Speaker 1: Should we start with the Taylor Swift part of this. Yeah,
this involves Live Nation and Ticketmaster and lawsuits and controversies,
and and as I always say, whenever we talk about
this stuff, you know, it seems like, UH, Live Nation
and Ticketmaster comes up a lot on the show when
we talk about music news and lawsuits and litigation and
Department of Justice investigations and so forth. They're always in
the news. But this is the article that you sent me.
This is from UH Complete fo Yeah, Complete Music Update
dot com. Yep, this just this just went up a
couple of days ago. Taylor Swift and Barclays Center ticketing
controversies prove monopolist Live Nation is damaging live music, Department
of Justice tells jury. UH. The Live Nation antitrust trial
got properly under way this week, with lawyers for the
US Department of Justice and the Live giant UH delivering
their opening statements.
Speaker 2: UH.
Speaker 1: Ticketing dramas involving Taylor Swift and New York's Barclays Center
were a key part of the proceedings. So let's take
a look at this. So, according to this article, the
concert ticket industry is broken. In fact, the concert industry
itself is broken and because both concerts and ticketing are
controlled by a monopolist, and that monopolist is Live Nation.
Those were the bold words of US Department of Justice
lawyer David Dahlquist on day one of the big Live
Nation antitrust trial in New York yesterday. All right, I'm sorry, Well,
so this would have been the third because this article
went up on the fourth a trial. The Live giants,
lawyers and lobbyists tried very hard, indeed, to ensure what
never happen, according to the DOJ and attorneys general for
forty US states. So forty US states are participating in
this Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary unlawfully exploit their
market dominance at shows, venues, and ticketing to the detriment
of artists, fans, and the wider music community. Live Nation
strongly denies all these allegations, of course, and it's now
for a jury to hear arguments from both sides and
decide who is right. By the way, this is a
side note. It is surprising, and I think we talked
about this before that the Department of Justice under the
current administration actually cares about any of this. But they
but they do so good.
Speaker 3: Happily surprised that that it is on the radar because
we've talked about this for years and the artists are
the ones who get ripped.
Speaker 1: Off well and you know the consumers well, I mean
we've talked about of course that's the shady course, the
shady practices of uh.
Speaker 3: But it's like you always I always think about the
artists like they bust their took us as they go
from state to state pilon in shows and it's like
they get pennies on the dollar for the tickets. The
people are coming to see them, right, But it's the
people selling everything that make the majority of the money. Boy,
that sounds like healthcare.
Speaker 1: Well they make Uh, they make the money on merch.
Merch is where the money is for the artists. It's
not on it's not on ticket sales.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, it's not include it doesn't include ticket sales, and
it should. Uh.
Speaker 2: There are some artists that try to rebel.
Speaker 1: So it says here from the off Dohlquist and the
other Dave Live Nations Legal Rep. Dave Marriott of Latham
and Watkins Watkins, ll P began the Battle of the
stats because both Daves have stats to hand, uh to hand,
which they claim prove that they are right. Yes, both
sides are represented by Dave, both of whom claim the
stats back up their case, which isn't at all confusing.
According to do o J Dave aka mister Dahlquist, the
author of this article was having a little too much
fun with this, Dave. It's a little too much little.
It's actually a little annoying.
Speaker 2: It makes a confusing it's not helpful.
Speaker 1: According to DAJO DOJ Dave aka mister Dolquist, Live Nation
controls eighty six percent of large concert ticketing in the Oh,
that's not a monopoly of large concert two no, not
at all in the US, and seventy eight percent of
the country's amphitheater venues, which we can all agree sounds
like something we should be worried about. But of ticketing
at large, Ticketmaster has a forty percent market share and
for venues twenty percent. Live Nation Dave or mister Marriott countered.
One of Live's Nation's key arguments is that the DOJ
is slice the entertainment market up into artificial segments in
order to make it look like the Live Giant is
much more dominant than it really is. It seems likely
that this stat bickering will continue throughout the trial, though
what jurys really like his stories, and yesterday's opening statements
had two good stories to tell, which illustrate the tangible
negative impact of Live Nation's monopoly or not, depending on
which Dave you believe. Story one, Once upon a time
there was an arena venue in New York called the
Barclays Center, and one day it decided to change its
ticketing provider from Ticketmaster to seat Geek. Except the next day,
well about eighteen months later, it switched back to Ticketmaster.
