WEBVTT - Nathan Hubbard 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:08.280 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome. My name is Bob left Sef. You're 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:11.680 listening to the Bob left Sets podcast, and today my 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:16.520 guest is Nathan Hubbard, businessman extraordinaire in the music business. 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:18.440 He's done a number of things. We're gonna get through 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:22.560 the history, but he's most known for running ticket Master, 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:25.680 which many people have a negative opinion of what. We'll 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:29.080 get deeper into that, having no fault having to do 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:31.480 with Nathan. And then he was head of media at 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:36.000 commerce at Twitter. Now he's into some new projects. Nathan, 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:38.519 how you do it? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. Okay, 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:42.800 so where were you born? I was born in Chicago, Chicago. 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:45.199 Did you live in Chicago only briefly? I really grew 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:47.560 up in Washington, d C. You grew up in Washington, DC. 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:49.880 And what's your father do for a living? My dad 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:56.000 was a was in the nonprofit world. Actually, he helped 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:01.680 foundations that make grants to make the world of place. Really, yeah, 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:04.200 and that's why I was in d C. Yeah, exactly. 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:06.600 And did your mother work outside the home? My mom 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:08.840 was a teacher for a long time. But other than that, 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:10.600 there were five of us and I sort of come 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:14.360 from a patchwork quilt of a family. There's five kids 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:16.240 with a bunch of different last names and all of 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:18.840 us from different backgrounds. So we got stuff together and 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:21.640 that actually drove a ton of like who I am 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:24.320 and my business interests and everything. Well, let's go back. 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:26.800 So your mother has been married? How many times your 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:29.160 father and your father has been married? How many times? 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.959 I lost I lost count? So they're not still together? No, okay, 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:35.320 So the five kids, where are you in the five? 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:38.920 So I'm technically in the middle, in the middle. Yeah, okay, 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:40.760 So how old is the oldest? How much older is 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:44.080 the oldest? So I have too, I have two older 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:48.360 older brothers. Actually, sorry, I have five siblings. So now 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:51.160 at six by the end of the podcast, will I 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:54.320 lose track? Now I have two older brothers and two 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:59.440 younger sisters and then a baby brother. Okay, So what 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:01.880 did we do? Get attached to music growing up? I 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:04.320 mean it was the center of everything that I did. 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:06.480 You know, I used it. I started writing songs at 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.240 at a really young age, and uh, I used it 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:11.000 kind of as an escape to sort of get through 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:14.160 family stuff. And so the family was chaotic, I mean 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:16.040 in the beginning it was, and then and then we 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:18.720 sort of all came together again like this patchwork quilt 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.000 and and uh and actually built a family that is 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:26.280 super strong and and you know continues to this day. Okay, 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:29.760 so you're writing songs at like early teenage years. What 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:31.800 believe you're gonna be rich and famous now? You know? 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:33.640 Even sooner? I sat next to a kid in first 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:39.360 grade who today is like the foremost leading academic expert 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:42.920 on American bluegrass musically. Yeah, and he's a teacher at 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:45.600 Pomona east of l A. Uh do you still see 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:48.680 all the time. And we sat next to each other 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:51.640 in first grade and we started writing songs and we 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:53.600 did it through our sort of pre pubescent years. We 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:56.760 wrote songs about frogs and ship and then uh, and 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:58.799 then in high school and then into college, we start 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:01.639 writing real songs. And he's just a fabulous musician, and 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:05.160 I you know, I had a way with words, I guess, 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:08.480 And so we created a duo and we started making 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:12.400 albums and touring around and helped to put us through college. 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:15.400 And okay, let's go back. So you're in school. I mean, 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:17.480 there's certainly things that I know about you that the 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:19.840 listeners will find out, But you went to Princeton. Is 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:23.399 that a legacy in your family? Uh? There, my my 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:26.480 my brother went to Princeton. My parents were went to Northwestern. 