AllThingsD » Live Nation

Stunning News: Music Industry Acts Rationally

Peter Kafka — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:14:56 +0000

Here’s the music industry’s version of a man-bites-dog story: Big label signs big artist to a rational deal.

In this case, it’s Madonna’s new pact with Universal Music Group. The New York Post says she’ll get around $1 million an album for a three-album deal, and music industry folks say the paper has its numbers right.

This is a very reasonable contract. Madonna is long past her music-selling peak, and the music industry is a decade past its peak, too.

Still! Reasonable contracts — especially for superstars — are still very new things for the music business. Not too many years ago, Sony handed Bruce Springsteen a reported $100 million, and that was well into the post-Napster slide. So let’s just walk through what each side gets here:

Madonna gets the kind of money, upfront, that she would have laughed at in the past. A million bucks is what you used to give a hot “baby band” no one but a few hipsters had heard of. But the world’s biggest music company will buy her billboards, etc., and that’s still worth something. Plus, on the off chance that one of these albums does take off, the low advance means she could actually earn royalties on the sales.
Universal gets bragging rights and one of the music industry’s few living worldwide icons, for what amounts to walking-around money. And, again, who knows? She might still sell some records, perhaps on the back of her upcoming Super Bowl appearance.
Universal doesn’t get Madonna’s lucrative back catalog — Warner Music Group still has those songs, which it continues to sell, repackage, and sell some more. And Universal doesn’t get a piece of her lucrative touring business — concert giant Live Nation has that. (Remember when Live Nation was also going to be a big deal in the record business? What happened to that?)

But wait a minute. Why does Madonna need a record deal at all? Couldn’t she just sell her music on her own, like Prince and Radiohead and the Eagles and lots of folks?

Sure. But not everyone wants to be Louis C.K., who has just declared his direct-to-fan experiment a huge success. (To play devil’s advocate: Even though everyone who bought one of his concerts blogged about it (more than once, in some cases), he has still only reached 130,000 people — far less than would have seen him had he done an HBO deal or a Netflix deal. And those guys would almost certainly have paid him more, too. Though if you want to be a contra-contrarian, you can note that he could still do that. (Which I have!)

Some people, it turns out, are still happy to take money up front from Big Media companies and hope they can deliver the Big Reach, which the do-it-yourself Web can’t guarantee.

Free, Live Streaming Music and Video on Your iPhone -- From Apple

Peter Kafka — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 11:30:43 +0000

There are more than 425,000 apps in Apple’s iTunes store, but it’s always worth paying attention to the ones that Apple produces itself.

Here’s the latest: “iTunes Festival London 2011,” a free app that will stream live footage from an Apple-branded concert series throughout July.

The app will work on both iPhones and iPads, and includes AirPlay support so you can get the shows up on your plasma, via Apple TV.

This looks like a pretty cool lineup (Coldplay! Bruno Mars! The Arctic Monkeys! And, um, Gwyneth Paltrow!), so it’s hard to see why you wouldn’t want to at least play around with the app on a slow summer day. Concert giant Live Nation handles the actual producing duties for the shows, and will stream them via its app, too.

Wired.com’s John Abell thinks this app could be the precursor to a long-running series of live events streamed by Apple. Who knows? Could be. My hunch is that Apple is putting the app out as a glorified demo and will be happy to let other companies carry the ball forward from here.

Exclusive: Groupon Books Travel Plans Through Expedia Partnership

Tricia Duryee — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:13:28 +0000

Groupon is partnering with Expedia to create a new discount travel service that will let people book hotel rooms and airfare at half the cost.

The announcement is being made today at the D Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., before Groupon CEO Andrew Mason gets on stage.

“Groupon Getaways with Expedia” will work similarly to the daily emails sent by Groupon today, but instead of offers for spas, restaurants and other local services, consumers can buy vouchers for airline tickets, car rentals, cruises and other activities.

Travelers can sign up for the emails starting today at Expedia.com or Groupon.com/getaways, and the service is expected to launch in late June.

“Travel is a very popular category on our normal site, and Expedia is the biggest and best brand in travel. The partnership made a ton of sense,” Mason said.

Together, the two will leverage their combined sales forces to find travel deals across the U.S. Initially, it will offer discounts on hotels and expand to other segments, like air and cars, as well as internationally.

Scott Durchslag, Expedia’s president, said the partnership with Groupon will allow them to serve a new customer segment. Expedia customers typically know when and where they want to go on a trip. ”This is spontaneous travel. You get the best offer you can find and then you can choose when you want to go,” he said.

The partnership model is one that Groupon is using to expand into new categories.

In May, Groupon announced a joint venture with Live Nation’s Ticketmaster, which allows it to expand its group-buying model to concerts, sports, theater productions and other live events across North America. That partnership is expected to launch later this summer.

Mason said the daily deals business model stays the same with partnerships, except that the margins will be lower. The merchant still receives about half of what the consumer pays, but the other half will be split between Expedia and Groupon (specific terms were not disclosed).

Together, the two will be able to market to about 50 million people with their combined email subscriber lists in the U.S.