So what happened? I mean, we know there was an
angry phone call involving Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, But
did Live Nation actually use its dominance in arena level
touring to force the arena to return to its ticketing
business or was seat Geek just not up to the
task for providing primary ticketing for New York's big arena venue. So,
in other words, you know, did Live Nation somehow strong
arm the Barclays Center and in doing so did they
potentially do something illegal? So, getting back to the article,
according to DOJ lawyer Dohlquist, while management at Barclays Center
wanted to use seat Geek for their ticketing. It became
very clear of that quote if they didn't use Ticketmaster,
Live Nation's touring division and wouldn't send them any concerts unquote.
So basically, when Barclay Center moved its ticketing to seat Geek, quote,
live Nation punished them and they were forced to go
back to Ticketmaster unquote. Before we go any further, that
raises a question, is that, is that where is the
line between between just being hardball hardcore business people. Where's
the line between that and just being outright predatory? And
I don't know the answer.
Speaker 2: I think they crossed it a while ago. I think
they are predatory.
Speaker 1: Is is that but that example, specifically, Okay, you're not
going to use our ticketing business. We're just not going
to send you anymore because we're this powerful, We're just
not gonna send you any more big shows, right?
Speaker 2: Is that?
Speaker 1: I mean? Technically, are you going is your order here?
Your coffee order? Yeah, okay, Jenny's going to get her
coffee order. But I just but I just I pose
that question, like, like, where is the line between you know,
just playing hardball and actually doing something that would be
considered predatory and therefore potentially illegal or at least leaving
you vulnerable in some sort of civil action. I asked
that question. I'm not a legal expert of any kind.
Uh So I don't know the answer. I'm just asking,
and I guess you know it's subjective. But okay, getting
back to the article. But the Live Nation chief never
threatened to stop concerts being promoted by his company's Story
division from being staged at the New York Arena and
the Barclay Center ultimately returned to Ticketmaster quote not because
of any threats, but because seat geek fell down on
the job unquote. Okay, story number two. Once upon a
time there was a singer called Taylor Swift who decided
to sing some of her songs on an airass tour.
She appointed Ticketmaster to send her tickets, but on the
day the tickets went on sale, Oh to sell her
tickets rather, But on the day the tickets went on sale,
everything crashed, resulting in a lot of very angry Swift fans.
I remember that we talked about that on the show,
Oh Dear. But here's the question. Did it all go
wrong because the Live Nation ticketing company got complacent because
it enjoys a virtual monopoly over concert ticketing and as
a result failed to build a decent it infrastructure or
was the demand for Swift's tickets, including from dubious Bot
using ticket touts, at an unprecedented high, and there isn't
a ticketing platform in the world that could have copied
in those circumstances. By the way, I tend to think that,
you know, I mean, if anyone has the necessary infrastructure
to handle the demand for a big tour like that,
it would be Live Nation and Ticketmaster, right, so probably
the latter. There just isn't a ticketing platform in the
world that could have handled that without But I do
remember we covered that on the show. Okay, continuing on
with the article, Well, according to Dohlquist, the Swift debacle
was simply emblematic of a company that has little competitive
incentive to build a consumer friendly ticketing product that is
fit for purpose. He said, quote, their technology is held
together by duct tape. They have prioritized growth over maintaining
their systems unquote. And by the way, that's very common,
very common in business. A lot of tech companies or
companies that rely on tech will do that, you know.
They they're so focused on growing and growing and growing
their market share, that maybe some of their infrastructure is
left to not keep up with what they're trying to do,
and they you know, and sometimes websites crash as a
result of it. It happens, Okay, So Marriott countered that, yes,
the Taylor Swift launch was a debacle, and Ticketmaster never
has denied that fact. But this was the single largest
on sale ever or her tour. Taylor Swift, and the
cyber attacks by touts and other rogue parties created challenges
that no other ticketing company could have dealt with any better.
The Barclay Center bust up and Taylor Swift the Taylor
Swift on sale are likely to be referenced throughout the trial,
with the DOJ keen to present these events as tangible
proof of live Music's monopoly problem, while Live Nation will
insist these are instead incidents that have been misrepresented. Ultimately,
the case swings on whether there is enough evidence to
show that Live Nation routinely ties its venue management, tour promotions,
and ticketing services together in a way that specifically violates
US laws at a federal or state level. Though a
jury is involved, the stats and stories will likely be
a key part of the narrative as the proceedings progress
and the two daves present their respective arguments. Okay, now
we have a second article that kind of expands on
that because it's directly related to that. Now, this is
from Digital Music News, which is one of my favorite
websites to get music news from. Check this out, and
it's got kind of a provocative title to this article.