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:30.359 But uh so so no, I hope that I got 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:33.360 in on my own blood, sweat and work. But you 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:35.440 never know, how did you decide to go to Princeton 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:39.880 as opposed to anywhere else? You know? It was, Um, 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:42.080 I just went there and loved it. I just loved 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:46.000 the way that it felt. And uh, um, I just 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:48.080 sort of it felt like a place where I could 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:50.200 figure out who it was that I wanted to be. 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:52.720 And do you still feel that way now having spent 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:55.280 the four years there? Yeah. I I met a bunch 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:58.240 of people who I still are you know, count as 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:01.800 my closest friends. And uh I met my wife and yeah, 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:03.880 it's a great place. So your wife was also a 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:06.920 student at Princeton. Yes, well I didn't know that. So 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:11.520 what did you study at Princeton? So I studied. I 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:14.320 was a politics major, but I really focused on South 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:17.080 African politics, And you know, I started my whole life 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:19.560 been fascinated with the ways in which people from a 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:23.840 bunch of different backgrounds calmed together. After you know, all 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:26.960 those different backgrounds and experiences and sometimes tragedies and come 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.200 and get together and what they do. And so that's 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:32.719 the story of my family, and it's also the story 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:37.279 of South Africa, which in nineteen ninety six, two years 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:41.280 out of you know, Mandela being released, was sort of 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:44.240 building this nascent democracy. And and so I went to 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:46.839 South Africa and spent a bunch of time there doing 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:50.680 like hardcore on the ground thesis research. And in high 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:52.880 school I had worked for an organization with a woman 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:55.640 named Amy Beale, who was killed in South Africa a 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:57.800 couple of years later. Um, and so I sort of 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:02.880 went in her footsteps and and studied the sort of 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:06.320 emergence of democracy in South African, interviewed everybody from like 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:10.919 Conservative Thatcher right economists to the Communist party, you know, 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:14.120 trade unions to senators and so forth, and sort of 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:17.520 painted a picture of how, in particular the a n 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.600 C was I can't believe we're talking about this, sorry, 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:23.080 but in particular, how the a n C had made 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:27.440 this transition from being a uh you know, sort of 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:32.800 rebellious uh liberation movement into actually a governing political party. 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:35.720 And it turned out, just like our political parties, they 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:38.360 had all sorts of differences, and it was creating fissures, 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:41.920 which you know, as a liberation movement, those were not 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:44.440 ever something that could come to the surface as a 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:46.599 governing party. It was starting to affect the way that 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:49.760 they actually ruled the country. And it felt like being 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:53.560 in the presence of Jefferson and Washington and Adams and 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:56.840 Hamilton's and all of them when you were there at 0:05:56.839 --> 0:05:58.960 that time. And but for me, it was just an 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:02.320 opportunity to go and study and and learn how all 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:06.799 these different people come together to to make something happen UM. 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:10.120 And I also wrote my second album there. Okay, well 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:13.000 was the last time you were there? I was there 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:14.719 a year and a half ago. And what do you 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:17.440 think about what's going on now? Well, I mean I 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:21.080 think um, the latest uh sort of reports out of 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:24.800 South Africa are pretty clear, which is that their project 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:29.600 in post Nuremberg democracy like South Africa, from my perspective, 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:34.480 is the most important democracy since post Nuremberg Germany. And 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:37.159 because it is a it is a lesson in how 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:42.320 you know, post racial violence, hatred, awful things, um can 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:45.760 be reconciled and forgiven, and whether or not those people 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:48.200 of different backgrounds can actually come together and govern themselves 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:51.440 in democracy, and it was working for a while, and 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:54.760 it is not working right now, and they're they're just uh, 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:59.760 there has been Zuma's administration has just become thoroughly corrupt. 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:04.120 Uh And so it is not in good shape. And 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:06.920 it's a sad said thing, because it is so important 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:10.640 to how we as human beings think about governing ourselves. 