Unlike Bono, who appears to be taking the ostrich approach to the subject, and Eagles frontman Don Henley, another outspoken musician who has been strangely silent, Reznor has laid out his views on the proposed Live Nation / Ticketmaster merger for the whole world (including LM/TM) to see.
I have to say, it’s refreshing to see someone with a true insider’s perspective lay all the cards on the table like this. And I’m pleased to say Reznor and I seem to have come to the same conclusion about at least one aspect of this issue. More about that later. Here’s what Trent had to say on the NIN Web site.
As we approach on-sale dates for the upcoming tour, I've noticed lots of you are curious / concerned / outraged at the plethora of tickets that somehow appear on all these reseller sites at inflated prices - even before the pre-sale dates. I'll do my best to explain the situation as I see it, as well as clarify my organization's stance in the matter.
NIN decides to tour this summer. We arrive at the conclusion outdoor amphitheaters are the right venue for this outing, for a variety of reasons we've throughly considered*. In the past, NIN would sell the shows in each market to local promoters, who then "buy" the show from us to sell to you. Live Nation happens to own all the amphitheaters and bought most of the local promoters - so if you want to play those venues, you're being promoted by Live Nation. Live Nation has had an exclusive deal with TicketMaster that has just expired, so Live Nation launched their own ticketing service. Most of the dates on this tour are through Live Nation, some are through TicketMaster - this is determined by the promoter (Live Nation), not us.
(* I fully realize by playing those venues we are getting into bed with all these guys. I've learned to choose my fights and at this point in time it would be logistically too difficult to attempt to circumvent the venues / promoter / ticketing infrastructure already in place for this type of tour. For those of you about to snipe "it's your fault for playing there, etc... " - I know it is.)
This is exactly what I meant when I wrote that Live Nation has an extraordinary amount of control when it comes to U.S. venues. Reznor was forced to do things the company’s way – even down to where NIN would sell tickets – if he wanted to play these venues.
Next, Trent shared his thoughts on secondary ticketing:
Now we get into the issue of secondary markets for tickets, which is the hot issue here. The ticketing marketplace for rock concerts shows a real lack of sophistication, meaning this: the true market value of some tickets for some concerts is much higher than what the act wants to be perceived as charging. For example, there are some people who would be willing to pay $1,000 and up to be in the best seats for various shows, but MOST acts in the rock / pop world don't want to come off as greedy pricks asking that much, even though the market says its value is that high. The acts know this, the venue knows this, the promoters know this, the ticketing company knows this and the scalpers really know this. So...
The venue, the promoter, the ticketing agency and often the artist camp (artist, management and agent) take tickets from the pool of available seats and feed them directly to the re-seller (which from this point on will be referred to by their true name: SCALPER). I am not saying every one of the above entities all do this, nor am I saying they do it for all shows but this is a very common practice that happens more often than not. There is money to be made and they feel they should participate in it. There are a number of scams they employ to pull this off which is beyond the scope of this note.
StubHub.com is an example of a re-seller / scalper. So is TicketsNow.com.
Again, this is ground we’ve covered before. So has the Wall Street Journal and a number of other publications. But Reznor does something here that a lot of artists (and journalists) haven’t done so far – offer a solution. And he and I are in agreement on the fix and the possible reason it hasn’t been adopted.
Here's the rub: TicketMaster has essentially been a monopoly for many years - certainly up until Live Nation's exclusive deal ran out. They could have (and can right now) stop the secondary market dead in its tracks by doing the following: limit the amount of sales per customer, print names on the tickets and require ID / ticket matches at the venue. We know this works because we do it for our pre-sales. Why don't THEY do it? It's obvious - they make a lot of money fueling the secondary market. TicketMaster even bought a re-seller site and often bounces you over to that site to buy tickets (TicketsNow.com)!
Simple right? Admittedly there would be a few details about a system like this to work out, like how to ID tickets that are given as gifts and how to handle refunds if you find you’re unable to see a show well in advance, but it could be done.
As a matter of fact, something similar is already used for the U.K.’s Glastonbury Festival, where fans who want to attend the event are required to submit a photo as part of the pre-registration process to prevent them from buying multiple tickets.
I believe Reznor is right on the mark when he said TM hasn’t done this because “…they make a lot of money fueling the secondary market.” But I’ll go him one better. Is it also possible the practice hasn’t been adopted by the company (or demanded by artists and their teams) because it might mean fewer sold out shows?
What do I mean by that? Well, we know there’s a whole industry out there that does nothing but buy tickets in order to resell them. If TM adopted a system where it was basically one ticket per person, a large chunk of the tickets that get sold on speculation during onsales might never get sold at all.
When brokers (or ordinary scalpers for that matter) buy big blocks of tickets, TM and the artist have made their money already. It doesn’t matter if anyone ever uses that ticket or not. It’s the broker who eats the loss if it goes to waste.
Reznor goes on to explain exactly how NIN handles its presale tickets and admits to having considered taking what he calls the “greedy pricks” route before deciding it didn’t feel “like the right thing to do – simple as that.”
And then he makes a prediction that has actually been floating around the industry for a number of years.
My guess as to what will eventually happen if / when Live Nation and TicketMaster merges is that they'll move to an auction or market-based pricing scheme - which will simply mean it will cost a lot more to get a good seat for a hot show. They will simply BECOME the scalper, eliminating them from the mix.
Finally, Reznor makes a point I believe I’ve read somewhere before.
Don't buy from scalpers, and be suspect of artists singing the praises of the Live Nation / TicketMaster merger. What's in it for them?
What indeed?
Read Trent Reznor’s complete letter on the Ticketmaster / Live Nation merger here.