifer Hudson.

What fans might not know is that the coalition is financed by Live Nation Entertainment, the parent company of Ticketmaster, and that it has grown out of a lobbying fight between Live Nation and StubHub, the biggest legal online ticket reseller, over control of the multibillion-dollar secondary ticketing market." [NYTimes]

"Mr. Rosen, 67, is the godfather of the $18-billion-a-year tickets business. Go to almost any big-name concert -- or to a Dodgers game or to a Broadway show -- and the odds are that you will pay dearly for his legacy.

Those you've-got-to-be-joking prices are, in good part, Mr. Rosen's handiwork. Starting in 1982, he built Ticketmaster into the tickets giant that drives many people nuts. Even before the company merged with Live Nation Entertainment last year, fans and even some performers, like Pearl Jam, complained that it was a near-monopoly. Despite the protests and a nail-biting antitrust investigation, the Justice Department disagreed and approved the merger.

So it might come as a surprise that Mr. Rosen, of all people, wants to challenge this behemoth, which sells tickets for more than 80 percent of the major concert venues." [NY Times]

"wow i really dont think iever seen a msg show sell out so fast" - Bao Nguyen

"I've also NEVER seen TM so sluggish! - Klaus Kinski

"Is it true Mubarak stepped down just for a sec to try to go on Ticketmaster to get tickets to see @lcdsoundsystem at MSG?" - Aziz Ansari

James Murphy @ ACL 2010 (more by Tim Griffin)

After a presale that sold out instantly (people waiting on line for hours in the freezing cold outside Mercury Lounge included), LCD Soundsystem just sold out their final show at Madison Square Garden in an instant (give or take a few seconds of processing time). Promoter Bowery Presents' website also crashed, presumably from all the people trying to figure out what to do, when tickets went on sale at 11am (see screenshot above). Congrats James.

Did you get your Guided by Voices New Years Eve tickets? If so, you probably got this email from Ticketmater:

Attention ticket holder!

We just learned that fans must be 21 years or older to attend this event, valid photo ID required at the gate:

Guided by Voices
Irving Plaza
Friday, December 31 with doors opening at 8PM

If you're 21 years or older no worries, your original tickets are still good. If not, we'll gladly give you a refund. We'll refund your order, including fees (except UPS and InStore Pick Up, if applicable).

Need a refund? We'll refund your order, including fees (except UPS and InStore Pick Up, if applicable). Just hit reply to this email by December 1st by 5PM, include the last four digits of the credit card used for purchase, the order number, and the name on the account, and we'll take care of it for you! We'll refund your order immediately, but please note that it can take about 7 - 10 business days to post to your account.
Questions? Just hit reply and ask us or visit Ticketmaster.com!

Continue reading "Guided by Voices giving NYE show refunds to those under 21 "

" Gov. Paterson is going nuclear in the political fight over New York's now-expired ticket scalping law. The state's 2007 scalping law, which removed price caps on the resale of tickets, expired Saturday.

As a result, Paterson is firing off a letter to 56 ticket brokers, including StubHub, reminding them a more restrictive law passed in the 1920s is back in effect. According to Paterson aides, that law prohibits the selling of tickets for more than $2 above face value.

And it prohibits primary sellers like Ticketmaster from tacking on service and delivery fees.

"Ticket resellers must act in accordance with the laws of New York State," the Paterson administration says in a copy of the letter, obtained by the Daily News." [Daily News]

"It's disgraceful that this situation went on for as long as it did, depriving fans of seeing performers whom they support," said Camille DeSantis, a New Yorker still steaming she was shut out of an online sale of Ringo Starr tickets at Radio City Music Hall.

"Four Nevada men who called themselves the Wiseguys were busted Monday for hacking into online ticket sellers like Ticketmaster and illegally grabbing up prime seats for concerts, ball games and Broadway shows.

The massive conspiracy - which allegedly netted the men $25 million between 2002 and 2009 - blocked ordinary fans from buying tickets, forcing them to turn to scalpers and price-gouging ticket brokers, officials said.

"The public thought it had a fair shot at getting tickets to these events, but what the public didn't know was that the defendants had cheated them out of that opportunity," said U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, unsealing a 43-count indictment in New Jersey.