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:15.120 To what degree do you see parallels in our own country? Well, 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:19.400 I think, um, I see a ton which is that, 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:24.680 you know, the institutions. You know, there's some there's some 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:28.560 quote that that was in an article that Bloomberg wrote lately, 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:31.760 but it basically says, you know, institutions are only as 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:35.640 strong as as the character of the people who are 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:38.640 running them. And and in the case of South Africa, 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:41.080 the character that people running those institutions has has sort 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:44.160 of fallen by the wayside, and there's a you know, 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:48.920 massive population in Africa that's suffering because of that. So 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:51.000 you're in college. We all have to study something in 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:54.360 college to graduate. Did you anticipate having a future in 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:57.920 that field? No, I didn't. I really needed something to 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:00.920 do with my summer while I'm my friends went to 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:05.320 work at banks and consulting firms, because at that point, 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:07.600 you know, I would we were. We'd made a couple 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:10.560 of albums with with we got named John Aalaysia, who 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:13.120 had produced Dave Matthews band. He did John Mayer's first record, 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:15.920 Room for Squares, he did Jason Mraz and a lot 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:19.000 of folks. So we'd made we'd made our second record 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:21.680 with him, and I was just trying to get passing 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:23.400 grades in college so I could figure out how to 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:25.520 how to write songs and play music. Okay, so the 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:30.320 name of the act was you two. I've seen them, 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:31.800 I've heard of them. Well, so this is the problem. 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:32.959 When you meet a kid in first grade and you 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:35.720 sit next to each other, you create a band. Uh, 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:38.360 you usually funk up the name. And so my middle 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:40.160 name is Church. His last name is Rockwell. So the 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.120 band was called Rockwell Church, which was great until we 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:46.199 got a record deal and everybody started calling asking who 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:51.320 the hot young Christian band was, and radio had hard 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:53.880 decisions to make about whether to play you know, suburban 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:56.959 woosy acoustic rock and pretend it was Christian or not. 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.199 So Okay, so when you're in high school and it's 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.160 already rock old Church are you gigging at high school? Yeah, 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:04.040 well we played, we had we had a couple of 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:06.080 bands that we played with our with our classmates. We 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:08.520 didn't really play shows until college. When we got into college. 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.600 He went to Haverford down the road and from Princeton, 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:14.320 and so we would go to the Fez in New 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:16.360 York City or the biterand in New York City would 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:19.720 go to teena Angel and Philadelphia or you know, back 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:21.280 to some of our old stomping grounds in d C. 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:23.680 And play shows. And then we we'd also you know, 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:26.079 play a bunch of schools and just like you know, 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:28.560 we sort of followed the map of the day Matthews band. 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:31.080 That's why I ended up obviously working for Corner Cap 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:34.240 Sean and and love him to death, sort of watched 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:37.280 his model and how he nurtured those bands and um 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:38.880 and and that was that was how we did it. 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:41.960 And were you making any money? Yeah, you know, we 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:45.280 ended up doing okay, you know, uh again, when you 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:47.720 focus on touring, it's it's a great way to go. 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:50.439 And and was there a manager and agent? Yeah, the 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:54.720 Corns red Light Management to care of us. Really. Yeah. 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:58.560 So what year did you graduate from college? Uh, so 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:01.040 Dave Matthews man had already made Dave Matthews Band was 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:03.840 taking off right sort of as we were entering college, 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:07.400 and uh, and John Elisia connected us with the Red 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:09.800 Light guys and and and a sweet wonderful man named 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:13.080 Chris ted Selly took us on his management client and 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:15.640 sort of shepherded us through that that that process. And 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:18.640 so while you're in college, this is happening. Yeah, we were. 