LOS ANGELES (VIP-BOOKING) - Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino defended the practice of charging higher ticket prices for concerts during an appearance on The Bob Lefsetz Podcast. During the conversation, Rapino also delved into the nitty-gritty
Live Nation executive Dan Wall has taken aim at resale sites he claims are dishonestly attempting to use antitrust arguments “to protect their scalping business”.
The group’s executive vice-president for corporate and regulatory affairs, an antitrust expert, published a blog via Live Nation’s corporate website in which he accused secondary marketplaces of claiming they want to enhance consumer rights by opposing restrictions on the resale of tickets. However, Wall, namechecking the likes of Viagogo, StubHub, SeatGeek and Vivid Seats, wrote that “antitrust noise coming from resale sites and their Astroturf advocacy groups” is aimed at ensuring government intervention to keep tickets fully transferable through initiatives such as the ‘Ticket Buyer Bill of Rights’, which was unveiled earlier this year.
Entertainment consulting company Venue Coalition recently announced industry veteran JoAnn Armstrong will join the company as Vice President (VP) of Programming.
In her new role, Armstrong will focus on servicing the company’s 150-plus member venues across North America, assisting them with national and regional booking, and providing solid advocacy within the touring industry.
With ticketing still very much in the spotlight in American political circles, two proposals were unveiled last week in US Congress proposing new regulation of the sector. One was welcomed by live giant Live Nation, the other less so.
It was all the problems that occurred last year around the sale of Taylor Swift tickets via the Verified Fan system run by Live Nation’s Ticketmaster that pushed ticketing back up the political agenda in Washington.
European live entertainment group and promoter All Things Live (ATL) has launched All Things Live Middle East (ATL Middle East), with promoter Thomas Ovesen at the helm.
All entertainment and event projects will be managed from ATL Middle East’s headquarters in Dubai, and in the coming weeks, ATL Middle East will announce a string of major live events that are set to take place across the region during 2023, including various comedy and concert performances, as well as further music announcements for 2024.
Although Old Dominion and Kane Brown headlined the main stage at the Stagecoach Festival on Saturday, the night definitely didn’t end there. In fact, dozens of festival goers left Brown’s set early to make their way to the Palomino tent to watch Nelly close out the night.
The rapper hit the stage with his 40-minute set, performing hit after hit alongside his brother, City Spud. In addition to covering Thomas Rhett’s “Die a Happy Man,” he sang all his greatest hits, including “E.I.,” “Country Grammar,” Ride Wit Me” and “Over and Over,” his 2006 song featuring Tim McGraw — one of the early hip-hop/country crossovers.
The Bamboozle Music Festival, founded in 2002 by festival organizer John D’Esposito, spent ten sold-out years in Jersey, featuring acts such as Bon Jovi and the Foo Fighters, until D’Esposito’s internal disagreements with partners Live Nation and House of Blues.
In January of this year, the festival announced its triumphant return to Bader Field in Atlantic City May 5 – 7, with acts such as Papa Roach, Limp Bizkit, and Trippie Redd, with others to be announced later.
Live Nation is facing regulatory pressure on multiple fronts as legislators in multiple states as well as the Federal Government propose new laws that would limit the use of exclusivity contracts in the ticketing industry.
The U.S. Senate, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced the The Unlock Ticketing Markets Act.
U2 has announced the first dates this fall for a series of shows being billed as “U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere” — just five nights in late September and early October, for now, although the possibility of more shows being added seems more like a probability. The ambition and logistical planning of creating a unique show for Sphere, the world’s most technologically advanced space for music, certainly ultimately augurs for a longer run, even if U2 has studiously been avoiding sticking around Vegas quite long enough to merit the avoided word “residency.”
The journey for U2 has been a long and exciting one. From humble beginnings, they now find themselves making history as the first band to perform in their most unique venue yet, Sphere, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Bono, the Edge, and Zane Lowe take an exclusive look into Las Vegas's most innovative performance venue as they plan to take the stage in September. Bono reflects on the invention of stadium rock by the Beatles, and muses about what the future of live music in general might look like. U2 also reflects on some of the experiences that led up to this point, including music video shoots and meeting Frank Sinatra.