What is Live Nation retaliation insurance? You don't want to know?
That's that's the title of this article. Yeah, yeah, so
you know, because we're talking about Live Nation and there
what could be considered predatory business practices. Okay, and again
this is from Digital Musicnews dot com. Former BSE Global
CEO John abmont I should have pre read this, Abamandi,
I think isn't the only one to deliver testimony that
Live Nation retaliated when his venue explored a compelling I'm sorry,
a competing proposal. Here's the latest with the federal antitrust law.
So again this refers to the article. This refers to
the lawsuit we were talking about in the other article,
with the federal antitrust trial against Live Nation and Ticketmaster
in full swing. Venue owners are testifying that Live Nation
weaponized major tour dates to keep them from switching their
ticketing to a competitor. Again, like seat Geek, the Barclay
Center tried to do. Digital Music News covered testimony from
former BSE Global CEO John Abamandi relating to a planned
Billie Eilish show at the Barclay Center that Live Nation
allegedly rug pulled. Now Mitch Helgerson, chief revenue officer for
the Minnesota Wild, has lobbied So I'm sorry, has lobbed
similar allegations against the Live Events Juggernaut. According to Helgerson,
when is Music Venue explored a proposal from Live Nation
competitor Seat Geek during contract negotiations, a Ticketmaster executive warned
him that Live Nation could just move its shows to
a competing venue. Helgerson called this a credible threat and
noted that losing those would have been catastrophic. And again,
I just raised the question, is that is that just hardball,
hardball business tactics, or is that does that cross the line?
Is it predatory? When seek Geek heard the news, they
were apparently keenly aware of Live Nation strategy, offering the
Wild what it literally referred to as a Live Nation
retaliation insurance, that is, a promise to compensate the venue
if concerts were pulled. Well, good on sea Geek for
stepping up, I guess, but how do you, uh, how
do you even do that? Though? How could they put like,
if all these events are pulled, how are they going
to compensate the venue? Interesting? But even with that, getting
back to the article, but even with that offer, and
even though the sea Geek proposal would have ranked would
have raked in an additional million dollars a year for
the venue, the Wild Hockey team ultimately chose to stay
with Ticketmaster. The most damning part is that if seat
geek has a policy it refers to, even colloquially as
Live Nation retaliation insurance, then the company's reputation as a
monopoly seems correctly placed. Of course, Live Nation has fervently
pushed back against these allegations. In the similar ones posited
by Abamandi on cross examination, there was a lot of
emphasis on the complexity of switching ticketing platforms, that seat
geek had real usability shortcomings. In that Abamandi's case, he
already had personal relationships with seat geek execs. However, none
of this explains why the Billie Eilis show in New
York ended up twenty miles away after so called thinly
veiled frets from Live Nation and Ticketmaster. Nor does it
explain why the Minnesota Wild would leave a million dollars
a year on the table, if not out of fear
of retaliation. It's only been the first week of the trial,
which is expected to last about six weeks. Time will
tell if the jury ultimately agrees with the government's assertion
that Live Nation has in fact becomes such a dominant
force that it can essentially bully the rest of the
industry into taking a knee. But if Abamandi and Helgerson's
testimonies are any indication, the first week isn't looking good
for Live Nation. So that is from Digitalmusicnews dot com.
And again you know the Live Nation and Ticketmaster there.
For as long as I can remember, this is not
a recent thing. For as long as I can remember,
they've always been in the news attached to some sort
of controversy investigation, very often over over predatory business practices
or alleged predatory business practices. One more little bit of
a piece to this. This is not directly relate to
this specific trial, but this is from me Music Businessworldwide
dot Com. It does relate to ticketing. Music industry groups
push us Senate to titan Ticket Act and cap resale
fees at ten percent. So this is short, but this
will kind of put a put a cap pun fully
intended in this case on this what we've been talking
about this morning. So again, this is from Music Business
Worldwide dot Com, one of my favorite websites for music
industry news. By the way, this is another great site
if you're interested in this stuff. A group of music
and live music organizations is pressing the Senate to titan
federal ticketing legislation, arguing that the current version of the
Ticket Act is insufficient in protecting fans. The fix. The
TICS coalition, led by the National Independent Venue Association, wrote
an open letter to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science,
and Transportation calling for changes to the Ticket Act. The
letter was addressed to Chairman Ted Cruz, ranking Member Maria Cantwell,
sub Committee Chairman Marsha Blackburn, and ranking Member John Hickenlooper.