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.680 We were out gigging on on weekends a lot. And uh, 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:23.160 you know, we put out I think we put out 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:24.640 to yeah, two of our albums while we were in 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:27.360 college and um, selling them out of the back of 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:31.360 our you know, of our dorm rooms and uh and 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:34.120 doing it well. Were you famous on campus as the musician? 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:38.520 I don't know that. Nobody's famous at Princeton the uh, 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:42.000 the nuclear physicists are famous at Princeton. But but you know, 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:43.520 we had a good thing going where we could go. 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:46.720 Played a couple hundred people, um in most of the 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:49.240 you know, major towns on the East coast, and we 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:52.199 ended up when graduated, playing a lot of schools sort 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:55.120 of west and almost every state we played in. Uh. 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:58.480 And so we've been do you enjoy it. I loved it. 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:00.720 They loved the road and every that I loved everything 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:02.240 about it. I I mean, what's wrong with turning around with 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:06.320 your best friend and meeting people? And you know, um 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:10.000 an underappreciated thing about about gigging is you get to 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:12.440 see all parts of the country. You get to meet 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:15.200 people in the middle of Utah, you get to go 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:20.120 play pulled pork barbecue at the University of Western Alabama, 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:23.960 and and you know, you understand how the sort of 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:26.720 cultures match up and how they flow and driving it 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:28.480 is so important because when you fly in you don't 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:32.520 really see how not only sort of topography changes as 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:34.760 you drive across the land, but the people change and 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:37.439 sort of how they flow and how those cultures pass 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:40.400 and um. So it was a great learning experience for me, 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:43.160 you know, sort of consistent with understanding how people of 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:46.120 all these different backgrounds get together to to to make 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:48.960 a moment. Well, yeah, it's fascinating you say that because 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:53.280 in light of the election, you're reading the mainstream media 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:55.720 and you realize, other than the people on the opinion page, 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.120 they don't interface with any of these people all day long. 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:01.240 I'm writing about Paul takes I'm hearing from people across 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:03.920 the spectrum. So when you go to these places, you 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:06.720 learn something that a lot of the Bloviators on television 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:09.839 and in print really have no idea of. Yeah, I mean, look, 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:12.920 Zuckerberg took a lot of ship for traveling state to state. 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:15.760 But if you don't go and spend your time there 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:18.880 and and dig in, I don't know how you you know, 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:21.319 I don't know how you can pretend to understand who 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:24.160 who people are, whether you're in whether you live in 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:26.160 Alabama and you don't go to Los Angeles, you live 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:28.040 in Los Angeles and you don't go to Alabama, it 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:32.080 sort of creates the same set issues. So you're pursuing 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:34.319 the dream in your mind, you're gonna hang in there 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:36.240 as long as it takes to make it, or well, yeah, 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:37.880 we're gonna hang in there as long as it takes, 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:42.000 and and uh, and keep writing songs and and keep 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:44.520 playing and um, you know, we did it for a 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:47.120 couple of years. We end up making five albums. Um. 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:49.400 But there's a time when he and I are driving 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:51.640 down the back roads of Iowa headed to a gig 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:53.720 in the fall about this time of year. It's gorgeous 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:56.640 and Iowa. Everything turns golden and we're head to do 0:12:56.720 --> 0:12:59.520 gig and he turns to me hours on the road 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:01.280 where we don't and say ship to each other. You're 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:04.400 driving an suv or whatever. And he turns to me 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:06.720 and goes, my dad's gonna kill me if I don't 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:10.920 go to grad school. I was like, oh God, I 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:12.319 gotta figure out what I'm gonna do with the rest 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.160 of my life. And uh, you know, one thing that 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:19.200 another we pivoted. I we kept playing for a couple 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.120 of years after that. Really, yeah, so I picked up 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:24.480 with a startup in San Francisco. Before you do that. 