Groupon and Expedia are entering a crowded market full of discount travel sites, ranging from Groupon’s next-nearest competitor LivingSocial’s own branded Escapes business to other companies, such as Gilt Groupe’s Jetsetter and even Overstock.com.

The two believe the value they are offering is in the fine print and by making it as straightforward as possible. For example, once a customer purchases a voucher, they will be able to redeem it over the next year based on availability, and that they’ll do their best to avoid the dreaded blackout travel dates.

Here’s an illustrative video with Mason and Durchslag:

[ See post to watch video ]

TicketFly Raises Another $12 Million

Peter Kafka — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 15:09:44 +0000

TicketFly, the live event start-up that wants to take a piece of the market dominated by LiveNation’s Ticketmaster, has raised $12 million in a round led by Mohr Davidow Ventures. The company, which had previously raised $3 million, helps small venues run their own ticketing operations on the Web, and plays up its Facebook and Twitter hooks.

Promoter Crowds Ticketmaster

Ethan Smith — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:28:03 +0000

One of the nation’s biggest concert and sports promoters said it is joining forces with a start-up technology company to sell tickets to events at 105 arenas and theaters, in what could become a broader battle with Live Nation Entertainment Inc.’s Ticketmaster.

The promoter, Anschutz Entertainment Group, had been expected to distance itself from Ticketmaster since early last year, when the Justice Department approved the ticketing giant’s merger with Live Nation Inc., AEG’s only larger rival in concert promotion.

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Live Nation Entertainment's Irving Azoff Tweets Up a Storm

Ethan Smith — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 12:00:36 +0000

Now we know why executives have handlers.

Irving Azoff, Live Nation Entertainment’s colorful executive chairman, has long been known in the music industry for his short fuse. Now thanks to Twitter, anyone who feels like it can get a taste of Azoff’s legendary temper.

In less than 24 hours, during which he’s posted just eight tweets (and changed his profile picture twice), @irvingazoff has already gotten involved in a series of surreal microblog brawls: with celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, Billboard business columnist Glenn Peoples (”u r a jerk,” Azoff tweeted) and rival concert promoter Randy Phillips, whom Azoff implied was a habitual liar.

Azoff apparently signed up for a Twitter account earlier this summer, but until Tuesday night, he had barely used it. Then, out of the blue, he let loose a tweet that set the music world—industry and fans alike—ablaze: “so if you want ticket prices to go down stop stealing music.”

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How to Become Rich and Famous in Three Months, the Live Nation Way

Peter Kafka — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:35:21 +0000

Sure, it’s easy to become Internet-famous these days. But how about real fame–the kind that lets you fill an arena with ticket-buying fans?

Also easy, it turns out. You need just three months! Check out this handy guide from Live Nation, which included it in a presentation to investors last week (click to enlarge):

This slide has generated much music industry guffawing in the past few days (thanks to Bob Lefsetz for highlighting). And the overall presentation didn’t win over Wall Street, either: Shares tumbled 14 percent last Thursday, the day that Live Nation (LYV) made its pitch, which is supposed to explain why the concert business is in much better shape then you’d think. Live Nation stock is still falling today.

I’m assuming Live Nation had someone in mind when it talked about the three-month instafame plan. I just can’t think of who it is.

Justin Bieber, apparently, became dangerously famous via Google’s (GOOG) YouTube. But even he took a year to start playing arenas (says Wikipedia; I’m admittedly out of my depth here).

So I’ve asked Live Nation for an example of the three-month song-to-sold-out-arena trajectory, and I’ll report back if I hear from them. Meantime, anyone else have any suggestions? The comment section is all yours.

TicketFly Rounds Up $3 Million to Fight Ticketmaster

Peter Kafka — Wed, 12 May 2010 15:30:10 +0000

Average concertgoers go to two shows a year, and there’s a very good chance some of the money they spend on those shows goes to Ticketmaster, which dominates the ticketing business.

So here’s a company that wants a piece of that: TicketFly, a New York-based start-up that just raised a $2 million Series A round led by High Peaks Venture Partners and Contour Venture Partners. The company had previously raised $1 million in convertible debt last year, via angels Howard Lindzon and Roger Ehrenberg, among others.

If TicketFly works, there’s a good chance you won’t ever know about it, because it’s a B2B business: Consumers fund the operation via surcharges on their tickets, but the real customers are the concert venues, which strike exclusive deals with ticketing companies.

So most of the features are designed with the venues and promoters in mind. TicketFly says it can help with Web site design and management, promoting shows on Twitter and Facebook, tracking sales data in real time, etc.

All of this sounds like fairly straightforward stuff, but the ticketing business is an old, archaic one. And Ticketmaster, the industry’s eight million-pound gorilla, now owned by Live Nation (LYV), is particularly slow-moving when it comes to all things tech. So some of this really will feel fresh for the concert guys.

More interesting are TicketFly’s plans, which involve giving venues the chance to sell tickets using the same dynamic pricing/yield management techniques hotels and airlines use: That is, prices for hot shows may shoot up, and if you want to see a band no one else wants to see, you may end up paying very little.

