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|   RE:Ticketmaster, concerts, & CROOKS... | jack70
Aug 17, 2002 2:43 AM | | Just got a chance to read Dave G's post earlier in the week (nearly off the page now):
<i> "I'm doggoned mad."
Frikking Ticketmaster and concerts and so on. </i>
There was a great (long) online article, a year or so back, about how NYC was investigating how brokers, etc were ruining this (concerts) for a band's real, long-time fans. But I got this e-mail [regarding the same thing] this week. It's a paste-in of an LA-Times article. I'll paste in the first part (1/4) below [it's illegal to paste it <i>ALL</i> here because it's copyrighted]. If it strikes your fancy, you can search for it on-line (may need registration for LA-Times now ??), or I could e-mail you with the whole article.
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From: <x-x-x-@aol.com>
To: <undisclosed-recipients:>
Subject: Nothing we didn't already know.
Date: Monday, August 05, 2002 7:26 PM
Secret Deals Jack Up Prices for Concert Tickets
Entertainment: Unlisted seats are only a part of a system that costs
consumers and artists heavily.
By CHUCK PHILIPS, LA Times Staff Writer
The world's largest concert promoter is making a killing selling stealth
seats directly to brokers, a small piece of what appears to be a thriving
underground ticket economy.
SFX Entertainment Inc. sells nearly 200 prime seats to every show at Irvine
Meadows Amphitheatre exclusively to ticket brokers, who then jack up prices
charged to consumers a total of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
Artists are hurt as well as consumers, because they don't receive a penny
for these seats.
The transactions are conducted under the guise of corporate sponsorship and
involve three so-called "phantom" rows that can't be found on any public
seating chart, according to a six-week investigation by The Times.
The Times bought a ticket for one such seat to singer Jimmy Buffett's April
29 show for $375--nearly six times the face value of the ticket. That seat
could not be purchased from the Irvine Meadows box office or at any
Ticketmaster outlet, but only from Mike's Tickets, a Costa Mesa broker that
leases dozens of seats directly from SFX.
"If these allegations are true, I will explore whatever methods necessary to
recover the lost income for any of this agency's clients," said John Marx,
senior vice president of contemporary music at William Morris, which
represents such acts as Korn, Mariah Carey and Sheryl Crow.
Promoter Confirms Sales
SFX, which acquired Irvine Meadows and its concert promotion arm nearly two
years ago, confirmed this week that it sells prime seats directly to Mike's
Tickets. SFX had never disclosed the practice to artists and publicly
acknowledged the transactions only after repeated inquiries from The Times.
SFX says that reselling tickets is legal in California and that recent
performance contracts include a sentence telling acts that corporate boxes
may exist at SFX venues that are not listed on seating charts. Officials at
the company insisted that they oppose scalping but are obligated to lease
the seats to the broker under contractual arrangements they inherited with
the purchase of the venue.
"The seats in that section are part of a box seat program that has been in
place for many years," said Mike Ferrel, chief executive officer of SFX,
which is set to merge soon with Clear Channel Communications. "To the extent
that those transactions represent any dealings with scalpers, it's due to
previous commitments, which we are trying to extricate ourselves from."
SFX, a former radio corporation with no previous experience in the concert
business, became the world's biggest concert promoter over the last three
years after spending $2 billion for more than 120 venues in 31 of the top 50
U.S. markets, as well as dozens of promotion firms. Included in the deals
were a number of freewheeling independent promoters previously rumored to
participate in ticket s |
| a little more here... | jack70
Aug 17, 2002 2:51 AM | | Sorry, I didn't know there was a cgi script that limited the length of a posting... it was just getting interesting...here's the next few paragraphs...
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SFX, a former radio corporation with no previous experience in the concert
business, became the world's biggest concert promoter over the last three
years after spending $2 billion for more than 120 venues in 31 of the top 50
U.S. markets, as well as dozens of promotion firms. Included in the deals
were a number of freewheeling independent promoters previously rumored to
participate in ticket scalping.
SFX is not the only major concert corporation in bed with brokers.
Hollywood-based House of Blues, the second biggest concert promoter in the
country, was also recently caught doing business directly with brokers.
In fact, insiders say the income generated by Irvine's phantom seats
represents only a sliver of a giant black market that accounts for tens of
millions of dollars annually in "ice" (or scalped proceeds) from major music
and sports events across the nation.
Brokers often obtain concert tickets by hiring individuals to stand in line
at the box office and through telephoned orders to Ticketmaster. Because
there are limits on the number of tickets an individual can purchase, the
process is labor-intensive and time-consuming. And there is no assurance the
broker will get prime seats.
Insider ticket transactions, on the other hand, are typically bulk deals
involving the best seats in the house.
Ticket brokering has evolved over the last three decades from a tiny
sideline involving a few fly-by-night promoters into a thriving business for
a network of brokers who control nearly a quarter of the season ticket
licenses, corporate suites and premium ticket clubs at many of the nation's
largest entertainment facilities, sources say.
----- [MORE ONLINE]----- |
| i used to work in a place that had ticketron..... | rufus
Aug 19, 2002 7:21 AM | | before ticketmaster bought them out. some guy that owned one of those ticket agency places came by and wanted to speak to our owner. basically, whenever a big show was to go on sale, he wanted us to pull the first 100 tickets for him, and each time we did, he'd give the owner $100(as well as paying for the tickets, of course).
the owner, who was a great and upstanding guy, said no way, and this guy told him, "you know, you're the only one who's ever said no". i have no idea how many other ticket outlets he had in his pocket. and i'm sure 99% of ticketmaster locations around the country have similar arrangements with ticket brokers. |
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