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:27.160 As I said, I didn't know until this conversation that 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:29.679 the guy is now a bluegrass expert. So what did 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:31.800 he go to graduate school in? So? So he went 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:35.160 to he went to to get his PhD in music 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:38.679 and and so, uh he went to University Chicago. And 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.400 while he was at University of Chicago, I was at 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:43.080 the startup that I'll tell you about. And and we 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:45.560 would still hop on the plane and fly to Philadelphia 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:49.720 and play absolutely and and and keep doing it. Um, 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:52.840 so you're at this startup, tell me about that. You know? 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:56.480 It was like Nielsen is to consumer package because this 0:13:56.559 --> 0:13:59.360 company was to wireless mobile data, and so it was 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.680 the first come funny that really was helping the CEO 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:05.840 and CMO of a ten t year Verizon measure their 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:08.000 business and make decisions based on But how did you 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:11.760 look up with this company? I had a friend who 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:14.640 was starting it in San Francisco, and I looked at 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:16.600 what they were doing and it looked boring as hell. 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:19.240 It looked awful. But I looked at it and said, 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:22.800 you know, there's a massive internet boom happening in San 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:25.760 Francisco right now. I'm gonna learn a ton and I'm 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:26.920 gonna go for it. And I don't know if this 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:29.520 is going to be two months or you know, two decades, 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:31.640 but I'm gonna go for it. And just stopping for 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:33.800 a second, you met your wife in Princeton. When you're 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.800 gigging on the road whatever, you're maintaining a relationship, I mean, 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:38.760 as best as you can when you're on the road. Yeah, 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:40.480 And what was she doing at that time? She was 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:43.800 a management consultant. Okay, so you moved to San Francisco. 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.600 You gotta work for the start up and uh and 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:50.040 I did three years there. I got an awesome business education. 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:55.880 We grew from probably six people to couple hundred and um, 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:58.960 and I just could not get the desire to be 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:03.840 in the business of music out of my heart. And um. 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:07.960 So that company eventually got bought by Nielsen and and 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:10.840 did really well and not too long after I left, 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:14.400 and and I learned a ton about mobile and tech 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:17.480 and data and um, you know, things that I ended 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:19.880 up using even you know, when I was a ticketmaster 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:21.640 and Twitter for sure. Did you have any stock in 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:24.080 the company? Oh yeah, absolutely, like everything, like like every 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:26.880 person do well on the sale and did okay? I did? 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:29.840 Yeah for for me at that age, right, yeah, for 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:31.840 me at that age, it was great and and I 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:34.040 never thought it would amount to anything. But but that 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:39.160 was a gift, just uh, you know, serendipitous happenstance. But 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:43.080 but I really, I really wanted to be involved in music. 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.640 And so I went back to business school. And because 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.760 it just felt like again you asked me why I 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:52.200 went to prison, I went to business school because it 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:54.120 felt like two years to figure out how to pivot 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:57.560 and and to learn some things that again my friends 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:00.760 who had gone and gotten banking and consulting education had 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:05.080 probably picked up some of the basics UM, and that 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:08.200 hopefully that skill set would give me some leg up 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:10.520 in the business. Okay, so you felt you actually that's 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:11.960 why I went to law schools. You're thinking, you go 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:14.280 to business school and then you figure out your place 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:16.880 in the music business. Absolutely, Now you went to Stanford. 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:20.400 How did you decide to go to Stanford? Uh? You know, 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:25.720 I felt like, uh, that school. You know, I've since 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:27.360 done a lot of board work for them and spent 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:31.000 I'm a big advocate, so I'm super biased. But that 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:33.880 school does not just sort of teach the X and os. 