Pressure on Live Nation and its Ticketmaster business from US politicians isn’t letting up just yet, led by Democrat senators Amy Klobuchar and Richard Blumenthal. Yesterday they introduced a new piece of legislation, the Unlock Ticketing Markets Act, and it is squarely focused on Ticketmaster.
The bill trains its sights on “excessively long multi-year exclusive contracts that lock out competitors, decrease incentives to innovate new services, and increase costs for fans”, with plans to give regulator the FTC more powers to prevent those deals.
“Right now, one company is leveraging its power to lock venues into exclusive contracts that last up to ten years, ensuring there is no room for potential competitors to get their foot in the door,” said Klobuchar. We’ll bring you any response from Ticketmaster and/or Live Nation as we get it.
With ticketing still very much in the spotlight in American political circles, two proposals were unveiled last week in US Congress proposing new regulation of the sector. One was welcomed by live giant Live Nation, the other less so.
It was all the problems that occurred last year around the sale of Taylor Swift tickets via the Verified Fan system run by Live Nation’s Ticketmaster that pushed ticketing back up the political agenda in Washington.
Guests on the first of two nights of tributes at the Hollywood Bowl included Kris Kristofferson, Miranda Lambert, Norah Jones, the Lumineers, Jack Johnson, Beck, Margo Price and Sturgill Simpson
Grace Jones, Clipse, Lil Uzi Vert, Wu-Tang Clan, 100 gecs, Nile Rodgers, and more were set to perform. The weather caused “significant impacts to the festival site,” the festival noted.
If anyone can successfully close out a packed desert show on Stagecoach Festival’s opening day, it’s Luke Bryan, who’s been playing at the festival for more than a dozen years and previously headlined in 2014, 2016 and 2019.
On Friday night, he opened with a song that might as well have been written for the occasion, “I Don’t Want This Night to End,” and played a set that consisted of nearly all his hits, and a few surprise covers. In addition to his many party anthems — “Drink a Beer,” “Roller Coaster,” “Crash My Party” and “Play it Again” came all in a row — he also sprinkled in covers of Tim McGraw’s “Where the Green Grass Grows” and Brooks and Dunn’s “Neon Moon.”
A new TICKET Act was introduced this week by U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Ranking Member Ted Cruz (R-TX) , which would require the total ticket price to be displayed by default for consumers shopping online marketplaces. The legislation would require both all-in pricing and disclosure on so-called “speculative” tickets where the person selling a ticket does not yet own the tickets being listed for sale.
“When families budget for a night at a ball game or to hear their favorite band, they shouldn’t have to worry about being surprised by hidden fees that suddenly raise the final cost of tickets well over the advertised price,” says Cantwell in a press release announcing the proposed legislation. “The TICKET Act requires sellers to disclose the real price of tickets up front. The price they say should be the price you pay. This bill is one part of comprehensive legislation I plan to introduce to rein in deceptive junk fees driving up costs for consumers.”
Driven by big releases from Morgan Wallen, Taylor Swift, Tomorrow X Together, Drake and others, Universal Music Group saw its revenues rise 11.5% year over year to $2.71 billion in the first quarter of 2023.
But the company’s earnings call on Wednesday was just as newsworthy for the company doubling down on the strong remarks it has made about the fast-rising presence of — some would say threat from — AI in the music world, which hit UMG in the form of “Heart on My Sleeve,” a song using AI-generated soundalikes of two of the company’s biggest artists, Drake and the Weeknd.
Bandsintown has added an integration with the e-commerce platform Shopify to help musicians sell more merch. Many musicians are among the 4.25 million small businesses already using Shopify.
Organizers of New York City’s SummerStage announced the lineup for the free performances that will happen in parks across the city from June through October.
In total, the concert series will see 80 shows take place in New York’s Central Park, as well as at 12 neighborhood parks across the five boroughs.
UK consumers are crying foul after a Ticketmaster mess related to a concert taking place as part of the Coronation process for King Charles next month.
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