Ticketmaster has given fans of Olivia Dean partial refunds after the British singer condemned ticketing companies for allowing touts to relist tickets for her North American tour at more than 14 times their face value.
After the tour sold out in minutes on 21 November and tickets appeared on resale sites at prices in excess of $1,000, Dean addressed the major ticketing companies on Instagram: “@Ticketmaster @Livenation @AEGPresents you are providing a disgusting service,” she wrote. “The prices at which you’re allowing tickets to be re-sold is vile and completely against our wishes. Live music should be affordable and accessible and we need to find a new way of making that possible. BE BETTER.”
In a statement, Michael Rapino, CEO of Ticketmaster’s parent company Live Nation Entertainment, said: “We share Olivia’s desire to keep live music accessible and ensure fans have the best access to affordable tickets. While we can’t require other marketplaces to honour artists’ resale preferences, we echo Olivia’s call to ‘do better’ and have taken steps to lead by example.”
I agree with her sentiment but she chose to use ticketmaster. WTH did she expect?
It sure looks hypocritical to me to voluntarily use them and then complain about it. Put your money where your mouth is, etc etc.
AFAIK they’re inarguably a monopoly. Unless you only play small venues you’re dealing with Ticketmaster.
so only play small venues. as long as artists keep using them, they’ll keep doing it
people go where the artists are. people don’t get to choose the venue
Artists don’t really have a choice. Ticketmaster owns exclusivitty deals with venues. If any artist wants to play at a specific venue, they HAVE to deal with Ticketmaster.
Sure, they can choose to play smaller shows at smaller, independent venues. but those venues are usually too small for well-known artists who have a big following.
Ticket Master is a massive monopoly in the US, and has exclusivity contracts with most of the popular concert venues, meaning if you want to perform anywhere of even mediocre popularity/size, you have literally no choice as an artist.
No she didn’t
Ticketmasters strategy from the start has been to become a monopoly, forcing avenues to do business with them or never get any artists at all. Similarly, for artists, if you want to do a concert, it’s extremely hard to exclude Ticketmaster if you want fans to see you at all
Fuck everything about this evil company, the C suite belongs in jail
I agree, TM is crap but it sure looks like she’s just feeding the problem and complaining about it.
If she’s just about the money, fine, but to try to play the ethics card while raking it in…. is gross.