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:38.040 It teaches xs and os. It teaches you how to 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:44.120 uh manage and lead people and and it teaches you 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:46.840 how to understand yourself to be sort of the best 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:50.520 leader that you can be. And Stanford was also at 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:51.960 the sort of heart of a bunch of the dot 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:55.160 com things that were happening at the time and UM, 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:57.240 and so it just felt like a place that that 0:16:57.480 --> 0:16:59.520 was going to be supportive of me as a sort 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:02.600 of non for aditional MBA candidate, you know, songwriter guy 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:05.639 who also had been at a startup UM. But a 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:07.600 place that that that could welcome me and teach me 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:10.880 and make me better. So, but to my understanding, it's 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:13.600 not my area of expertise. Stanford has a slightly different 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:15.600 model than a lot of these other business schools that 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:18.600 there's smaller groups and you stay within a group. Yeah, 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:22.600 it's it's a much smaller school overall. And uh, and 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:25.080 you stay with your class. Most business schools they sort 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:27.639 of divide you up into sections. Stanford here with your 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:29.800 whole class and and so that's an opportunity to get 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:32.520 to know three sixty people at the time, really really well. 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:35.120 And these are people who go off and do amazing things, 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:38.760 from you know, steel mills and in Argentina to you know, 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:42.159 oil business in Russia to you know, uh, startups in 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:45.920 the valley. Now to what degree that those relationships continue 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:49.720 to pay dividends for you? Uh, they continue to this day. 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:53.160 I mean you know that there's a there's a great 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:55.920 network of Stanford Business school people all over the world 0:17:56.000 --> 0:18:00.800 and all in almost all industries. Um, candidly, the only 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.360 the only place didn't help me was in music. Um Um, 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:06.600 I think there were no graduates in the music field. 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:10.320 There weren't. There weren't and um and that was okay 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:12.800 because it actually, you know, I think probably at the 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:14.440 end of the day, it was a nice little brand 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:16.159 that gave me a leg up and an interest in 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:20.400 some places and gives you that sort of validation. But um, 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:22.840 but certainly the education gave me a lot that I 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:26.000 used in every single thing I've done in business sense. 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:28.960 So would you recommend people today to get an mp Yeah, 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:31.479 I do. I I'm I am not. I am not 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:33.320 in the camp that says you should drop out now, 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:35.760 I don't recommend that people go get any m b A. 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:38.359 And what you're seeing right now is the drying up 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:40.679 of a lot of those programs. They're just having problem 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:45.199 feeling a two year education in some schools because the 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:48.520 opportunity cost of going to school x versus taking those 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:50.919 two years if you know what you're gonna do and 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:54.440 going and starting a company is not there. Um. I 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:58.119 do think that the program and the ideas that you 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:00.960 know an MBA program like Stanford each is are super 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:02.880 universal because at the end of the day, it's shifting 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:06.600 more from here's how you um you know, here's how 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:09.520 how you do accounting, and here's how you do statistics. 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:13.520 It's moving more to here's how you understand yourself to 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:18.480 know how you influence people and read other people and 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:21.800 motivate them and give them candid feedback and lead them. 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:25.480 And that's really the value of an NBA, especially for 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:28.240 a lot of people who have been management consultants and 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:31.960 bankers taking orders. So in between your first and second 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:34.119 years of business school, during the summer, what do you do? 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:36.840 I moved to New York City and I worked for 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:40.959 Michael McDonald at a t O Records. Uh, Dave Gray's 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:45.240 album has come out, and I have no official job, 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:49.000 and I just show up and start building spreadsheets thanks 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:51.880 to my UM Excel class that I took a Stanford 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:54.160 in my first year, and start building spreadsheets to help 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.960 them build a little bit of a predictive model around 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:01.080 what each artists they're gonna sign, how well that artist's 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:04.879 album is going to sell based on past history, and 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:07.159 how much money we were investing in marketing and all 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:09.199 these things. So I was kind of making it up 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:11.959 as I went along. I'm really just interested in jumping 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:14.320 in and figuring out how to help. And this is 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:16.840 the turn of the century. To what degree are the 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:22.800 people surrounding you at that time interested in data? Um, well, 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:24.520 you know, a couple of years later, I went to 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:27.720 the Aspen conference and I met you there and I 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:30.719 think I made a case that that we would be 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:33.280 able to use data to to better predict the songs 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:35.000 that people liked, and you blew me up in front 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:37.560 of everybody. So at that point in time, I don't 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:39.640 think there was a whole lot of interest in data. 