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Comment by nemoniac | Hacker News Reader

Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) gave a good explanation many years ago already:

https://stereogum.com/58831/trent_reznor_blasts_ticketmaster...

He also predicted the future for after the merger.

Its funny - of all the stuff people make up that was Obama's fault, no one ever mentions his admin allowing Ticketmaster and Live Nation to merge. Now they need to be broken up, probably like the Bell System back in the day. But I'll keep on dreaming about that.

My dad told tales of lining up outside a venue to buy a ticket from them directly. By the time I was old enough to be going to concerts, I had to camp out at a TicketMaster location. It made going to the show that much more memorable with the effort put into it. Screw the Baby Bell break up, break it up past the point of just ticket sales. Also break up who can own the venues in town.

My college job was at a record store that had a Ticketmaster machine. If you didn't want to pay the $2.50 fee[1] (we got only like 15 cents or something) you could go to the venue and buy tickets directly.

But since they became a monopoly that option is unavailable. Their contracts with the venues include that they get their full fee, even when bought in person.

[1] Which paid for the custom ticket printer, the ticket stock, the CRT terminal, and the central computer. We paid for the data line and donated the counter space.

Worse, they are all owned by the same company now. It’s all a multi-headed hydra of suck. Live Music has been completely monopolized.

If you like specific acts, sure. Or maybe some cities take independent venues more seriously than others. Growing up, ok I missed out on getting Metallica tickets because I didn't want to support clear channel (or Live Nation, or TM, etc...), but I still was able to see plenty of amazing metal bands in indie venues.

Another interesting note: Weird Al is playing three venues within driving distance from me. Only one of them is selling tickets through TM.

Go see Weird Al. It was a really great show. My wife only knew one of his songs (Word Crimes, she's a professional editor), and she loved the show. I loved it too.

I just saw him a couple weeks ago. It's such a fun show, people there are from ALL walks. He's no spring chicken but he gives it his all, and his band and backups do too. Just an all-around great dude.

Will confirm, all-around great dude. He's the kind of guy you WOULD find in those independent venues. He'll happily go out of his way for it.

Strongly agreed. He played BlizzCon a few years back and it was my favorite part of the weekend.

True, I do see a thriving ecosystem here in Europe for some more fringey types of acts. There's like resident advisor ( https://ra.co ), XCEED ( https://xceed.me ) . Probably because some events don't meet ticketmaster's T&Cs (they can be a bit spicy).

In fact I have not used ticketmaster in the last 2 years, the last time was a big ticket stadium-type thing. Most of the events I attend are doing it through resident advisor and I have about 40 tickets in my history there now. I'm glad the ecosystem hold by ticketmaster is being broken, at least here in Europe.

Though even there you do see some ticketmaster crap popping up like universe.com

> Growing up, ok I missed out on getting Metallica tickets because I didn't want to support clear channel (or Live Nation, or TM, etc...), but I still was able to see plenty of amazing metal bands in indie venues.

I saw Metallica once, many moons ago, and it was at this big venue which of course was Live Nation/TM. It sucked ass. Sound was terrible, had to watch screens to see what was going on, beer was ridiculously priced and yet somehow long queues.

I decided then I wouldn't go to those venues anymore. If a band I like plays there, whatever, not worth it.

Meanwhile I've had many, many concert experiences that were 100x better than the Metallica concert for a fraction of the price of the Metallica ticket at small, local venues.

My buddy recently invited me to another such big-ass venue with some popular band, and it just cemented by view. So not worth it.

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