They wrote, quote, when federal policy falls short, fans pay
the price. They lose money and cur unnecessary travel costs
and waste. Time they missed the show they planned around,
and they often blame the artists, venue, or team rather
than the reseller or platform that misled them. Meanwhile, scalpers
and speculative sellers assume none of the risk and face
few meaningful consequences unquote. And by the way, just to
just to you know, remind people if you don't know,
when we're talking about resellers and scalpers, you know, there's
all these we call them the secondary market. Very often,
when these tickets go on sale through Live Nation and Ticketmaster,
you might notice, and this has been going on literally
for decades. You know, shows seem to sell out, big,
big tours, seem to sell out very very quickly, and
you might ask yourself, how is it possible that these
shows sell out so quickly? Even with the internet, how
can so many people log on and buy so many
tickets at once? Well, very often it's these resellers, these
secondary market ticket sellers, who buy up a lot of
tickets and then once the show is quote unquote sold out,
now all of a sudden, these secondary market resellers, oh
they've got tickets at a significantly higher price, but they've
got tickets for you. So it is a form of helping.
They are it is a form of scalping. They use
bots to buy up tickets. Ticketmaster, for their part, they
have policies that you can only buy so many tickets
at a time, But as we've discussed on the show,
it is no secret that those policies are not necessarily
consistently enforced by the very technology that is supposed to
prevent scalpers and bots from buying up all these tickets
at once. So it's a dirty business. The ticketing business
is a dirty business.
Speaker 3: Remember when I was a kid going with my mom
and camping out on the sidewalk in a line with
other people outside a ticket Master, waiting for the moment
that the door would open. And back in the day,
the only way you could buy tickets was in person
or on the phone, so it was harder for scalpers.
They still did it. They still did it, but it
was harder on them because you only had those two avenues.
And you know, I did this with my mom. We
went to see Prince. It was the most amazing experience.
But nowadays, with the technology, they should be able to
tell like okay, ip address, we've got bots here, because
so and so you know, there's four bots in here
buying X number of tickets at the same time from
the same IP address. But that doesn't necessarily happen. And
do they really care? Do they really care? Because what
they want is a fast buck. They want the biggest
profit that they can get. They want every ticket to sell, absolutely,
So as long as they're.
Speaker 2: Selling, hey, they're meeting their their margins. You know, they're
making their profit.
Speaker 3: And the heck with the venue, you know, to heck
with the with the band, to heck with the people,
because you know, it sounds like healthcare. You know, it's
the big guys. These guys have multimillion dollar salaries. They
make a ton of money. You know, there's shareholders that
they make a ton of money. And it's always about
how much more can you make me? How much more
can you make me? Because it's never enough. Then, you know,
million dollar profit not enough, make me more? Five million
dollar profit not enough, make me more. That's what happens.
And they don't care. I don't believe that they care.
And the reason I say that is because I can remember.
For all of my adult life, this has been a
topic consistently. There's been core case after core case. There's
been DJ investigations nationally as well as states. We've been
talking about this and hearing about this for as long
as Ticketmaster has existed. Yes, yes, and they have consistently
gotten away and found way is to skirt around the
laws that they have.
Speaker 2: The monopoly on sales of tickets period. They just do.
That's a fact.
Speaker 1: Even program had to back down in the nineties when
they tried to They tried, they tried.
Speaker 3: And they're not the artists that have said, well, I'm
not going to sell my tickets to them because I
don't like the way they do business.
Speaker 2: And they try, they try, but then they end up
having to go back.
Speaker 3: Why because all the venues are using that and they're
not giving them. There's no alternative way for them to
do it. That they get to hold this monopoly. They
have a stranglehold on ticket sales. And I find it interesting.
Did you get to the bottom part? I don't know
if I missed. Did you get to the bottom part
of that article?
Speaker 1: No? About halfway through it?
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, then I'll hold off on my additional.
Speaker 1: Okay, so yeah, a little bit more to this again.
This is from Music Business Worldwide dot Com so, it says.
The push comes over a month after a January twenty
eight Senate Committee Herey Subcommittee hearing where Blackburn led a
panel of lawmakers in pressing Live Nation to do more
to clamp down on ticket scalping. Live Nations Executive vice
president of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs Dan Wall was present
at the hearing alongside musician Kid Rock and other stakeholders.