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:43.040 Obviously I made a big impact. I'm sorry about that. 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:47.920 Moving right along, you graduate from Stanford and then what's 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:51.639 your next step? So, uh well, I called the folks 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:54.919 he used to manage me, and uh I called Corn. 0:20:55.320 --> 0:21:00.199 And Corn at the time was, you know, expanding his 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:03.680 business is pretty rapidly. He was growing his management company 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:08.359 from basically Dave and Us and a few others to 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:11.800 you know, the behemoth that it is today. He had 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:14.760 the record label, he had, you know, a whole bunch 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:17.520 of business and festival business, and he had this little 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:20.240 business called Music Today that was doing the online stores 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:22.640 for just about every band you'd ever heard of. Who 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:26.719 idea was that Corn's idea? Originally? Yes, it was. You know, 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:30.320 Corn is a student of the Grateful Dead, and he 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:35.359 watched how they ran their business and understood the internet 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:38.440 and the power of the Internet and basically took the 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:41.760 model that was not just hey, let's have the band 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:45.439 tour every year. Um, but you know, he understands the 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.320 fan experience and so he said, we can also take 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:52.080 that amazing merchandising organization that that the Grateful Dead has 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:55.679 and we can move that online and so um, he 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:58.000 had a huge one going with Dave Matthews Band. And 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:03.000 not unlike Amazon Web Service is he understood that he 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:06.720 could build a business that basically scaled up his infrastructure 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:08.480 that it took to support the Dave Matthews band and 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:11.960 do online stores for just about every band. And that 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:15.159 company at the time was not interesting to me in 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:18.439 any way, shape or form. I moved to Charlottesville, Virginia 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:20.880 to go work with Corn and and thought, well, I'll 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:23.479 get to manage some bands and I'll get to, you know, 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:27.040 work on the record label. And um, Corn of course, 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:31.439 in his wisdom, had better ideas. And you know, the 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:33.720 truth is, a month into me being down there, it 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:36.520 was clear that music today was an amazing asset that 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:39.520 just needed a little bit more focus and attention and 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:42.240 and and maybe a little bit of um, you know, 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:44.639 maybe a little bit of a bit of leadership and 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:46.720 sort of full time, although there were some great people there, 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:49.600 but um, but I went over to Music Today and 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:51.600 I worked at A Corn's office, But I spent almost 0:22:51.600 --> 0:22:54.520 all my time looking at music today and figuring out 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:57.040 how to take it from something that was it could 0:22:57.119 --> 0:23:01.400 be to a uh to a realize said, so, how 0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:03.680 long do you work at Music Today until it's ultimately 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:05.760 sold to Live Nation? So I think I was there 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:09.360 for about two two and a half years. And how 0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:15.000 what is the decision process to sell it to Live Nation? Well, um, 0:23:15.040 --> 0:23:19.800 you know, Michael had taken over Live Nation, you know, 0:23:19.880 --> 0:23:22.920 not not not yeah, not long there before, and I 0:23:23.400 --> 0:23:26.199 flew out to Los Angeles to watch him speak I 0:23:26.200 --> 0:23:29.679 think at the poll Star convention, and uh, you know, 0:23:29.880 --> 0:23:33.879 he gave a just super inspiring presentation on you know, 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:36.960 how his vision was to connect artists and fans. And 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:38.840 I walked out and called Corn said, I think Michael 0:23:38.880 --> 0:23:41.640 Repino is gonna buy music today, and and we sold 0:23:41.640 --> 0:23:44.400 it to him for the end of the year. Now, 0:23:44.520 --> 0:23:48.840 just jumping forward, Live Nation has now sold music today itself. 