Wiseguys Tickets was charged with using a computer program to virtually muscle to the head of the line when an online sale began." [Daily News]

The Boss @ Izod Center in May (more by Tim Griffin)

The Federal Trade Commission has settled with Ticketmaster over complaints that Ticketmaster used deceptive tactics to steer Bruce Springsteen fans to expensive scalped tickets last year. As part of the settlement, the company will pay refunds and, in a move that could have a wide impact on the multibillion-dollar resale business, make disclosures about the availability of the tickets it resells.

The settlement, announced Tuesday by the F.T.C.'s chairman, Jon Leibowitz, concerns 14 Springsteen concerts last May and June. Fans trying to buy tickets through Ticketmaster's Web site were pointed to a subsidiary site, TicketsNow. In what Mr. Leibowitz described as thousands of instances, brokers on TicketsNow -- an eBay-like resale marketplace with no price caps -- advertised tickets they did not have, and fans never got the tickets they paid for.

"TicketsNow.com sold phantom tickets without letting consumers know that the tickets did not exist," Mr. Leibowitz said in a statement. "Then the company held on to consumers' money, sometimes for months, when it knew those fans weren't going to see Springsteen. Clearly consumers deserve better. They deserve to know what they're buying, including the risk that their tickets won't materialize." According to the settlement, Ticketmaster must refund to fans who used TicketsNow the difference in price between the tickets' face value and the final amount. Mr. Lebowitz said those payments could amount to more than $1 million. In addition, brokers on TicketsNow must disclose when they are listing tickets they do not have in hand, and the F.T.C. is sending letters to about 10 large ticket resellers warning them to comply with the law.

Scalped Springsteen tickets have been a focus of news-media and political pressure on the concert industry since early last year, when fans for two Springsteen shows in New Jersey were directed from Ticketmaster to TicketsNow while tickets at face value were still available. Ticketmaster settled with the state of New Jersey over those concerts.

Last month Ticketmaster received approval from the Department of Justice to merge with the concert giant Live Nation. That merger still faces court approval. [NY Times]

"Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Md., has inked an online ticketing and marketing deal with Ticketfly. The deal marks the largest venue contract to date for the upstart ticketing company, which also handles ticketing for 9:30 Club in Washington D.C., among other venues. The 9:30 is owned and operated by independent promoter I.M.P., which also books and operates Merriweather." [Billboard]

Andrew Dreskin is the co-founder of Ticketfly, Inc., a next-generation ticketing and marketing company. He is the co-founder of the Virgin Mobile Festival, a multi-day music and arts festival. Mr. Dreskin was the co-founder, and president and C.E.O., of TicketWeb, the first company to sell event tickets over the Internet. TicketWeb was acquired by Ticketmaster in 2000. Prior to founding TicketWeb, Mr. Dreskin was the co-founder of Energy Media, an early web design firm. Prior to that, Mr. Dreskin was the executive vice president of Beserkley Records, an influential independent record label. Until its recent acquisition by Knitting Factory Entertainment, Mr. Dreskin was the largest outside shareholder in the Big Easy Concert House, a chain of concert venues in the Pacific Northwest. He holds a B.A. from Tulane University, where he is a member of the Dean's Advisory Council. He is also a member of the board of directors of Headcount, a non-profit voter registration organization.

Independent concert promoter Seth Hurwitz and the Maryland-based companies he co-owns, It's My Party (I.M.P.) and It's My Amphitheatre (IMA), have taken legal action against Live Nation.

In an 11-count lawsuit filed shortly after Live Nation and Ticketmaster announced their intentions to merge in February, plaintiffs I.M.P. and IMA allege that Los Angeles-based Live Nation "deliberately" and "unlawfully" acquired monopolistic power over promotion for the national concert market, and has used its influence to "coerce" artists from only appearing at amphitheaters and other venues the company owns, operates or books.
[Billboard - June 12, 2009]

What does it mean for NYC? How long until Bowery Presents (who probably sells more NYC tickets total through Ticketmaster than anyone else in NYC at the moment) moves to Ticketfly too? Ticketfly is already selling tickets for a few NYC venues: Brooklyn Bowl, Littlefield and Knitting Factory / Warsaw. Nothing on that list is as big as Merriweather, but Brooklyn Bowl is a Bowery Presents-booked venue (though important to note: Brooklyn Bowl were using Ticketfly before Bowery was in the picture there). And even before the TM/LN merge we learned that Bowery wasn't 100% committed to Ticketmaster when they started selling tickets to their NJ venue Wellmont Theatre through Tickets.com (though it is of course possible that they use tickets.com there due to some strange contract that came with the venue when they opened it.... regardless, anyone who has tried tickets.com knows that it won't ever be where Bowery moves permanently).