TicketFly has about 50 venues signed up so far, and most are fairly intimate places like Maxwell’s in Hoboken, N.J., or the Triple Rock Social Club in Minneapolis–the kinds of of places where you could see Nirvana before Nirvana became Nirvana.

They’re also the kinds of places that used be served by TicketWeb, another Web-based upstart that Ticketmaster acquired a few years back. No coincidence: TicketFly co-founder Andrew Dreskin used to run that company.

Here’s a little wayback machine: Nirvana at Maxwell’s in 1989. Audio and video quality is about as rough as you’d imagine:

Almost Famous: Julia Hartz of Eventbrite

Drake Martinet — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:50:05 +0000

A feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about.

This week: We got all-access passes to Skype for an interview with Julia Hartz, co-founder and president of Eventbrite, the four-year-old Web-based ticketing service aiming to unseat the big guys.

Using the Eventbrite Web interface, organizers can set up ticket sales and publicize their events using social media tools. It’s a labor of love, too, as Julia shares the big office with co-founder and husband Kevin.

Who: Julia Hartz

What: President and co-founder

Why: Hartz said Eventbrite has cracked the code on merging business and the social graph. It enables event organizers to publish events online and sell tickets, then publish the events to Facebook. And if your event is free, so are Eventbrite services. Julia says it is democratizing the ticketing industry, but it can’t all be free. Eventbrite saw $100 million in ticket sales in 2009.

Where: eventbrite.com (Web site); @eventbrite (Twitter); San Francisco, Calif. (analog place)

Who else: Eventbrite services put it in competition with most of the ticket-selling world, especially Ticketmaster, which is now owned by Live Nation (LYV). But Hartz said most of the people using Eventbrite for the first time are switching from using spreadsheets.

Five Stats You Won’t Find in Her Facebook Profile

Worst Job Ever: I was an intern on the set of “Friends.” It was this awful experience taking place in this wondrous environment. There was a serious level of paranoia there. And basically, my job was to hold a phone and anytime it rang, I had to go find that person on the set. My second worst job was as a barista at The Ugly Mug in Santa Cruz. I would drink like three mochas and eat some pastries during my shift and then be depressed for the rest of the day.

Her Big Event of 2010: I’m really looking forward to Chirp, the upcoming Twitter conference. That and maybe F8, the Facebook conference.

Gadget of the Moment: My new iPad…just kidding. I guess just my Apple (AAPL) iPhone. We’re kind of a gadget family. Our two-year-old has a Pleo, because we can’t get a puppy in our place.

Wants to Be When She Grows Up: I want to be a great mom.

Fails At: Being a working mom and running the start-up. I feel like I’m never doing 100 percent in either. I feel 80 percent in everything. Kevin would say I fail at taking big risks–stuff like skydiving or petting a spider at the children’s museum.

Bio in 140 Characters

Hartz grew up in Santa Cruz. She went to Pepperdine for a degree in being a TV exec. She was at MTV, FX, then left for the start-up world.

The Five Questions

You started Eventbrite in 2006–why this and why then?

Well, I’ll just be honest; it had a lot to do with logistics. I’d just moved up here and Kevin and I had just gotten engaged. I was about to go to Current TV and didn’t know if that was the right move. We got to talking about all the events we heard about after the fact, and all the event “postcards” we got on our car windshields. There was little to no innovation in the events market. Unless you were using Ticketmaster, you really had no access to tools and technology that could help you as a smaller events planner. Also, Kevin was very close to PayPal, so we were looking at what we could do based on the PayPal API. The transaction is where it began.

So, you and Kevin have sort of made Eventbrite your baby. How does being a start-up couple change things?

Well, in working with somebody you know quite well, we sort of divide and conquer. We sort of have our own areas of the business that we strive to excel in, and we try to support each other. We received some really great advice early on from Michael and Xochi Birch, who co-founded Bebo. When we asked them how they worked together, they said divide and conquer–don’t work on anything together. That’s sorta what we do. And we do really well on a day-to-day basis. But if you get us behind the same spreadsheet, we’ll definitely be fighting for the mouse.

What sorts of mistakes have you guys made doing this?

I think we’ve been pretty good on avoiding most big mistakes, but I do think we’ve been too focused on making decisions around customer reactions…that sounds a little weird. Let me give you an example. So, we were a free service early on, then we were freemium. The problem was that our basic service was so robust that our premium service was only a little better. We were toying with the idea of going all paid for too long. When we finally bit the bullet and did it, we had very little decrease in use. We think it’s because event organizers don’t have to make an additional choice now about which service to use. The cost just scales with the ticket price. We just took too long to make the decision, I think.

You guys are building a pretty interesting picture of who attends what events. Are you planning to tread further into the social graph and begin recommending events to people based on past attendance?

Yes. We see that to be something that’s very exciting, but we want to do it in the right way. Hyper-relevancy is key to us, so, um, I can’t say how we’ll do it, but when we do it, we’ll definitely take into account what’s out there right now and try to innovate on that. I’d say that will happen in the broad window of the next two years.

What are your major moves going to be in 2010?

