Ticketmaster
Encyclopedia
Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc. is an independent American ticket sales and distribution company based in West Hollywood, California
, USA
, with operations in many countries around the world. In 2010 it merged with Live Nation
to become Live Nation Entertainment. Most US ticket sales for US venues are fulfilled at Ticketmaster's two main fulfillment centers located in Charleston, West Virginia, and Pharr, Texas. Typically, Ticketmaster's clients (promoters) control their events, and Ticketmaster acts as an agent, selling the tickets that the clients make available to them.
Ticketmaster sells many of its tickets online, some via phone, and some through its many ticket outlets.
On 10 January 2008, Ticketmaster completed the acquisition of Paciolan Inc. after the deal was subject to months of litigation over the potential breach of antitrust laws. Paciolan is a developer of ticketing system applications and hosted ticketing systems. In January 2009, Ticketmaster acquired a UK ticket exchange
site, Getmein.com. Getmein is a ticket exchange site that allows sellers to list the tickets at whatever price they choose. It claims to have over 500,000 tickets listed at any one time.
On 10 February 2009, Ticketmaster and Live Nation
, the largest concert promoter, officially announced their merger deal. After almost a year of review, the two companies merged on 25 January 2010, under the name Live Nation Entertainment .
Typical fees added to a ticket's face value include:
As an example of a typical markup, as seen on Ticketmaster.com, a ticket to see the Cincinnati Cyclones
play at US Bank Arena on February 9, 2011 cost $13. In addition to this, Ticketmaster levies fees of $4.05 (processing charge), $2.50 (print your own ticket charge) and $4.35 (convenience charge), a total of $10.90, 84% of the ticket's original price. In most instances service charges amount to up to 50% of a ticket's face value.
Ticketmaster has been criticized from those who claim its fees are excessive, with 40 British MPs signing an early day motion
criticizing the company for overcharging and for the lack of transparency in its pricing structure.
In 2003, a class action lawsuit was filed against Ticketmaster LLC. in Los Angeles District Court alleging that Ticketmaster misrepresented the exact nature of the shipping and processing fees included in certain ticket sales. That dispute then spilled over into a related lawsuit filed in 2010 against Ticketmaster’s liability insurance carrier Illinois Union Insurance Company, a subsidiary of ACE Limited (NYSE: ACE).
Ticketmaster is the subject of frequent complaints in the media due to high ticket service charges. Notably, in the 1990s, Pearl Jam
's complaints about Ticketmaster led the U.S. Department of Justice to open an antitrust investigation into the company's practices. The investigation was ultimately dropped because, according to former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno
, other competitors were entering the ticket industry, and there was a lack of evidence to proceed.
Recently, there appear to have been questionable dealings between Ticketmaster and TicketsNow.com (which was acquired by Ticketmaster in January 2008). An anonymous source alleges that a TicketsNow executive assisted with the sale of more than $1 million worth of Radiohead tickets on the TicketsNow website There appears to be a conflict of interest when a company operates in both the primary and secondary sales markets, and furthers claims about the negative implications of Ticketmaster's monopoly on ordinary consumers.
Competitors include Wantickets, Tickets.com
, ShowClix
, StubHub
, Classictic
, TicketBiscuit
, Enta USA and others. TicketWeb, a Ticketmaster subsidiary also offers lower fees. These companies are typically excluded from primary ticket sales for major-league sports events in the U.S. (with the exception of Major League Baseball, which, as noted below, is now the owner of Tickemaster's number two competitor Tickets.com).
A new brand of competition has emerged in the form of companies selling ticket futures contract
s. Web-based companies such as Yoonew
and TicketReserve offer ticket futures which guarantee customers tickets to big games such as the Super Bowl
and World Series
if the team for which they have futures contract
s makes it. Though the price of ticket futures are often substantially lower than the price of actual tickets to the big event, customers risk losing their investment if their team does not make it. Yoonew
, in addition, provides an exchange
where ticket futures can be traded between users.
Ticketmaster is the primary ticket seller for 27 of the 30 NHL
teams and 28 of 30 NBA
teams, but in 2005, Major League Baseball acquired Ticketmaster rival Tickets.com. Some analysts expect MLB to stop using Ticketmaster for the sale of its approximately 100,000,000 baseball tickets per year once current contracts with Ticketmaster have expired. Thus, when the Ticketmaster contracts end, finding sources for primary or "box office" tickets online may become a difficult task and vertical ticket search engines may become indispensable for finding primary ticket outlets.