The coalition, whose signatories include the Recording Academy, SAG after
a Event Bright and American Federation of Musicians, and more
than a dozen other organizations, said the bill contains gaps
that bad actors will continue to exploit. They wrote, quote,
the Ticket Act is a step forward, but without a
complete ban on speculative ticketing and forceable limits on resale
pricing and fees and robust end to end price transparency,
bad actors will continue to exploit gaps in the law
the expense of fans and communities. On pricing transparency, the
groups are demanding disclosure of the base ticket price and
every associated fee to appear from the moment a customer
selects a ticket, not just at checkout quote not requiring
ticket price and ticket fees broken out in a is
a shortcoming of the Federal Trade Commissions All in Pricing rule,
and we are looking to Congress directify it unquote on
speculative ticketing. The coalition is called for a prohibition without exception,
they wrote, quote as multiple witnesses testified tickets that do
not exist, are not in the seller's possession, or are
marketed through so called concierge or seat saver schemes are
not a service. They are deception unquote and predatory. Tend
to agree it's predatory as well. Yeah, you're desperate to
go see.
Speaker 3: Somebody and something like that pops up, You snag it.
You don't even Sometimes people don't even realize how much
they got ripped off until later on when they find
out what the prices truly were, or they talk to
somebody else and they go, geez, I spent three hundred
dollars more than that?
Speaker 2: How come? Who conchier's service?
Speaker 3: It really isn't it's just a fancy word for a scalper.
Speaker 2: It really is.
Speaker 3: And the problem has been consistent in that every time
there's legislation to try and regulate this issue, it gets
defeated or it doesn't even make it.
Speaker 1: For a vote.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm hopeful that Okay, the DJ is actually
on this and forty states out.
Speaker 2: Of fifties awful lot.
Speaker 3: You know, should in Congress do something when this has
been a consistent issue time and again, bill after bill
of trying to rain this in to make sure that
you know, people aren't just getting ripped off because the
system doesn't isn't is still not protective of the consumer
and the artist. It protects the scalper more than it
does the consumer and the artist because the safeguards aren't in.
Speaker 1: Place, it says here. The letter also calls for deleting
the Bills Services Permitted Provision and proposes direct by the
Act so that a ticket issuer oh quote, a ticket issuer,
secondary market ticket issuer, or a secondary market ticket exchange
that does not have actual or constructive possession of an
event ticket shall not sell, offer for sale, or advertise
for sale such an event ticket unquote. The third demand
is for a ban on reselling. This is the important
part of this whole thing.
Speaker 2: Isn't this weird though?
Speaker 3: That you have to create a band to say you
can't sell something you don't have, I know, right.
Speaker 1: It's wild?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that should be a basic consumer law. How do
you sell something you don't have right?
Speaker 1: Right that as a loophole. The third demand is for
a ban on reselling off tickets above the original total
cost and for a cap of all resale fees at
no more than ten percent quote. Across the country, fans
are being priced out of live events, not because artists
or venues raise prices, but because resale markets allow unlimited
markups and excessive fees divorced from any added value or risk.
A federal prohibition on resale above the original total cost,
combined with a strict cap on resale fees, would directly
address price gouging, align incentives toward real fan access, and
ensure that tickets end up in the hands of fans,
not industrial speculators. A companion House Bill HR fourteen oh
two pass House of Representatives with overwhelming bipartisan support in
April twenty twenty five, and was placed on the Senate
calendar in September s two eighty one. The Senate's own
version remains in committee. So there you go.
Speaker 3: So if that's not bad enough, then you have all
of the the quote unquote threats yeah to the venues
that there's accusations of you know, like about the Billie
Eilish part.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, where the what was it? The show is
in New York.
Speaker 3: The show was supposed to be in New York, but
it ended up twenty miles away. After there was some
kind of a thinly veiled threat from Live Nations slash Ticketmaster,
because I remember Live Ation and Ticketmaster are the same thing, right,
they really are.
Speaker 2: It's not two different things these are.
