For all intents and purposes, ZapTix is working on growing outside of ticketmaster's monopoly, targeting the untapped but very willing niche of school and university theaters.
the part about pearl jam is what should interest you. It talks about why it is so hard to move away from ticketmaster for an artist. And you can assume the same for a venue if they decided to host a non ticketmaster or livenation show. Those companies may in turn refuse to host future higher paying shows at that venue. Unethical but it has allegedly taken place. Just for reference, but I agree there needs to be a change.
I don't know much about college venues but that seems like a promising idea to focus on.
I don't see what the problem with scalping is. The scalper pays for the ticket, and then provides the very useful service of making the ticket available at the last minute. The scalper also takes on a risk that no one will want the ticket,
I can see that the band/venue/ticketing agency wouldn't like it as they don't get a piece of the action. But that doesn't make it immoral.
If tickets are auctioned online by the ticket seller then presumably the band and venue will make more money which will lead to more tours/albums/better venues etc.
Auctioning would probably work both ways too in that worse seats would be available for less than they currently are now.
For me at least, scalping seems "evil" because it's charging a lot for something of little inherent value -- if I had just logged in 10 minutes earlier than you, I could have had your ticket for 1/10 the price.
A better system in my mind (one that ticketmaster had the leverage to implement) would be a point system - if I purchase a ticket for a sold-out concert, and it turns out that I can't go, I should be able to get my money back AND nab a spot in the pre-sale queue for the next popular concert coming to town.
That way, I still get my great ticket, but I'm not setting an arbitrary value based on demand.
It's not only a 10 minute difference, a scalper will allow you to buy a ticket 1 minute before the show starts - that's worth something.
David Friedman wrote a neat paper about the psychology of inherent prices and some related topics:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/econ_and_evol_psych/economics_and_evol_psych.html
The closest thing to a competitor that I know of (at least in the uni and arts market) is Paciolan; and after talking to them a bit about their architecture a few years ago - I don't think they pose much of a threat.
TicketMaster on the other hand... they're just scary (for many many reasons).