AEG may be ending its relationship with Ticketmaster

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AEG may be ending its relationship with Ticketmaster

November 2, 2009 – 3:20 pm – No Comment

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Ticketmaster is one of the problems with going to concerts these days. Everyone talks about how expensive tickets to concerts have become thanks to all the fees imposed by Ticketmaster Entertainment.

It looks as though Ticketmaster may become a bit less powerful now, however. AEG is thinking about replacing Ticketmaster with Tickets.com (it is owned by Major League Baseball and Veritix Inc). Of course, AEG says that it might change its mind if Ticketmaster and Live Nation merge into one company.

If Life Nation and Ticketmaster to merge, then almost all the concerts in the United States will be ticketed through Ticketmaster and everyone can pay ridiculous fees if they want to go see their favorite acts live.

AEG accounts for just under 10% of all of Ticketmaster’s sales.

It looks as though AEG has some time to think about it though. The report to Bloomberg said that the contract between the two companies doesn’t even expire until July 2012.

I have not purchased a ticket from Ticketmaster since I was 14 and saw Nsync in concert. Since then, all of the concerts I have seen have been in bars and small venues that did not have a ticketing system like this, or they were free. I remember, even then, that the tickets were quite expensive and the fees that were tacked on to each ticket were simply outrageous. I believe that a $20 surcharge for “Ticketmaster fees” is too much when the ticket only costs $30.

Earlier this summer Live Nation actually reduced the fees it charged for tickets because people weren’t attending concerts like they used to. It was partially because tickets were too expensive and also because people didn’t have the money that they once did.

I wish that venues would sell their own tickets rather than going through a third party system like Ticketmaster. Enough people have the internet now that no one has to wait in lines outside their local grocery store waiting for tickets to go on sale (which is what we had to do when the Nsync tickets went on sale…it was in 1999 when I bought the tickets so give me a break!).