Meanwhile, Live Nation, who used to use Ticketmaster exclusively but then switched to their own LiveNation.com ticketing system, have started using Ticketmaster again. For instance, Crystal Castles' Irving Plaza show went on sale on Ticketmaster today. Shows that have been on sale for a while, like Ted Leo (and Obits and Screaming Females), are listed on Ticketmaster (its a redirect), but actually only on sale on LiveNation.com.

More details of the Baltimore story are below...

Continue reading "Ticketmaster has to pay refunds to Bruce Springsteen fans, loses Maryland's Merriweather Post Pavilion to Ticketfly"

The U.S. Justice Department approved Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc.'s merger with Live Nation Inc., while imposing conditions on their plan to create a new music- industry power.

Under terms accepted by both companies, Ticketmaster must license its software to AEG Live, its largest customer. Ticketmaster also must sell its Paciolan unit to a Comcast Corp. joint venture or another suitable buyer. The new company also will be banned for 10 years from retaliating against any concert site that signs a ticket-sales contract with a competitor.

The $889 million merger "will change the landscape of the live entertainment business," said Allen Grubman, a New York- based music industry attorney whose clients include Madonna, Elton John and U2. "Artists are focusing tremendously on live performance because that's an area where there is still a lot of money to be made." [Business Week]

"Regulators in the United Kingdom and United States appear likely to impose conditions on the merger of concert promoter Live Nation Inc. and ticket-selling giant Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. now that British authorities came out against the deal yesterday." [AP]

Once infamous -- and in many places illegal -- the reselling of tickets for profit has gone mainstream. Accelerated by the Internet and changes in state laws across the country, it is now a multibillion-dollar business serving consumers who want that last-minute ticket to Taylor Swift or "Wicked."

"The days of scalping sounding like drug dealing in a dark alley are gone," said Randy Phillips, chief executive of AEG Live, whose deal for Michael Jackson's 50-night engagement in London included a partnership with a ticket reseller. "It's all aboveboard. It's very transparent now." [NY Times]

nin.com only had access to a limited number of tickets for the upcoming terminal 5 dates in new york. the remaining tickets will be available through ticketmaster. in an effort to keep tickets in the hands of the fans and out of the hands of brokers/scalpers, ticketmaster will be selling the remaining tickets via their new paperless ticketing system.

here's how it works:
1. buy your tickets online using a credit card.
2. bring the credit card used to purchase your tickets and a valid government issued photo id to the venue.
3. go directly to the door with your guests, present your id and swipe your credit card for immediate entry into the venue. Go to ticketmaster's paperless ticket faq for more info

on friday july 24th, ticketmaster is offering nin.com members an opportunity to purchase "paperless" tickets for the upcoming nine inch nails performances at terminal 5 [and Aragon Ballroom in Chicago] before they go on sale to the public.
to buy tickets for the terminal 5 performances in new york, click here at 5:00pm edt.
password: byebye.

Continue reading "NIN Terminal 5 & Chicago presales (paperless tickets)"

"Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-8th Dist.) will announce federal legislation intended to overhaul the concert ticket industry and improve fans' chances of scoring tickets to their favorite acts.

The BOSS ACT (Better Oversight of Secondary Sales and Accountability in Concert Ticketing) [which is a clever acronym based on Bruce Springsteen's nickname] will require primary ticket sellers to disclose the number of tickets available for sale to the public and the number held back for fan clubs, presales and artist allocations, Pascrell told The Star-Ledger.

The bill would also prohibit brokers from purchasing tickets during the first 48 hours of the primary sale. It also makes it illegal for any primary ticket seller, promoter, artist or their employees to resell tickets to events they are involved in at more than their face value." [The Star Ledger]

SelectATicket - today (Monday) 10:02 a.m.