How about this? How about the fact that in five years, Eventbrite will be the only place that you will ever go to buy a ticket for any event that you would ever attend. I truly believe that, and I can actually see how we’ll get there. We are a smaller business and can move quite quickly. We don’t have a bullseye in your office with the Ticketmaster logo in the middle. We aren’t a Ticketmaster killer, but we see our model as becoming the status quo for all ticketing.

The In Living Color Interview

[ See post to watch video ]

Ticketmaster-Live Nation Merger Gets Conditional Thumbs Up From DOJ (Plus D7 Video With TKTM CEO Azoff)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:46:31 +0000

While many thought it would not sail through regulatory scrutiny easily, and it has taken a year, the merger of two entertainment industry giants–Ticketmaster and Live Nation–can go forward as long as a certain set of conditions is met, the Department of Justice said.

And while DOJ’s antitrust head, Christine Varney, told reporters today that she warned the two companies that the federal government was prepared to litigate if necessary, it–well–did not.

“We concluded the transaction as originally proposed was anti-competitive,” said Varney, a statement that was pretty much negated by her decision not to block the merger, given that the conditions she set were not a stretch for the parties to meet.

Still, Varney noted: “The proposed settlement allows for strong competitors to Ticketmaster, allowing concert venues to have more and better choices for their ticketing needs, and provides for anti-retaliation provisions, which will keep the merged company in check.”

We shall see about that–many are expecting even higher ticket prices and “fees.”

The companies also reached an agreement with 17 State Attorneys General as part of the U.S. consent decree, as well as with the Canadian Commissioner of Competition.

Not surprisingly, shares of both West Hollywood-based Ticketmaster (TKTM) and Live Nation (LYV) of Beverly Hills, Calif., were up about 15 percent today, even though the deal still has to undergo public comment and be approved by a judge.

But after today, Ticketmaster investors will get Live Nation stock, valued at $15.49, and with its ticker retired, Ticketmaster shares will no longer trade.

Now the combined company will be able to do everything from selling tickets to booking artists to selling their T-shirts and more.

And all Live Nation and Ticketmaster have to do to operate like this is sell off a college sports ticketing unit to Comcast (CMCSA) and license ticketing software to Live Nation’s nearest competitor, the Anschutz Entertainment Group.

Also, for a decade, the merged company cannot play dirty, blackballing those who decide they don’t want to use its services.

With 75 big venues across the U.S. under the purview of Live Nation, that’s a lot of places the world’s largest concert promoter could apply pressure.

And because Ticketmaster is the dominant player in ticketing for sports and entertainment events, as well as the manager of a spate of major acts that play at those Live Nation venues, it’s clear you have a very powerful entity.

It will all be led, in part, by Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff, who can be seen below in an interview with BoomTown at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference last May.

One of the most influential behind-the-scenes movers and shakers in the music industry for a long time now, Azoff talked about with me about the merger and digital forces buffeting the entertainment business.

Azoff will be the executive chairman of the merged company, which will be called Live Nation Entertainment, as well as CEO of Front Line artist management. Longtime Hollywood and Internet mogul Barry Diller is set to be chairman, and Michael Rapino will be CEO and president.

Here’s the video of the D7 interview, including the very funny intro that music legend Joe Walsh of the Eagles did for Azoff (and below it, a video of a terrific version of “Life’s Been Good,” sung by Walsh, which it certainly is today for Ticketmaster-Live Nation):

[ See post to watch video ]

And here’s the press release from Live Nation and Ticketmaster:

LOS ANGELES and WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif., Jan 25, 2010–Live Nation, Inc. and Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc. today announced that they have reached agreements with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and with the Canadian Commissioner of Competition, clearing the way for the merger of the companies. Upon closing, the company will be renamed Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. to reflect the combination of Live Nation’s concert promotions expertise with Ticketmaster’s world-class ticketing solutions and artist relationships.

Under the terms of the proposed final judgment filed today in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the companies have agreed to divest Ticketmaster’s self-ticketing subsidiary, Paciolan, to Comcast-Spectacor and to license the Ticketmaster Host technology to Anschutz Entertainment Group, Inc., as well as to other terms that protect competitive conditions in ticketing and promotions. Seventeen State Attorneys General also participated in the matter and have joined in the U.S. consent decree. The parties’ consent agreement with the Canadian Commissioner of Competition is on substantially equivalent terms.

As previously announced, in connection with the merger, each issued and outstanding share of Ticketmaster common stock will be cancelled and converted into the right to receive a number of shares of Live Nation common stock such that Ticketmaster stockholders will receive approximately 50.01% of the voting power of the combined company. Subject to final confirmation, the companies expect each share of Ticketmaster common stock to be cancelled and converted into the right to receive 1.474 shares of Live Nation common stock in connection with the merger and for Live Nation to issue approximately 84,613,661 shares of Live Nation common stock to Ticketmaster stockholders in the aggregate.

The combined company will be led by Michael Rapino as CEO and President of Live Nation Entertainment and Irving Azoff as Executive Chairman of Live Nation Entertainment and CEO of Front Line. Barry Diller will serve as Chairman of the Board of Live Nation Entertainment. The Board will consist of 14 directors, seven from each company.

Does This Mean We Can Expect a Live Nation "iTunes Convenience Fee"?