Also of concern to the company is declining sales in the highly profitable concert business. Off by double-digit percentages in 2005 from 2004, the summer concert season is a major profit center for the company with its high per-ticket prices and accompanying high service fees.
Ticketmaster has had only limited success in the secondary ticketing market. In September 2003, Ticketmaster announced plans to sell tickets in internet auctions, which would bring the price of tickets closer to market prices, but its market share compared to that of eBay or Stubhub remains small, and Internet auctions are still a relatively minor part of its business. Indeed, since around the time of the 2003 announcement, Ticketmaster has lost the lead in the secondary ticketing market to new entrants like Stubhub, who have developed a popular and effective person-to-person market for tickets. Recently, Ticketmaster President Sean Moriarty appeared on a story about the ticketing business on NPR and pleaded for legislation that would make the selling of tickets from person to person illegal except through Ticketmaster's own product for this purpose. Ticketmaster established the Ticketmaster Ticketexchange to try to compete with Stubhub, their main tagline being that tickets are 100% guaranteed to be authentic, since they are sold through the season ticket holder's account. (Some NFL teams require people to be on the waiting list in order to use the service. The New England Patriots, New York Giants and New York Jets require waiting list memberships.)
In Canada, Ticketmaster is trying to overturn anti-scalping
legislation that is in place in some provinces. They are lobbying the Ontario and Manitoba governments to review rules banning the resale of tickets. The Premier of Ontario
, Dalton McGuinty
, stated on March 23, 2009 that his government is planning to introduce legislation which would prevent Ticketmaster from reselling tickets through its TicketsNow
website after they would not agree to do so when asked by the Province.
Also in Canada, front page news in early January 2008 was a story about how a show for AC/DC in Vancouver was sold out in minutes, only for tickets to be available for higher prices on TicketsNow. The resale site also charged up to $1,199 for a $44 face-value ticket to a recent Killers concert in Toronto — roughly a 2,500% markup.
In an article by the CBC, Ticketmaster has been quoted as saying
In late summer 2009, Ticketmaster developed a new way to resell tickets that attempted to shut out brokers and scalpers. This new system relies on a "paperless" ticketing platform, which makes customers prove their purchase by showing a credit card and ID. Paperless tickets account for fewer than 1% of all ticket sales.
This term is actually somewhat less aggressive than previously, following criticism and accusations of spamming. However, users of the site automatically receive a regular "My Account" email, which comes with the notice "By signing up to Ticketmaster you agreed to receive this email. If you do not want to receive it, you can edit your preferences on the site". In other words, Ticketmaster deliberately does not allow users to opt-out at signup from unwanted email
in order to increase the audience for its marketing, and the unsubscribe procedure requires the user to login to a web page: there is no simple unsubscribe link or email address.
appealed to the Antitrust Division
of the United States Department of Justice
, complaining that Ticketmaster adopted monopolistic practices and refused to lower service fees for the band's tickets. At the time, Pearl Jam wanted to keep ticket prices under $20 for their fans, with service charges no greater than $1.80. The company had exclusive contracts with many of the large venues in the United States and threatened to take legal action if those contracts were broken. The Justice Department ruled in favor of Ticketmaster which culminated in the cancellation of the 1994 Pearl Jam tour. Four years later, Pearl Jam resumed their relationship with Ticketmaster.
On April 28, 1997, Ticketmaster sued Microsoft
over its Sidewalk
service for allegedly deep linking
into Ticketmaster's site. The suit was settled after a two-year legal battle in which Ticketmaster claimed that linking to specific pages on an Internet site without permission was an unfair practice.
In 2003, the popular jam band The String Cheese Incident and its associated booking group, SCI Ticketing, sued Ticketmaster arguing that Ticketmaster's exclusive use contracts at most US venues was a breach of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. This lawsuit was settled in 2004 with no publicity of the settlement terms.
In 2009, Ticketmaster faced several lawsuits across North America, claiming they conspired to divert tickets to popular events to its ticket brokering website TicketsNow
, in which the same tickets were sold at premium prices. This also raised the ire of rock legend Bruce Springsteen
, who said he was 'furious' at Ticketmaster, and "...the one thing that would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan than it is now would be Ticketmaster and Live Nation coming up with a single system, thereby returning us to a near monopoly situation in music ticketing".