Speaker 3: They're own by the same people, just two different flags
they sit underneath. So if you're going to Live Nation,
you are buying from Ticketmaster, period, right, So don't think
that those terms aren't aren't interchangeable, because they are. Or
wherein they talked about the Minnesota Wild would walk away
from a million dollar deal out of fear of being
retaliated against by Live Nation Ticketmaster, right, you know, So
if it's not bad enough, what we just said is
already happening to consumers this other side. It's almost like
a mafia attitude with ticket sales. These companies are like, yeah,
you must come to the dog to get permission to
sell this or something like, right, because it is you know,
if you're not selling your tickets through us, we're going
to threaten to never sell your venue's tickets again.
Speaker 1: Right, you will get nobody. You know.
Speaker 3: This is it's it's beyond wrong now. It's it went
from the from being a monopolly to now being a mafia.
I'm sorry, but that's how it is. If you're if
people are afraid, that's yeah, the fear is coming from that.
It's it's ridiculous. We've been saying this for years. This
is not about the free market. The free market isn't
fixing this. That's making it worse. What will fix it
is to have regulation that doesn't allow because we have
to apparently create a new law because apparently existing law
doesn't prevent somebody from selling something they don't even have. Yeah,
I am selling one hundred tickets to this concert at
a three hundred dollars market concil and I haven't even
bought the tickets yet.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't even have them in my hand yet.
Speaker 1: The only thing though, that does that does happen in
other sectors. I mean, you know, well even in the
music industry, like you know, artists will you know, put
things on pre sale that aren't necessarily available yet.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, they have their own tickets
that isn't.
Speaker 1: But I just mean, like you can you know, sometimes
you can buy a single or thing. Yeah, that's an orange.
Speaker 2: I don't either sale you're selling something, But I'm just
that you.
Speaker 1: Have you have it, but you might not have it yet,
is what I'm saying. So you might be working on
something that you're or if you're crowdfunding something a project
or something. So there are other examples.
Speaker 3: Huge difference to that in saying I have one hundred tickets. No,
I agree, and I don't actually have the tickets. And
that's what the article is super clear about is that
in a lot of these secondary markets, they're getting their
hands on nothing but your money. Then they're getting this
huge markup, and then they just take a small portion
out of your money and go and actually buy the
ticket you could have bought for that price, but they
swindled you. And these companies get get better and better
at it. In any industry, you'll see, like now, when
you go in and put in a search for something,
they're buying sponsored spots that get them to pop up
to the top. And most of the time we click
on what's the first thing we see, right, pay it.
Speaker 2: Don't do that anymore. Take a look at it. Always. Look.
Speaker 3: This is what I do now is I always look
at what comes up first, and I look for the
word sponsored. So I know that's a yes, at least
it's labeled.
Speaker 2: But you can look for.
Speaker 1: That same thing if you google something.
Speaker 3: Right exactly look for that word sponsored, and then you
know that person paid to have that there.
Speaker 2: It's not that they came up first because of ratings
or because.
Speaker 1: A problem with that, especially since it's labeled.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying pay attention.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because that's just because it comes up first, doesn't
mean that's where you should click. You know, check out
what comes up down underneath the sponsored off. The venue
itself could potentially be selling tickets, right, you know, like
the box office in Conquered, they don't they sell them
right at the window.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can.
Speaker 3: You can go and buy a ticket in person at
their window. You don't have to go through ticket Master
or a Live Nation to do that, right. Most venues
still do that at least. Yeah, So look for that. Yeah,
don't just snag that first one. Watch out for those
sponsored Those are ads they're trying to get you to
click on them. Yeah, So take a moment to peruse
and if you can have the option of buying directly
from the venue or the artists, do it, right, absolutely
do it because that way, you know, the money is
actually going to go back to the artists and the
venue actually like these places are actually making the money
versus Ticketmaster buying it. And right, yeah, you're basically feeding
the multi millionaires that fly in private jets that they
don't want to fly with you on commercial flight because
they don't want to fly with the peasants.
Speaker 2: This is who we're up against. The giant people who.
Speaker 3: Have multi you know, they have giant houses, billionaires, and
it's all about increasing that profit.
Speaker 2: For them more and more and more and more and more.
It's never gonna be enough.
Speaker 3: So we have to curb this by encouraging this kind
of legislation to protect the artists.
Speaker 2: And to get the money to go where it really
should be.
Speaker 3: The bands that pay, you know, they pay in their
blood and sweat from thousands of hours of practicing and
go to put on a concert. You want the money
to go to them as much as possible, So look
for the options before you go and buy from Ticketmaster.
If there is an alternative that is directly from the artist,
or directly from the venue. That might be a better
bet for your dollar, and it might be better priced