Everyone Hates Ticketmaster — But No One Can Take It Down | Hacker News Reader

Everyone Hates Ticketmaster — But No One Can Take It Down

wired.com

Ticketmaster's entire purpose is to be hated. It allows performers and venues to charge closer to market-clearing prices, while directing customer anger away from them.

A friend's startup is doing well in this space: http://showclix.com/

Lynsie was on Mixergy, to talk about it: http://mixergy.com/lynsie-camuso-showclix-interview/

History tells us that if they get big enough, Ticketmaster will make them an offer they can't refuse.

And if their balls are big enough, they'll refuse and proceed to take down Ticketmaster.

Here's hoping they have big balls.

Here's hoping that their investors do too.

What do you mean, "big enough?" There hasn't yet been a company who has been able to resist the buyout, much less wage an insurgency.

One can hate Ticketmaster for their consumer experience. From the business perspective though, the company does (or has done) a remarkable amount of right things. Most important takeaways from this article:

* Gawda and Leffler are obviously hackers. Pretty good ones: Out-program the competition and get more performance (transactions) out of a smaller computer system than their larger competitor who has a much larger (and more expensive) system.

* CEO Rosen has realized that "ticketing isn't about the bands or the fans, it's about the venues". Thus, they have protected the essence of their business, their customer - the venues - by signing long term contracts with them. Bands and fans come and go, venues are here to stay (and be served).

* They have installed right CEOs throughout the decades: In the beginning the already mentioned Rosen who has set the right agenda, "cutthroat" Azoff who has led them thru the major merger and DOJ negotiations and Hubbard who says that he "can't turn on a dime like a startup" but is willing to change when major change is necessary.

* Never change the running system. Yes it isn't the system that fans (and bands) want but it is able to stand their rush like no other. Great quote from Andrew Dreskin, Ticketfly’s CEO and cofounder "A large-scale concert on sale is, in essence, a denial-of-service attack".

* I, once again, am reminded of the following principle: It's not the innovation that wins, it's the leverage. If the innovation IS the leverage then innovate. If it's not, what is it? In the beginning, Ticketmaster was innovative with (ironically) their computer system. While they still use it as leverage, they in the mean time have another, much bigger one: Ties with major venues.

I'm not sure people would hate Ticketmaster if their service charges were hidden in the ticket price. That they break it out and show you how much their "service" is costing you is what brings on the hate. We're talking 50% of the ticket sometimes. ($30 ticket plus venue $8 plus service charge $7).

Thankfully, I don't spend much time with Ticketmaster. I go to more indie productions and they almost never use TM. I prefer smaller, more intimate venues. Arena shows? Acoustics are horrible. I also can't stand the scalpers that inevitably come with any big show (thank you American Express and Front of the Line for saving me on a few "Big" shows I've gone to).

Here in Seattle, Ticketmaster is in a lot of smaller venues. e.g. indie art band Cloud Cult was here recently at The Showbox, and that (and all Showbox shows) was a TM event. Point is, that and many other similar events in Seattle are hardly arena shows.

It's hard to see how someone can develop tech that can compare with the level of reliability that comes from 30 years of debugging.

For small shows, sure. But for the massive tours with hojillions of fans all trying to buy tickets at the same time? Hard to see how someone gets across that gap.

Two tickets, one credit card transaction, but two service charges applied. I hate Ticketmaster

I always wonder if they wouldn't be hated if they just charged the venues requiring it to be absorbed into ticket sans label. Instead of being listed as a "surcharge." Nobody hates mastercard or visa (outside of the payments industry).

they built their system in 1976, and the article seems to suggest it's still running the same codebase?!

Can anyone comment on what it might be written in, and why their infrastructure seems to hold up so well to such high traffic spikes?

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