West Hollywood, California
West Hollywood, a city of Los Angeles County, California, was incorporated on November 29, 1984, with a population of 34,399 at the 2010 census. 41% of the city's population is made up of gay men according to a 2002 demographic analysis by Sara Kocher Consulting for the City of West Hollywood...
, USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, with operations in many countries around the world. In 2010 it merged with Live Nation
Live Nation
Live Nation is a live-events company based in Beverly Hills, California, focused on concert promotions. Live Nation formed in 2005 as a spin-off from Clear Channel Communications, which then merged with Ticketmaster in 2010 to become Live Nation Entertainment....
to become Live Nation Entertainment. Most US ticket sales for US venues are fulfilled at Ticketmaster's two main fulfillment centers located in Charleston, West Virginia, and Pharr, Texas. Typically, Ticketmaster's clients (promoters) control their events, and Ticketmaster acts as an agent, selling the tickets that the clients make available to them.
Ticketmaster sells many of its tickets online, some via phone, and some through its many ticket outlets.
On 10 January 2008, Ticketmaster completed the acquisition of Paciolan Inc. after the deal was subject to months of litigation over the potential breach of antitrust laws. Paciolan is a developer of ticketing system applications and hosted ticketing systems. In January 2009, Ticketmaster acquired a UK ticket exchange
Ticket exchange
-Secondary market:Ticket Exchanges alternatively known as Ticket Brokers, allow the public to advertise, trade, sell, and buy unwanted tickets online....
site, Getmein.com. Getmein is a ticket exchange site that allows sellers to list the tickets at whatever price they choose. It claims to have over 500,000 tickets listed at any one time.
On 10 February 2009, Ticketmaster and Live Nation
Live Nation
Live Nation is a live-events company based in Beverly Hills, California, focused on concert promotions. Live Nation formed in 2005 as a spin-off from Clear Channel Communications, which then merged with Ticketmaster in 2010 to become Live Nation Entertainment....
, the largest concert promoter, officially announced their merger deal. After almost a year of review, the two companies merged on 25 January 2010, under the name Live Nation Entertainment .
Service fees
Ticketmaster does not receive any of the advertised ticket price when a ticket is sold. Instead, income is derived from service fees. Consumers often find these markups unreasonably excessive, especially because there are many instances where no alternative purchase method is offered that would allow avoidance of the fees. This business practice, along with a dearth of competitors, has led many to view Ticketmaster as monopolistic. Alternative ticketing companies have emerged but due to Ticketmaster's exclusive agreements with a large percentage of venues the company does not need to lower service fees. In some instances customers may be able to buy tickets directly from the venue, which may make its own service charge.Typical fees added to a ticket's face value include:
- Service Charge This is Ticketmaster's charge for the general service they provide and maintain. The amount paid may depend upon the method of payment (by phone, online, or in person).
- Building Facility Charge This is determined by the venue, and not Ticketmaster.
- Processing Charge This is Ticketmaster's charge for processing your order and making the tickets available to you. This is usually not a per ticket charge, but rather a per order charge.
- Shipping Charge, E-Ticket Convenience Charge, or Will Call Charge Ticketmaster charges a fee for ticket delivery, whether the tickets are mailed to the customer, printed out at home, or collected from the venue. The charge for printing out the ticket at home is often higher than the fee to have the ticket physically mailed to you. In other sectors, such as airline ticketing, companies usually do not charge (and in some cases even offer a discount), for electronic ticketElectronic ticketAn electronic ticket is a digital ticket. It may be issued by an airline, in road, urban or rail public transport, and in entertainment.-Airline ticket:...
ing. Economist Emily OsterEmily OsterEmily Fair Oster is an American economist. After receiving an B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard in 2002 and 2006 respectively, Oster moved to the University of Chicago where she is now a Becker Fellow, which is a two year position at the Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory...
of the Chicago Booth School of BusinessBooth School of BusinessThe University of Chicago Booth School of Business is a graduate business school located in Chicago, Illinois, at the University of Chicago. Formerly known as the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, Chicago Booth is the second oldest business school in the U.S., the first such school...
suggests that this reflects the lack of competition in the industry, with customers willing to pay more for the convenience of obtaining the tickets immediately due to a lack of alternate options.