John Paczkowski — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:10:08 +0000

This year, Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promoter, will put on some 22,000 live shows–each one attended by carping about the asinine “convenience” and “courtesy” charges the company likes to tack on to ticket purchases. Funny, isn’t it, how quickly a $28 show can become a $50 one?

But much as concertgoers might loathe the idea of giving Live Nation (LYV) even more of their money, they may soon do so. Because beginning today, the company is offering exclusive audio and video recordings of some of its events through Apple (AAPL) iTunes. Prices start at $7.99, which seems astonishingly reasonable for live recordings of this quality. More so when you factor in Live Nation’s involvement.

Not an original idea, by any means; Metallica, Primus, The Pixies, Phish and others have been peddling soundboard recordings of their shows through their official sites for years now. But this is the first time, I think, that we’re seeing the live side of the music business really leverage iTunes and its massive installed base.

And, let’s face it, this is a great idea, indeed. I saw two live shows in the past few months and happily paid $10 and $14 for soundboard recordings of each. But I had to spend some time seeking them out, creating a new customer profile, etc. It would have been much nicer to just fire up iTunes and buy them both with one click.

Live Nation Sees Ticketmaster Deal Closing in Q1

Eric Savitz — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:34:23 +0000

Live Nation (LYV) today said it expects the acquisition of the company by Ticketmaster (TKTM) to close in the first quarter of next year. Meanwhile, both companies today posted solid results for the third quarter.

Live Nation posted Q3 revenue of $1.81 billion, up from $1.59 billion a year ago, and ahead of the Street consensus at $1.62 billion. The company said the 14 percent increase in revenue was driven by a 12 percent increase in event attendance. Adjusted operating income of 160.8 million was up sharply from $109.5 million; free cash flow of $123.2 million was nearly double the $64.4 million reported for the year-ago quarter.

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Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff: How to Make Money While Music Becomes "Demonetized"

Peter Kafka — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:31:16 +0000

As a longtime music executive and talent manager, Irving Azoff has had to find a way to work with everyone from inebriated rock stars to David Geffen. But he’s never had to placate Washington, D.C., before. But that’s what Azoff needs to do in order to pull off the deal of a lifetime: A merger between his Ticketmaster (TKTM) Entertainment, which dominates the ticketing business, and Live Nation, (LYV), which dominates the live concert business.

When Azoff isn’t busy trying to convince people that the merger doesn’t violate antitrust regulations, or running his ticketing company, he manages the careers of everyone from the Eagles to Christina Aguilera. Note the one thing in the music business he doesn’t spend time on: selling recorded music.

Session Highlights

[ See post to watch video ]

Live Blog

Introduction: Legendary Eagles survivor Joe Walsh, looking very much worse for wear, shows up via video to talk about his longtime manager. “Irving is the only manager that I ever knew that said to David Geffen ‘pffft,’ and he’s still here.” Also: “He’s a friend of mine….All the guys in the Eagles love him. He has a beautiful house that we bought him.”
Irving notes that Joe is now sober.
Irving rattles off his management empire: 16 management companies, handling everyone from Miley Cyrus to Willie Nelson. Country, classic rock “where the tour money is.”
Kara: Where’s the music business going? Irving: Obviously, with the “demonetization of recorded music,” everyone got into a woe-is-me attitude, but I’m enthusiastic. “Narrowcasting” of the industry has created new stars, and live business is good.

Irving: Music labels have always been slow to react to technology, and a lot of people in this room profited from that. Basically the record industry sat around and tried to protect an old model.
Kara: Could the business have reacted differently? Irving: Yeah, suing your customer is a bad idea.
Kara: Will there be record companies in the future? Irving: Yes. They have 100 years of content. They’ll be more like publishing companies, where they are a repository of rights.
Kara: How do you feel the technology business has treated the music business? [Apologies for gap, technical issues]. Eagles have generated about $400,000 in Apple (AAPL) iTunes royalties. Which is about what they get for a couple live shows.
Irving: Overall, the state of music industry is promising. Was fallow for a bit, but there’s a whole new generation of singers, songwriters, performers. “You never know where it comes from.” In terms of the business, there will be more companies than the four big labels that dominate today. “It will be a great time for entrepreneurs….It’s not over, but it’s warping into 2.0, 3.0.”
Kara: What does a music executive have to do to survive? Irving: You have to take chances. They can’t complain about the iTunes deal. They have to embrace new technology, and I think they are, and it’s easier to get deals done now.
Kara: What about these little digital companies like Playlist and iLike, which Ticketmaster owns a piece of? They can survive, and they’re excellent marketing opportunities. But they’ll have to find other ways of making money. Can they? “I don’t know.” Advertising? “I don’t know.”

