US based live music and touring behemoth Live Nation is promising to introduce cheaper concert and gig tickets. Yes, and that was the sound of pigs flying over the Tone Deaf offices and laying a turd on the window as they headed south.
After Live Nation – which owns much of the festival, stadium and theatre market in the USA, UK and is about to muscle in on the Australian scene – merged with Ticketmaster earlier this year to create a virtual monopoly, they now reckon that they’re going to be able to deliver cheaper tickets to punters as a result of the merger. Live Nation chief operating officer Paul Latham told the BBC: “You can take out some of the costs that previously would have been there that no longer exist.”
He went on to talk in a grandiose fashion about how the company would offer cheaper tickets to fans without exactly saying how. “One of the results of Ticketmaster being merged with Live Nation is we can look at the whole [booking] fee structure. Music fans are among those who could benefit from “cheaper fees”. Certainly we’re about to launch cheap fees because we’re reacting to the market place because we want to do that. There is no interest in higher ticket prices or high charges. We do want cheaper ticket prices which is why we’re looking at advances in technology, print at home, ticketless events – all of these innovations will come about more quickly. Certainly the ticket buying customer will benefit from that.”
Live Nation is rumoured to be smarting from a massive downturn in the US live music market and having to cancel or downsize heaps of stadium gigs across the US this northern Summer after they stiffed.