As an example of a typical markup, as seen on Ticketmaster.com, a ticket to see the Cincinnati Cyclones
Cincinnati Cyclones
The Cincinnati Cyclones are a professional hockey team based in Cincinnati, Ohio. The team is a member of the ECHL. Founded in 1990, the team first played their games in the Cincinnati Gardens and now play at U.S. Bank Arena....
play at US Bank Arena on February 9, 2011 cost $13. In addition to this, Ticketmaster levies fees of $4.05 (processing charge), $2.50 (print your own ticket charge) and $4.35 (convenience charge), a total of $10.90, 84% of the ticket's original price. In most instances service charges amount to up to 50% of a ticket's face value.
Ticketmaster has been criticized from those who claim its fees are excessive, with 40 British MPs signing an early day motion
Early day motion
An Early Day Motion , in the Westminster system, is a motion, expressed as a single sentence, tabled by Members of Parliament for debate "on an early day" . Controversial EDMs are not signed by Government Ministers, PPS or the Speaker of the House of Commons and very few are debated on the floor...
criticizing the company for overcharging and for the lack of transparency in its pricing structure.
In 2003, a class action lawsuit was filed against Ticketmaster LLC. in Los Angeles District Court alleging that Ticketmaster misrepresented the exact nature of the shipping and processing fees included in certain ticket sales. That dispute then spilled over into a related lawsuit filed in 2010 against Ticketmaster’s liability insurance carrier Illinois Union Insurance Company, a subsidiary of ACE Limited (NYSE: ACE).
Ticket sales market
Ticketmaster frequently obtains agreements to become the sole provider of tickets for large venues, in keeping with a business strategy it has used since the 1980s when it consolidated regional ticketing services into a single entity. In many cases, acquiring this exclusivity requires Ticketmaster to pay substantial "signing bonuses" to venues, sometimes millions of dollars. Although this practice can significantly reduce the profitability to Ticketmaster of these exclusive relationships, to date using these bonuses has enabled them to maintain venue exclusivity as a competitive strategy, though the future viability of this strategy is unclear as the Internet as the primary sales channel for tickets makes exclusivity a less attractive option for venues.Ticketmaster is the subject of frequent complaints in the media due to high ticket service charges. Notably, in the 1990s, Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam is an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Eddie Vedder , Jeff Ament , Stone Gossard , and Mike McCready...
's complaints about Ticketmaster led the U.S. Department of Justice to open an antitrust investigation into the company's practices. The investigation was ultimately dropped because, according to former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno
Janet Reno
Janet Wood Reno is a former Attorney General of the United States . She was nominated by President Bill Clinton on February 11, 1993, and confirmed on March 11...
, other competitors were entering the ticket industry, and there was a lack of evidence to proceed.
Recently, there appear to have been questionable dealings between Ticketmaster and TicketsNow.com (which was acquired by Ticketmaster in January 2008). An anonymous source alleges that a TicketsNow executive assisted with the sale of more than $1 million worth of Radiohead tickets on the TicketsNow website There appears to be a conflict of interest when a company operates in both the primary and secondary sales markets, and furthers claims about the negative implications of Ticketmaster's monopoly on ordinary consumers.
Competitors include Wantickets, Tickets.com
Tickets.com
Tickets.com is a Costa Mesa, California-based global ticketing company. The company is owned by Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the interactive media and Internet division of Major League Baseball, and currently handles sales of tickets for 15 major league teams...
, ShowClix
ShowClix
ShowClix is a full-service ticketing company that offers web-based solutions to event organizers, promoters and venue managers internationally. The company provides its clients, which include live music venues, performing arts groups, museums, festivals, nightclubs, artist management companies,...
, StubHub
Stubhub
StubHub is an online marketplace owned by eBay, which provides services for buyers and sellers of tickets for sports, concerts, theater and other live entertainment events....
, Classictic
Classictic
Classictic is a service that provides information and ticket sales for classical music events on a multi-lingual internet portal. Classictic acts as an agent for concert organizers, opera houses, orchestras and musicians, facilitating the primary sale of tickets to their events as an auxiliary...
, TicketBiscuit
TicketBiscuit
TicketBiscuit is a Birmingham, Alabama-based online ticketing company. The company provides a proprietary, Web-based event management system to help small and midsize entertainment venues, including promoters, colleges, churches, theaters, nightspots, comedy clubs and individual artists - sell...
, Enta USA and others. TicketWeb, a Ticketmaster subsidiary also offers lower fees. These companies are typically excluded from primary ticket sales for major-league sports events in the U.S. (with the exception of Major League Baseball, which, as noted below, is now the owner of Tickemaster's number two competitor Tickets.com).
