Ticketmaster has been raising it's rates due to a combination of inflation and post-pandemic demand.

The cost of touring with a band has increased a lot, and many smaller bands just outright refuse to tour right now because it costs too much and they can't justify the ticket prices.

They also adapted a system of Dynamic ticket prices where rates change based on demand much like Hotels or Airlines do. So the more in demand a show, the higher the prices get.

Why aren't competitors undercutting them?

They are trying, but you can't really compete with Ticketmaster

Ticketmaster is a functional monopoly and also controls most of the venues so you can't compete with them. If you do they'll just buy you out or bury you.

Congress is long overdue to step in and enforce anti-trust laws again Ticketmaster

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The fees are often directly a part of what the venue/artist earns, its just disguised as a fee instead of an upcharge.

Also, Livenation has a near monopoly status on many artists and large venues.

Ticketmaster is part of LiveNation. LiveNation has exclusive deals with almost all of the large venues (stadiums etc.) saying "all shows here must sell tickets via ticketmaster", and deals with many of the artists themselves saying "tickets to my shows anywhere will be sold via ticketmaster".

So any potential competitor trying to undercut them would have to sign new artists and not have them perform in any of the established big venues. They have a functional monopoly, it's literally impossible for a competitor to sell tickets to a concert at a given stadium or for a given artist for cheaper, because TicketMaster/LiveNation have contracts that make it illegal.

That's the problem, they can charge whatever they want because they have a monopoly where it's impossible for someone to undercut on the same product, because they're the only ones that are allowed to offer that product.

Fuck... lol I feel like the solution to a lot of modern problems would be solved if we, as a race, could just act in complete unison, i.e everyone agree on a solution and implement it. Am I just describing the motivations for socialism?

Use Humbl Tickets . They are cheaper and you'll be giving Ticketmaster the finger!

lol yes you kind of are. Socialism often has quite good motivations, but problems with the actual implementation.

Thanks for that! Theres a bit more too it than I thought, and obviously a solution is a lot more complicated

I swear auto corrected is no longer a tool to help us, but its got a mind of its own. Ill be brutally honest, even though I know the perils of not paying attention to grammar online, I wasn't paying attention.

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:)