" Nobody expected that getting tickets for Bruce Springsteen concerts this fall would be easy. There have been ticket scams in the past, and this time he was offering the chance to witness the "wrecking crew" bring a finale to the old Giants Stadium in New Jersey before the place is demolished early next year. The tickets were supposed to go on sale at 10 a.m. Monday. Instead, tickets appeared on the Internet a week ahead -- ghost seats costing up to $1,300 apiece.

Last week, New Jersey's attorney general, Anne Milgram, filed charges against three companies for selling the phantom tickets (including some for sections that do not exist). "It's plain fraud," she said.

Across the river in New York, where fans routinely face huge markups in the resale market, ticket scalping is basically legal. The state once capped these markups, but lawmakers got rid of that restriction two years ago, and on Monday, Albany is expected to renew the ticketing free-for-all for another year. One reason is that, somehow, a study of this looser market was never finished in Albany. Also, a lot of money has been spread around by lobbyists who want the law to stay just as it is...." [NY Times]

"Barry Diller is currently the Chairman of Expedia and the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IAC/InterActiveCorp, an interactive commerce conglomerate and the parent of companies including ServiceMagic, Home Shopping Network, Ticketmaster, Match.com, Citysearch, LendingTree and Connected Ventures, home of Vimeo and CollegeHumor." [Wikipedia]

Read what Barry Diller thinks about Ticketmaster service charges and the Live Nation merger, below...

Continue reading "Barry Diller on Ticketmaster charges & Live Nation merger"

I guess it goes without saying that Ticketmaster's public relations team has no influence on what the Security Check displays.

(this is the screen I got while buying PJ Harvey tickets)

NIN @ the 2009 Virgin Fest (more by Bao Nguyen)

A letter from Trent below...

Continue reading "Trent Reznor: thoughts on ticket re-sellers / scalping"

"Yeah, we're getting really good at mergers and acquisitions at this point, so we've had a lot of companies that we've acquired and had to integrate. But we're working on our ability to do this much quicker. We have to keep some of these systems distributed; sometimes you just can't directly integrate them. You've got to keep running them to better integrate them into the overall enterprise."
[Joe Manna, CIO of Live Nation]

"Mr. Billy Corgan was busy in Washington today, first appearing before the House Committee on the Judiciary in a hearing on the Performance Rights Act, then delivering a letter in support of the controversial Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger. You can read Billy's words to the committee here, but essentially Corgan told congressional leaders that radio should pay performers, not just songwriters, for tracks played." [Stereogum]

"Bono said he had no opinion on the mega-merger." [Chicago Sun Times]

"I had a long conversation with a promoter who told me that with regard to a show he was promoting, Ticketmaster was guaranteeing the secondary market for the act." [Bob Lefsetz]

"In a meeting last May with more than 100 ticket brokers, Ticketmaster's then-chief executive, Sean Moriarty, acknowledged that the ticketing giant had used TicketExchange to sell 160 Neil Diamond tickets over two shows at marked-up prices." [Wall Street Journal]

"No Doubt is sticking it to Ticketmaster by selling 10% of the tickets for its North American Tour directly to fans. The goal, according to Jim Guerinot, No Doubt's manager, is for fan club members to buy tickets instead of 2nd party distributors such as TicketNow, the legal scalping division of Ticketmaster. This is the same problem Bruce Springsteen and his fans have been pissed about for weeks." [New York Press]

"AEG CEO Tim Leiweke slammed the proposed Live Nation, Ticketmaster merger, saying that it is 'not good for the industry.'" [The Busines Insider]

"Come on! Only Gene Simmons got into this business for the money. The rest of you were enraptured by the music. Can't you get the public on the same page? Can't you turn everybody into a club rat? Can't we get everybody to go out and see live music on a regular basis? Or do we have to wait until the labels fail, independent promoters are broken and every ticket is sold on TicketsNow and StubHub?" [Bob Lefsetz]

Continue reading "Bono, Billy Corgan, No Doubt, Bob Lefsetz, AEG, others chime in on Live Nation & Ticketmaster"

To accommodate overwhelming popular demand, AEG Live has announced the addition of a second Leonard Cohen show at New York's Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, May 17. This newly added second date follows the originally scheduled concert on Saturday, May 16, which attracted an incredible fan response when it was announced with an American Express early ticket on-sale last week. Audiences are clamoring for a chance to catch this intimate, superbly crafted concert as part of Cohen's 2009 North American Tour, featuring the singer/songwriter/poet, his acclaimed band, and a beloved catalog of music.

