Gregg Kelley

Can Live Nation and Ticketmaster Buck the Recession?

As somebody who has worked in small venues and has had their eye on this merger nobody is really attacking what the long term effect this merger will have on the current state of this industry. I think it is amazing that we live in the time we do and that is because their are more bands and groups touring now then ever in the history of this business. Now they say album sales are down because of online downloads and the truth is that might be true but also labels eliminated street teams and grassroot promotions which was a vital part of this industry.

Now if Ticketmaster and Live Nation merge not only are you merging a promoter and a ticketing house but also a management company as well. This would eliminate the need for management companies, record labels, and also booking agents like William Morris and Creative Artists. It will increase the unemployment rates and put 100,000 people out of work with inside of 2 years. In this time where our current president is trying to build up from a recession and the largest unemployment rate in 20 years I just do not see this being a positive things to happen.

Now i watched the C span coverage of the justice meeting and I have to tell you i believe the CEO of Live Nation to be one of the biggest liars I have heard. Now Live Nation does most of the larger and smaller concerts in the country and he claims " They are the largest Artist Development companies in the country" this is not true they do nothing to develop artists. This company does not embrace any unsigned bands in any of its markets. The House Blues the company they own really does not allow local bands to play on their stage if they do its rare. I say this living in Cleveland and witnessing it first hand. So i would love to hear how they develop anybody or even invest in anybody's future. The truth is Live Nation should be stripped down and forced to split its company.

Ticketmaster is in the business of ripping off fans now to make extra money because secondary companies like Stubhub exsist and they want their cut. So they intentionally redirect people to ticketsnow.com to have people over pay for tickets. The best part is they told the senate they quit this practice but go online and try to buy tickets for any concert that is featured and you will be redirected. This probably boosts an extra 10,000 -20,000 dollars in profit and this may not seem like allot but when you do it to 100 different show a day it ads up. So how are they losing money and reporting losses.

I find it great that the CEO of ticketmaster says they will have to fire people if this merger does not happen. Wow i think he might know the CEO of GM very well. These companies demand money because they are power houses and because profits are not soaring they need to fire people. They are all making money and are worth trillions of dollars but just like most companies lets lay off people instead of taking care of them like they took care of us..

Ticketmaster and Live Nation are corporate criminals and this merger is a monopoly like no other. I hope our government can open their eyes and see what the big picture truly is.

Just a regular guy with an opinion