Onto the merger. Irving lays out the case. Everything revolves around live music, and they’re the biggest player in live music. It’s really the promotion piece, and the marketing piece, added to Ticketmaster. Without that, Ticketmaster wouldn’t survive. “Any of you guys can write a program that does what Ticketmaster does….I’ve been there a couple of months and I have gripes myself.”
People’s gripe with Ticketmaster isn’t with what we do, it’s demand issues: People want tickets to attend sold-out shows, so we have unhappy customers. Plus we’ve been the “collection agency” for a whole bunch of fees. “But the decision is ultimately made by the act.”
What about criticism to the merger from the likes of Bruce Springsteen? “Everything we do revolves around what’s good for the artist and what’s good for the fan. That’s our new model.”
Not really an answer, Kara points out. Irving: “I would say that Bruce is uninformed about the potential of what this could be.” [Maybe someone could tell Jon Landau.] For instance, we could be bundling new songs along with tickets. “The business traditionally resists change,” so complaints about the merger are nothing news. And there’s plenty of competition: Phil Anschutz competes with us and he’s worth more than the combined market cap of both of these companies. Warner Music Group’s (WMG) Edgar Bronfman Jr. says he’s in the ticketing business, etc.
Discussion of TicketsNow, a StubHub-like “secondary market”/scalping business owned by Ticketmaster. Irving has said that in the past that he wouldn’t have bought it. Would he sell it now? Maybe.
What are the prospects for the merger? “Very optimistic” that it will get done between now and end of the year.
Back to griping about prices and availability: “People in the music industry, we’ve had a horrible record of shooting ourselves in the head.” We haven’t done enough dynamic pricing for tickets, and we should, and that will help make people happy. But these issues are fundamentally the artists’ responsibility. They decide what tickets we sell, and at what price.

Where is the music business going, overall? Who’s your favorite? “It’s like asking what’s your favorite kid.” Internet makes things very exciting, distribution is opening up. What about the industry suing customers? I think that’s a “very small issue.” We do need to protect intellectual property, and the people who make it.
Q&A: Esther Dyson wants to know what Ticketmaster/Live Nation will do with all the data they collect about customers, etc. “Any artist that calls up and says I’d like the email list of the people who came to my show, we’ll make that available.” But with regard to pricing, etc., artists and their management are not being sophisticated about how they use data. And we have to keep the press from chastising artists that use dynamic pricing.”
Q: Not clear what the question is. But seems to be about using an auction model from the get-go. “Auctions are falling into real disfavor at the moment….We’re finding that people don’t want to spend the time to participate in them.” They just want to know that this VIP package costs this much.
Q: What do you think about subscription services? “I’ve always thought subscription was an incredible model.” But tricky to pull off with labels, publishers, unions, mobile guys all trying to figure out how to split the money.
Q: Do you have specific advice for classical music artists? The great thing about the Internet is that you no longer have to be popular with everybody to have a career. Classical should flourish in this era. Build a base, get in front of people, have people like you live. “That’s been true in 1966, and that will be true as long as there is music.”
Do your artists like Twitter? Some do. “Very useful” but other artists “refuse to get a mobile phone.”

A note about our coverage: This liveblog is not an official transcript of the conversation that occurred onstage. Rather, it is a compilation of quotes, paraphrased statements and ad-lib observations written and posted to the Web as quickly as we were able. It was not intended as a transcript and should not be interpreted as one.

Will eBay Dump StubHub, Too?

Peter Kafka — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:33:46 +0000

Now that eBay has sloughed off StumbleUpon and made plans to dump Skype, theoretically via an IPO, will it drop StubHub, too?

That’s the possibility floated, albeit in an offhand way, via Bernstein Research’s Jeffrey Lindsay in a note published this morning: “We would likely expect further divestments of non-core businesses, possibly including StubHub.”

I understand why the auction site dropped StumbleUpon, a Web 2.0 publishing business with a novel and unproven revenue model. And it makes sense to stop carrying Skype, a telecom business that requires a lot of time, money and maintenance.

But Stubhub, which eBay bought for $307 million a little more than two years ago, seemed like a bona fide fit: The ticket resale business mirrors eBay’s (EBAY) core auction in pretty obvious ways. I’ve asked Lindsay to tease out his thinking for us, and will update if he does.

UPDATE: Here’s Lindsay, via email: “It seems that eBay is going right back to basics, and is dispensing with the ‘we are an auction company’ ethos that got them into so much trouble. We see StubHub as coming out of that era. We think the market in tickets is changing rapidly and there is a chance to sell StubHub at the very top. They might well take it and pursue a much more pure play retail/second hand portfolio and go back to geographic expansion of the marketplaces/PayPal core.”

Meanwhile, if eBay does decide to jettison StubHub, now would be a very interesting time to do so. TicketsNow, its primary competitor, is likely to go on the block in the near future: Parent company Ticketmaster (TKTM), which acquired the business for $265 million a year ago, has said it would dump the business in order to mollify antitrust critics (and Bruce Springsteen fans) who want to stop the company’s proposed merger with Live Nation (LYV).

Anyone want to corner the market on the ticket-scalping industry?

[Image credit: Hyrck]

Ticketmaster Makes Up With Bruce Springsteen–And His Fans

Peter Kafka — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:49:33 +0000

Remember the great Ticketmaster/Bruce Springsteen controversy of 2009? The one where fans of the Boss said they got screwed by the ticketing company everyone loves to hate? The one that prompted Springsteen himself to complain about Ticketmaster and its proposed acquisition of concert giant Live Nation (LYV)?