Tickets for both Radio City Music Hall shows-on Saturday, May 16 and Sunday, May 17-will go on sale beginning Monday, March 9th, 2009 at 10:00AM local time.... NPR is broadcasting select songs from Leonard Cohen's February 19th performance at New York's historic Beacon Theatre-his long-awaited first stateside performance in more than 15 years.

In related news, Ticketmaster can't get out of the news. To quote Reuters, "Ticketmaster settled with the state of New Jersey to resolve more than 2,000 complaints over how it had handled ticket sales for Bruce Springsteen concerts, and Canadians are now complaining about inflated prices to hear Leonard Cohen."

New shows have also been announced in Boston, Austin, Oakland, LA and Chicago. Videos from the Beacon Theatre show, and updated tour dates, below...

Continue reading "Leonard Cohen adds 2nd Radio City show, Beacon show streaming @ NPR, Canadians pissed at Ticketmaster (again)"

As pointed out this morning, there was a hearing on Captiol Hill today to discuss the Live Nation / Ticketmaster merger. Jim DeRogatis tuned in:

All of the senators voiced strong skepticism about the merger--including traditional foes Orrin Hatch (R-UT, and an amateur recording artist) and Charles Schumer (D-NY, and a Bruce Springsteen fan outraged by Ticketmaster's handling of the upcoming tour)--and they hurled barbed questions about skyrocketing prices, duplicitous ticket schemes and unfair competition at Ticketmaster head Irving Azoff and Live Nation boss Michael Rapino.

A native of downstate Danville, Azoff stressed his background as a music fan who traveled to Comiskey Park to see the Beatles and who promoted acts such as Dan Fogelberg and REO Speedwagon during his time at the University of Illinois. "This business is in far worse shape than many people realize," he said, adding that the merger is necessary to save it.

Rapino cited the benefits of Live Nation shows to local economies, claiming that one two-day event last summer at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy, Wisc., pumped $5 million into the area. He did not name the artist.

Rapino also argued that competition is alive and well. He cited the example of Chicago, claiming that Live Nation only promotes 16 percent of the concerts here versus 29 percent promoted by Jam. Nationally, he said Live Nation only controls 38 percent of the concert business.....
[Continued at the Chicao Sun Times]

"Ticketmaster faces a Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday about its plan to merge with Live Nation, but at least the company managed to resolve its conflict with the state of New Jersey just before the hearing takes place.

Bruce Springsteen's home state settled with the ticketing giant after fans filed thousands of complaints that Ticketmaster gouged them and others by directing them to its secondary ticketing market, TicketsNow, which offered tickets marked-up hundreds or even thousands of dollars above their asking price on the first day in which they were available.

As penance, the company paid New Jersey $350,000 and promised to compensate approximately 2,200 people who were overcharged as part of the flap, according to the Wall Street Journal (whose article can't be read without a subscription). Their means of compensation is a bit odd; out of those 2,200 disgruntled Springsteen fans, 1,000 will be entered in a random drawing to receive permission to purchase two tickets to another show on the tour without having to pay Ticketmaster's notoriously onerous convenience fees (so that's how you avoid those fees: by winning a lottery?).

In addition, Ticketmaster must erect a better wall between its primary and secondary ticketing businesses and must prove that it is selling its tickets first to the primary market, as opposed to injecting them directly into TicketsNow, whose auction style bidding generally results in higher prices.

Barry Diller, CEO of Ticketmaster, originally pinned blame for the foul-up on Visa. The company later clarified the problem was with its credit card billing system in general, which was overloaded by consumer interest in these shows -- never underestimate the popularity of Bruce Springsteen in the tri-state area.

Top brass from Ticketmaster and Live Nation will appear in a Justice Department hearing on Tuesday to determine whether they should be allowed to merge, called "The Ticketmaster/Live Nation Merger: What Does it Mean for Consumers and the Future of the Concert Business?" [WIRED]