A new brand of competition has emerged in the form of companies selling ticket futures contract
Futures contract
In finance, a futures contract is a standardized contract between two parties to exchange a specified asset of standardized quantity and quality for a price agreed today with delivery occurring at a specified future date, the delivery date. The contracts are traded on a futures exchange...
s. Web-based companies such as Yoonew
Yoonew
yoonew, Inc. was a start-up based in New York City, USA, that ran an online exchange specializing in championship sports tickets and ticket derivatives...
and TicketReserve offer ticket futures which guarantee customers tickets to big games such as the Super Bowl
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather...
and World Series
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, played between the American League and National League champions since 1903. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy...
if the team for which they have futures contract
Futures contract
In finance, a futures contract is a standardized contract between two parties to exchange a specified asset of standardized quantity and quality for a price agreed today with delivery occurring at a specified future date, the delivery date. The contracts are traded on a futures exchange...
s makes it. Though the price of ticket futures are often substantially lower than the price of actual tickets to the big event, customers risk losing their investment if their team does not make it. Yoonew
Yoonew
yoonew, Inc. was a start-up based in New York City, USA, that ran an online exchange specializing in championship sports tickets and ticket derivatives...
, in addition, provides an exchange
Futures exchange
A futures exchange or futures market is a central financial exchange where people can trade standardized futures contracts; that is, a contract to buy specific quantities of a commodity or financial instrument at a specified price with delivery set at a specified time in the future. These types of...
where ticket futures can be traded between users.
Ticketmaster is the primary ticket seller for 27 of the 30 NHL
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...
teams and 28 of 30 NBA
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
teams, but in 2005, Major League Baseball acquired Ticketmaster rival Tickets.com. Some analysts expect MLB to stop using Ticketmaster for the sale of its approximately 100,000,000 baseball tickets per year once current contracts with Ticketmaster have expired. Thus, when the Ticketmaster contracts end, finding sources for primary or "box office" tickets online may become a difficult task and vertical ticket search engines may become indispensable for finding primary ticket outlets.
Also of concern to the company is declining sales in the highly profitable concert business. Off by double-digit percentages in 2005 from 2004, the summer concert season is a major profit center for the company with its high per-ticket prices and accompanying high service fees.
Ticketmaster has had only limited success in the secondary ticketing market. In September 2003, Ticketmaster announced plans to sell tickets in internet auctions, which would bring the price of tickets closer to market prices, but its market share compared to that of eBay or Stubhub remains small, and Internet auctions are still a relatively minor part of its business. Indeed, since around the time of the 2003 announcement, Ticketmaster has lost the lead in the secondary ticketing market to new entrants like Stubhub, who have developed a popular and effective person-to-person market for tickets. Recently, Ticketmaster President Sean Moriarty appeared on a story about the ticketing business on NPR and pleaded for legislation that would make the selling of tickets from person to person illegal except through Ticketmaster's own product for this purpose. Ticketmaster established the Ticketmaster Ticketexchange to try to compete with Stubhub, their main tagline being that tickets are 100% guaranteed to be authentic, since they are sold through the season ticket holder's account. (Some NFL teams require people to be on the waiting list in order to use the service. The New England Patriots, New York Giants and New York Jets require waiting list memberships.)
In Canada, Ticketmaster is trying to overturn anti-scalping
Ticket resale
Ticket resale is the act of reselling tickets for admission to events. Tickets are bought from licensed sellers and are then sold for a price determined by the individual or company in possession of the tickets. Tickets sold through secondary sources may be sold for less or more than their face...
legislation that is in place in some provinces. They are lobbying the Ontario and Manitoba governments to review rules banning the resale of tickets. The Premier of Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, Dalton McGuinty
Dalton McGuinty
Dalton James Patrick McGuinty, Jr., MPP is a Canadian lawyer, politician and, since October 23, 2003, the 24th and current Premier of the Canadian province of Ontario....
, stated on March 23, 2009 that his government is planning to introduce legislation which would prevent Ticketmaster from reselling tickets through its TicketsNow
TicketsNow
TicketsNow, established in 1999 and based in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, is a marketplace for event tickets.TicketsNow was named in 2004 and 2006 to the Inc. 500 Index of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the U.S...
website after they would not agree to do so when asked by the Province.
Also in Canada, front page news in early January 2008 was a story about how a show for AC/DC in Vancouver was sold out in minutes, only for tickets to be available for higher prices on TicketsNow. The resale site also charged up to $1,199 for a $44 face-value ticket to a recent Killers concert in Toronto — roughly a 2,500% markup.