Well, that’s all resolved now. In a convoluted way. But it’s resolved. Via New Jersey’s Star-Ledger:

Ticket giant Ticketmaster has reached a national settlement with the New Jersey Attorney General in which it agrees to stop linking customers to TicketsNow, a subsidiary agency that sells tickets at scalper’s prices.

Attorney General Anne Milgram said Ticketmaster has agreed to run a lottery that will make 2,000 tickets available at face value to customers who complained about the way Ticketmaster handled the Feb. 2 sale of tickets to Bruce Springsteen’s shows May 21 and 23 at the Izod Center at the Meadlowlands….

Fans–more than 1,000–who don’t win a pair of tickets in the lottery will be given $100 gift certificates, Milgram said, and the ability to purchase tickets for an upcoming Springsteen concert in New Jersey.”

Ticketmaster (TKTM) will also pay a $350,000 fine, and has agreed to stop using Google (GOOG) keywords to direct Ticketmaster searchers to TicketsNow.

Given that Ticketmaster and Live Nation are trying to pull off a politically tricky deal, this seems like a great settlement for Barry Diller, Irving Azoff and company–no use going before the Department of Justice while you’ve got state investigations into your ticketing practices.

And what does Springsteen himself think about the deal? There’s no comment from him or his management team on his site. But tellingly, his previous comments about the Ticketmaster/Live Nation deal–the ones where he described the proposed merger as a “near monopoly” and asked his fans to complain to their representatives about it–have vanished from his site.

I’ve spent way too much time trying to wrap this one up with a Springsteen lyric pun. Too hard! So here’s your YouTube, instead. Apologies for the subpar video/audio: Sony Music Entertainment, Springsteen’s label, won’t allow me to embed the higher-quality versions.

Barry Diller: Trust Me–You're Going to Love the Ticketmaster/Live Nation Deal

Peter Kafka — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 19:03:23 +0000

This will be a fun one to handicap. One side: Struggling Ticketmaster, which holds a near-monopoly on concert ticket sales, and struggling Live Nation, the biggest concert promoter in the world. On the other side: Just about everyone who’s ever bought a concert ticket and grumbled about the experience later.

Ticketmaster (TKTM) and Live Nation (LYV) formally rolled out their merger agreement today, which calls for Live Nation to buy out Ticketmaster shareholders for $575 million in stock. But the financials here are less important than the public relations: To get this deal done, the two companies are going to have to convince regulators that they come in peace and mean no harm–no matter how loudly their constituents disagree.

So far, we’ve only heard the carping about the deal, but it’s been loud, and prominent: Bruce Springsteen has weighed in. So has the New York Times. And now Congress is getting warmed up, too.

Today, argues Ticketmaster chairman Barry Diller, the companies get to start making their case, which they couldn’t do until the deal was formally announced. Now “we are going to really explain and explain and explain and make all of this clear to all our constituencies.”

Diller gave a preview of his talking points during this morning’s conference call:

Argument 1: Don’t blame us for high ticket prices–blame Madonna, or U2, or Phish.

“Ticketmaster does not set prices,” Diller said. “Live Nation does not set ticket prices. Artists set ticket prices.”

That’s true. And then Ticketmaster and Live Nation add supplementary charges, which can jack up the price by 30 percent or more. That’s standard operating procedure for all sorts of transactions–check the invoice for your last plane ticket or give your hotel bill a once-over–but it doesn’t seem to inspire the same rage as it does in concert ticket buyers.

The other problem with this argument: Live Nation is run by Irving Azoff, who is one of the sharpest dealmakers in the music business and who also runs one of the biggest management companies in the business. And since managers are now the most powerful players in the business, they’ve got a great deal to say about how their clients price concert tickets. See the problem here?

Argument 2: Don’t blame us if you can’t get tickets for that Hannah Montana show your kids are demanding. But if you do want a ticket for a sold-out show, we can help you–at a price.

This is what Bruce Springsteen was complaining about. In addition to its core business, Ticketmaster also runs “TicketsNow,” a “secondary marketplace” for tickets. The other word for that is scalping, which is now a legal and booming business on the Web.

But when a concert ticket company also sells “aftermarket” tickets, it makes people feel queasy in a way that they don’t about eBay’s (EBAY) Stubhub, which only does resale.

That feeling is exacerbated when people suspect that Ticketmaster is directing buyers away from its regular tickets and toward its marked-up TicketsNow inventory, which is what happened to Springsteen ticket buyers this month.

Diller says the Springsteen incident was a “technological glitch.” Which may well be true. But you’re going to hear about that one a lot in the coming months.

Argument 3: Whaddaya gonna do? We sell tickets. People are never going to send us thank you cards.

Diller: “This is such a sexy issue. Ticketmaster is never perceived to be on the side of the angels.”

Remember when Pearl Jam testified against Ticketmaster in Congress in the ’90s, convinced the Department of Justice to investigate the company and led a boycott against any venue that did business with them? Those were the days.

Except that Pearl Jam ended up playing small venues, the DOJ (that’s the Clinton-era DOJ, mind you) gave Ticketmaster a pass, and by the end of the decade Eddie Vedder and crew were working with Ticketmaster again.

