The Bad Boys of Business: Ticketmaster/Live Nation

By Mike Schuster Sep 03, 2009 9:30 am

Two companies that strike a dissonant chord with music fans.

Comment

They're the Batman super-villains of the music world. Cold and heartlessly cruel on their own, but with forces combined, they create an unmitigated flood of destruction, corruption, and evil that no music fan could ever hope to bring down.

And later this year, Ticketmaster (TKTM) and Live Nation (LYV) will become one.

As of last year, Ticketmaster held nearly 10,000 exclusive deals with venue locations. So for 90% of arenas and 70% of smaller clubs, if you want to see a show, you have to go through Ticketmaster -- a prospect that wouldn't necessarily be so bad if it weren't for the markups and mysterious charges.

In addition to the Service Charge and Facility Charge -- which go to Ticketmaster and the venue, respectively -- there's the Processing and Convenience Charges on every ticket sold.

The Processing Charge would appear to cover the hassle and endless red tape of taking your money and finding you a seat. According to Ticketmaster, it's no way, no how, exactly like a Service Charge.

The Convenience Charge allows the customers to print out their own tickets after purchasing them. So, Ticketmaster saves on paper and ink, but charges the end-user anyway.

How much do these pesky extra charges add to the price of a ticket? Approximately 35%. But depending on the act, venue, and delivery options, a ticket could be marked up 97% -- like in the case of the Symphony X show at Chicago's Pearl Room.

In early 2009, Ticketmaster landed in hot water for a glitch that redirected customers to its subsidiary site, TicketsNow, after showing that particular concerts were sold out -- even when they weren't. Of course, TicketsNow was peddling the "sold out" tickets for more than twice the price.

In January, Bruce Springsteen fans experienced this issue and were shocked to find that tickets that were normally between $65 and $95 were being sold for between $200 and $5,000 on TicketsNow.

And if that didn't make their Jersey blood boil, some people who ordered tickets never received them.

The company -- which didn't respond to requests for comment on this article -- was sidelined with 2,000 complaints and an irate letter from The Boss himself. In the end, Ticketmaster coughed up $350,000 in compensation, and in June, was forced to pay a $50,000 fine for the shady brokerage practices of TicketsNow.Twitter: @mcs212