In an article by the CBC, Ticketmaster has been quoted as saying
- "You and I both know there is a thriving ticket-broker industry... so the law is really a fiction... We very strongly feel the law needs to be modernized to reflect the reality of internet commerce. By keeping a price cap in place, you're really just driving the [resale] business into the shadows."
In late summer 2009, Ticketmaster developed a new way to resell tickets that attempted to shut out brokers and scalpers. This new system relies on a "paperless" ticketing platform, which makes customers prove their purchase by showing a credit card and ID. Paperless tickets account for fewer than 1% of all ticket sales.
Privacy
The company's use of personal information is more aggressive than most: a term that users wishing to purchase from their website must agree to is to receive Ticketmaster marketing:-
- "By completing this registration form you indicate that you consent to Ticketmaster sharing your email address and other information with those who provide the event, and that you consent to those who provide the event using your information to contact you by email or other means to send you marketing or other messages or using or disclosing your information in other ways. By completing this registration form, you also indicate that you consent to Ticketmaster contacting you by email or other means to send you marketing or other messages and using and disclosing the information you submit, as described in the Ticketmaster Privacy."
This term is actually somewhat less aggressive than previously, following criticism and accusations of spamming. However, users of the site automatically receive a regular "My Account" email, which comes with the notice "By signing up to Ticketmaster you agreed to receive this email. If you do not want to receive it, you can edit your preferences on the site". In other words, Ticketmaster deliberately does not allow users to opt-out at signup from unwanted email
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
in order to increase the audience for its marketing, and the unsubscribe procedure requires the user to login to a web page: there is no simple unsubscribe link or email address.
Prominent lawsuits
In 1994, the rock band Pearl JamPearl Jam
Pearl Jam is an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Eddie Vedder , Jeff Ament , Stone Gossard , and Mike McCready...
appealed to the Antitrust Division
United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division
The United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division is responsible for enforcing the antitrust laws of the United States. It shares jurisdiction over civil antitrust cases with the Federal Trade Commission and often works jointly with the FTC to provide regulatory guidance to businesses...
of the United States Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
, complaining that Ticketmaster adopted monopolistic practices and refused to lower service fees for the band's tickets. At the time, Pearl Jam wanted to keep ticket prices under $20 for their fans, with service charges no greater than $1.80. The company had exclusive contracts with many of the large venues in the United States and threatened to take legal action if those contracts were broken. The Justice Department ruled in favor of Ticketmaster which culminated in the cancellation of the 1994 Pearl Jam tour. Four years later, Pearl Jam resumed their relationship with Ticketmaster.
On April 28, 1997, Ticketmaster sued Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
over its Sidewalk
Sidewalk.com
Sidewalk.com was first registered in 1995 by a C.D. Bell of Los Angeles, CA, as a website where local subscribers could gain a presence on the web. Bell compiled a lengthy list of possible names for his new domain, and much to his surprise his first choice, "Sidewalk.com", was available. Most of...
service for allegedly deep linking
Deep linking
On the World Wide Web, deep linking is making a hyperlink that points to a specific page or image on a website, instead of that website's main or home page. Such links are called deep links.-Example:...
into Ticketmaster's site. The suit was settled after a two-year legal battle in which Ticketmaster claimed that linking to specific pages on an Internet site without permission was an unfair practice.
In 2003, the popular jam band The String Cheese Incident and its associated booking group, SCI Ticketing, sued Ticketmaster arguing that Ticketmaster's exclusive use contracts at most US venues was a breach of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. This lawsuit was settled in 2004 with no publicity of the settlement terms.
In 2009, Ticketmaster faced several lawsuits across North America, claiming they conspired to divert tickets to popular events to its ticket brokering website TicketsNow
TicketsNow
TicketsNow, established in 1999 and based in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, is a marketplace for event tickets.TicketsNow was named in 2004 and 2006 to the Inc. 500 Index of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the U.S...
, in which the same tickets were sold at premium prices. This also raised the ire of rock legend Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
, who said he was 'furious' at Ticketmaster, and "...the one thing that would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan than it is now would be Ticketmaster and Live Nation coming up with a single system, thereby returning us to a near monopoly situation in music ticketing".
Key Staff
- Nathan Hubbard -- CEO
- Terry Barnes—Chairman
- Eric Korman—President
- Rick Oliver—PMO