So maybe this one goes through, too. I’ve heard from plenty of folks who hate the proposed merger (“These two companies SHOULD NEVER be allowed to merge and reproduce,” a former Live Nation employee tells me via email), but I’d love to hear someone who knows both the music business and antitrust law make a cogent defense: You can reach me directly at peter@allthingsd.com and I’ll give you an open forum.

Until then, here’s the slideshow Live Nation is using to explain the deal:

live nation dek – Get more Business Documents

[Eddie Vedder image credit: sick of goodbyes]

The Boss Says No: Bruce Springsteen Already Campaigning Against Ticketmaster-Live Nation Deal

Peter Kafka — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:56:44 +0000

Struggling Ticketmaster, which holds a near-monopoly on concert ticket sales, wants to merge with struggling Live Nation (LYV), which is the biggest concert promoter in the world. Will antitrust regulators let this one fly?

We’ll find out once the reported deal becomes official, which could happen as early as Friday. In the meantime, you can consider the varied opinions of antitrust attorneys and experts quoted in The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

Or you can just ask the Boss, who gives the deal an unqualified thumbs down.

The story: Bruce Springsteen happens to be embarking on yet another megatour (perhaps you caught him on TV the other day). Said tour, which is using Ticketmaster (TKTM) to sell tickets (again, like just about everyone else in the concert business) has already run into a snafu involving TicketsNow, the “secondary marketplace” (i.e., legal aftermarket/scalping) company Ticketmaster bought last year.

If you want the details, you can consult Springsteen’s Web site, where the musician and manager Jon Landau have posted a long apology. Or you can cut to the chase:

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. Several newspapers are reporting on this story right now. If you, like us, oppose that idea, you should make it known to your representatives.

The abuse of our fans and our trust by Ticketmaster has made us as furious as it has made many of you. We will continue to do our utmost now and in the future to make sure that these practices are permanently curtailed on our tours.”

And that’s the thing: There are plenty of companies Americans enjoy disliking, but most of them have some kind of lobby and political clout to help shrug off that animus. But just about anyone who’s bought a concert ticket has at some point cursed Ticketmaster for some kind of perceived slight or insult. And unlike banks, oil, health care or any of our favorite bugaboos, it’s hard to argue that ticket brokers perform some crucial function in our economy, so we have to put up with it.

Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff is one shrewd dude. But he’s going to have to be awfully persuasive to find people in Washington willing to back this one when it gets to Washington.

U2′s Live Nation Deal Is Good for Madonna, Bad for Investors

Peter Kafka — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:08:40 +0000

In addition to myriad rock star perks you’ve already heard about, here’s another one to add to the list: Better stock deals. At least when you’re talking about stock in concert promoter Live Nation.

The company spun off from the radio and billboard giant Clear Channel a couple years ago and has been trying to lock up big name artists to exclusive deals by shoveling tons of loot their way. Madonna, U2, Jay-Z and others have gladly accepted pacts that pay them hundreds of millions of dollars to work exclusively with the company.

Some of those payments have been in stock, which is supposed to indicate that the company and the music acts are all in the same boat. And since Live Nation (LYV) shares have gotten pummeled, you’d think those music acts would be hurting too. Nope.

The Wall Street Journal:

Live Nation had guaranteed that U2 would receive $25 million for 1.6 million shares. But the current market value was just $6.1 million at the close of trading Wednesday. That leaves Live Nation on the hook for the balance, which the company said Wednesday in a SEC filing it would pay with cash on hand or borrowed money.

There could be more bad news coming from another of the company’s marquee acts: Madonna. In April, Madonna is eligible to sell $25 million of stock under the terms of her contract, even though the stock’s market value has plunged 83 percent since she struck her deal in October 2007.”

That’s lousy news for Live Nation shareholders. U2′s cash-out put even more pressure on the stock (the company is selling 1.56 million shares of its own to help pay for U2′s deal), and news of the Madonna deal will do the same.

The bigger question is whether Live Nation’s strategy ever made sense: It was supposed to use the big name acts to help it expand beyond the concert business and into other revenue streams… like selling CDs. Understandable why the company wanted to diversify beyond concerts, which are high-risk, low-margin affairs. But signing big acts to big, guaranteed contracts is one of the things that got the music business in the trouble it’s in now.

But let’s give the old music industry some credit: It did bring us some pretty good music. Here’s U2, circa 1983:

U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday
Uploaded by newcanadian

Ticketmaster Loses No. 2 Customer SMG to Live Nation

Eric Savitz — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 15:06:11 +0000

Live Nation (LYV) is taking on Ticketmaster (TKTM) in the music ticketing market, and it is off to a rousing start.

This morning, Live Nation announced an exclusive deal to sell tickets for music event company SMG, a subsidiary of the publicly-traded investment fund American Capital (ACAS). According to the announcement from the two companies, SMG is “the world’s leading venue management company.”

The company will launch its Live Nation Ticketing service in January 2009; Live Nation said the SMG deal will ramp up to an estimated five million tickets a year by 2011. Live Nation expects to sell more than 10 million tickets a year from the new ticketing service just from its own venues.

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