“Live Nation is supporting two California bills to lower prices. Can fans trust it?”: https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/story\/2026-04-17\/live-nation-is-supporting-two-california-bills-to-lower-prices-can-fans-trust-it<\/p>\n
I don’t believe in it.<\/p>\n
A. Because fans like resale.<\/p>\n
B. Because it’s unenforceable<\/p>\n
The bottom line is you can get a ticket to any show you want to go to today, assuming you’re willing to pay for it.<\/p>\n
This is what StubHub has ushered in.<\/p>\n
In a business that is notoriously consumer-unfriendly, tickets often go on sale for shows that don’t play for nearly a year. Do you know what you’re doing at the beginning of April next year? Then you’re one of the only ones. Most of us don’t plan that far in advance. But, the business wants to tie up that money, wants to get it before someone else does, and you ultimately find out that you bought tickets you can’t use because of a conflict, or the act gets hot or you become a fan and want to buy a ticket to a show that went on sale possibly before you’d ever heard the gig was happening, or even heard of the act!<\/p>\n
The bottom line is concert tickets are underpriced. Live Nation keeps saying this and since the company is the biggest in the industry, no one wants to believe it. There must be a flaw in the logic, someone is pulling the wool over our eyes. However it’s quite simple, concert prices are subject to the rule of supply and demand, which is immutable.<\/p>\n
So we have this antirust case prosecuted under the concept that breaking up or kneecapping Live Nation will bring ticket prices down, which is utterly laughable.<\/p>\n
Everybody can’t get a ticket to the show.<\/p>\n
Of course there are shows with unsold inventory, shows that are canceled for poor sales, but for the stars, most of the arena shows sell out.<\/p>\n
Or maybe you can buy a ticket in the rafters, but fans believe they should be able to sit up close, at a low price to boot. After all, they’re FANS!<\/p>\n
What have we learned again and again? The fans can’t wrap their heads around many business concepts, which is why Steve Jobs famously did no consumer research, he believed it would tell you where you’ve been as opposed to where you’re going.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, the true way to succeed is to get ahead of the fans, which is what Spotify delivered. The labels wanted to sue customers into buying overpriced CDs, the fans thought ownership was key, the fans believed if they were out of cell range they’d have no music, and still others complained the sound quality was not as good. Turned out that Daniel Ek knew more than all of them, the fans LOVE streaming!<\/p>\n
And the fans will love when acts charge what the tickets are worth.<\/p>\n
Of course there are those who will grumble. They’ll grumble no matter what. Read the one star reviews on Amazon, you’ll get a feel for the public. There are people who just cannot be satiated, and to play to them is a gross mistake.<\/p>\n
If the tickets were priced at their fair market value, there would be no need to go to the scalper\/secondary market. You could always get a ticket, but you’d have to pay the promoter\/act to get it, and all the revenue would go to the promoter\/act.<\/p>\n
I just don’t get it. Where else does a product that is in overwhelming demand, that cannot be produced in enough quantity to satisfy customers, is LOWERED IN PRICE?<\/p>\n
Look at the car companies. A hot, new car comes out and they charge OVER sticker. Furthermore, those who buy these automobiles are proud to do so! Because they’re the first on the block, they have bragging rights. As for everybody else…they don’t want to pay the freight and they wait until the cost comes down.<\/p>\n
What is the fair market price of a concert ticket and how do you establish it?<\/p>\n
Right now there is no perfect way to determine this, but it can be attempted.<\/p>\n
Maybe a quarter of the first ten rows are $250. A quarter are $500. A quarter are $1000. And a quarter are $2000.<\/p>\n
Who do you think is buying tickets on the secondary market? Sure, sometimes it’s the wealthy, but mostly it’s hard core fans, they’re willing to pay, they want to see the act that much. And do they complain after the show? No! They’re thrilled they got to go!<\/p>\n
Kind of like the Springsteen fracas. Remember when he was charging over a hundred bucks on tour a few years back…the Boss’s fans went berserk! It was too much, he’s a working class artist, he never charged this much before. They’re entitled to cheap prices as they spend a hundred bucks for their pre-show meal.<\/p>\n
Springsteen is selling tickets for $593.55 in the middle of the floor in Atlanta.<\/p>\n
For the same seats in New York, he’s charging $1,601.25.<\/p>\n
WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE?<\/p>\n
Crickets. I haven’t heard one word about tickets for this Springsteen tour being overpriced. People are thrilled just to go.<\/p>\n
The public knows it’s a fair deal. Who knows when the Boss will go on the road again, who knows if he’ll play all these songs again.<\/p>\n
And to be clear, these are not resale\/secondary market Springsteen tickets, they’re primary, and still available long after the original on sale date.<\/p>\n
Talk about a model…<\/p>\n
There is another alternative, which is linking the ticket to the original purchaser. This does affect resale, but in this case the public’s hands are unclean. It’s easy to allow them to resell the tickets at face value to another fan, but NO, they want to scalp the tickets themselves, garner the uplift, make a profit!<\/p>\n
So let me get this straight, the same people who are such big fans of an act that they want prices to be cheap and for the act to reap all the benefits are taking money from the mouths of the acts? In what world is that fair?<\/p>\n
There have been so many changes in the world today, and in most cases, the public accepts them if they deem them fair.<\/p>\n
You can’t get anybody on the phone at Facebook, but you’re not paying for the service.<\/p>\n
Just like with music, you loved to own and now you rent\/stream. OF COURSE some people still complain, but the dirty little secret is if you don’t like the prices, DON’T GO TO THE SHOW! And the people who bitch…so many end up buying tickets and going and being happy anyway.<\/p>\n
You can’t listen to the public.<\/p>\n
So let’s say that California passes a law saying resale must be capped at 10%… Are they going to comb Craigslist, go into people’s e-mail, how are they going to make sure this law is adhered to? Damned if I know. It’s all performative. Legislators trying to look good to their constituents to no ultimate effect.<\/p>\n
As for banning speculative resale… I’m down with that, but once again, charging fair market value eliminates the problem.<\/p>\n
And technology keeps marching forward, if the blockchain allows us to tie the ticket to the purchaser…<\/p>\n
Sure, it’s a cat and mouse game, but who do you know who steals cable today? It’s all digitized!<\/p>\n
And you used to be able to rip CDs that had no copy protection…there’s no discussion of copy protection whatsoever anymore, it’s been superseded in a streaming world.<\/p>\n
Do not try to hold back the consumer. Do not try to combat the laws of the marketplace, never mind human nature. What you do is get out ahead of the public, have them come to you, provide them with a better solution.<\/p>\n
And the solution is to charge what the tickets are worth.<\/p>\n
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