0:23:49.520 --> 0:23:52.240 So what's the status of music today? You know, I 0:23:52.240 --> 0:23:54.920 don't know the answer to that. Actually, um, I think 0:23:55.000 --> 0:23:59.040 Corn Corn, to my knowledge I think he brought it back, 0:23:59.280 --> 0:24:02.960 and um, you know he's I never I never doubt 0:24:03.040 --> 0:24:06.879 Korn's business decision. He's always got something up his sleeves. So, um, 0:24:06.920 --> 0:24:09.480 you know that asset, though, played a played a really 0:24:09.520 --> 0:24:12.560 important role through the course of a lot of things 0:24:12.560 --> 0:24:15.639 that we did at Live Nation, including launching the competitor 0:24:15.680 --> 0:24:18.280 to Ticketmaster that ultimately forced the merger with Live Nation 0:24:18.480 --> 0:24:21.640 or with the Ticketmaster. Okay, so you are there at 0:24:22.000 --> 0:24:24.719 Music Today, you sell it to Live Nation. You know 0:24:24.800 --> 0:24:27.560 that you're gonna go Live Nation as part of that deal. Yeah, 0:24:27.600 --> 0:24:30.359 I think that was something that that we had spoken 0:24:30.400 --> 0:24:34.280 about with Michael and gotten Corn's blessing. Uh you know, again, 0:24:34.320 --> 0:24:36.720 to his credit, he was super supportive of me. And 0:24:37.240 --> 0:24:40.520 so moved from Charlottesville to to Los Angeles. And how 0:24:40.600 --> 0:24:46.960 did you end up running Ticketmaster? Well, you know, look, um, 0:24:47.240 --> 0:24:50.720 when I moved out, Michael understood that his contract with 0:24:50.760 --> 0:24:53.920 Ticketmaster was expiring in in a short you know, year 0:24:53.920 --> 0:24:57.600 and a half or something, and um, he knew that 0:24:57.720 --> 0:25:03.600 he wanted to control ticketing, and so he uh convinced 0:25:03.600 --> 0:25:08.240 me to go build that build a competitor and um, 0:25:08.359 --> 0:25:11.040 and so in a very very short period of time, 0:25:11.200 --> 0:25:15.119 we from scratch built up a competitor to Ticketmaster that 0:25:15.160 --> 0:25:17.359 was going to take over Live Nations tickets, and we 0:25:17.440 --> 0:25:22.000 ultimately signed a deal with SMG and others that that 0:25:22.119 --> 0:25:25.280 I think built up a real competitive threat. And um, 0:25:25.320 --> 0:25:28.360 I think that as much as anything, was a big 0:25:28.400 --> 0:25:30.879 forcing function for the merger. Now. But if we go 0:25:30.920 --> 0:25:33.720 back in history to that time proximately ten years ago, 0:25:34.600 --> 0:25:37.920 did it work? You know, well, I know it launched 0:25:37.920 --> 0:25:42.200 in the issues of sustainability, but did the ticket did 0:25:42.200 --> 0:25:46.320 the Live Nation competitor Ticketmaster actually work? Well? So the 0:25:46.359 --> 0:25:48.679 answer is yes, we did the Lamp theater season on it. 0:25:49.280 --> 0:25:52.359 If that's the if that's the metric. Uh. Did we 0:25:52.400 --> 0:25:55.280 get what we wanted from the company that we licensed 0:25:55.359 --> 0:25:58.480 software from, No, and that was proven out through arbitration 0:25:58.560 --> 0:26:02.040 everything else. So, UM, I think we did. The team 0:26:02.119 --> 0:26:04.320 that the team that was behind getting that thing off 0:26:04.359 --> 0:26:06.520 the ground. That was the hardest year of my life 0:26:06.720 --> 0:26:10.560 by a mile. Uh. We didn't sleep well, and you know, 0:26:11.400 --> 0:26:14.040 were all the physical burdens of stress that you hear 0:26:14.080 --> 0:26:15.840 about when you start up a company. It was the 0:26:15.840 --> 0:26:19.000 scariest thing because we knew on January first, two thousand 0:26:19.080 --> 0:26:21.120 and nine, that this thing was going to go live 0:26:21.160 --> 0:26:23.480 and either you know, a billion dollar plus business was 0:26:23.480 --> 0:26:25.119 going to go into the ground or it was going 0:26:25.160 --> 0:26:26.960 to take off and it was gonna work. And and 0:26:28.119 --> 0:26:31.960 it worked enough for us to uh, you know, to 0:26:32.119 --> 0:26:37.520 do the bare minimum and get get get those tickets sold. Now, 0:26:37.560 --> 0:26:40.719 the company that you're referencing, what assets did they not 0:26:40.800 --> 0:26:44.080 give you? So it didn't work. I don't even want 0:26:44.080 --> 0:26:45.840 to go go into that. What I can tell you 0:26:46.040 --> 0:26:52.240 is that, uh is that we had we had heroic 0:26:52.320 --> 0:26:55.800 work to do to to get the app theater season 0:26:56.040 --> 0:26:58.919 up and running and going. And it was it was 0:26:58.960 --> 0:27:01.960 by the by the amazing work of that team that 0:27:02.119 --> 0:27:04.800 we were able to keep the walls up and keep 0:27:04.880 --> 0:27:07.560 the business going. So the merger happens, how do you 0:27:07.680 --> 0:27:11.520 end up running Ticketmaster? Well, I think, uh, you know, 0:27:11.600 --> 0:27:13.760 Music Today had been doing a lot of fan club ticketing, 0:27:14.320 --> 0:27:18.080 uh and you know, we'd built up a competitor really 0:27:18.160 --> 0:27:23.119 thinking about the soft underbellies that we saw at Ticketmaster 0:27:23.160 --> 0:27:26.200 at the time, and so UM, it was pretty clear 0:27:26.320 --> 0:27:31.400 in the moment that um that you know, the Ticketmaster 0:27:31.480 --> 0:27:33.200 needed a new leadership. You know, I don't know the 0:27:33.280 --> 0:27:35.879 numbers totally right, but before the merger, you know, Ticketmaster 0:27:36.040 --> 0:27:39.159 lost maybe a third of its IBATA over just a 0:27:39.240 --> 0:27:43.000 short number of years, and so there was definitely a 0:27:43.040 --> 0:27:46.480 need for culture change and probably strategy change. And UM, 0:27:46.720 --> 0:27:49.040 I think we were you know, Michael and I were 0:27:49.080 --> 0:27:53.000 lined around around the way to to do that and uh, 0:27:53.280 --> 0:27:55.840 but it needed a leader and and so he asked 0:27:55.840 --> 0:27:58.480 me to go do that. He gave me that opportunity. Okay, 0:27:58.520 --> 0:28:01.399 So what was your biggest challenge once you actually were 0:28:01.600 --> 0:28:12.880 placed in that role? Well, UM, biggest challenge you had. 0:28:13.000 --> 0:28:14.919 You had a really big cultural challenge. You had you 0:28:14.920 --> 0:28:18.280 had a company that uh that probably didn't believe in 0:28:18.320 --> 0:28:23.320 itself um at the time. UM. And and you had 0:28:23.359 --> 0:28:25.720 a you had a client challenge, which is that you know, 0:28:25.800 --> 0:28:28.720 as has been well documented, I think UM, taking Master 0:28:28.800 --> 0:28:32.080 probably had underinvested in technology at the time. And you 0:28:32.119 --> 0:28:35.080 know that's changed dramatically since then. But at the time 0:28:35.920 --> 0:28:40.360 and UM, and those two things together meant that you know, 0:28:40.400 --> 0:28:42.400 you'd lost business over the last couple of years, you 0:28:42.400 --> 0:28:45.600 had probably demoralized staff, and you probably had some people 0:28:45.600 --> 0:28:48.960 who weren't right for the business there anymore. UM. And 0:28:49.080 --> 0:28:52.320 you know, you had obviously the people joke about the 0:28:52.560 --> 0:28:55.440 brand of taking Yes, at the time it was it 0:28:55.520 --> 0:28:57.840 was not thought highly of. But that was the least 0:28:57.880 --> 0:28:59.760 of the problems that the company had. I mean that 0:29:00.040 --> 0:29:02.760 on the company had was how do you continue to 0:29:03.400 --> 0:29:06.000 your in a lot of ways, your marketplace business. You've 0:29:06.040 --> 0:29:09.440 got consumers on one end and you've got supply on 0:29:09.480 --> 0:29:11.680 the other end. Well, this is a supply driven business, 0:29:11.720 --> 0:29:15.880 ticketing is, and uh, the question was how do we 0:29:15.920 --> 0:29:17.920 hang on to supply through that merger. A lot of 0:29:17.960 --> 0:29:21.040 people worried about what that meant for them, you know, 0:29:21.200 --> 0:29:25.360 Live Nation, Ticketmaster coming together, and so we had a 0:29:25.400 --> 0:29:28.880 whole lot of ballet dancing to do to reassure clients 0:29:28.880 --> 0:29:30.520 that this was going to be great for them, and 0:29:30.520 --> 0:29:33.520 and and most importantly show them a vision for where 0:29:33.520 --> 0:29:37.560 we're going to go forward. Hey it's Bob left Sets. 0:29:37.600 --> 0:29:40.600 I thank you for your time. Welcome to my new podcast, 0:29:40.720 --> 0:29:44.680 the Bob left Sets Podcast. Remember to subscribe I've tuned 0:29:44.720 --> 0:29:49.120 in iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we're 0:29:49.160 --> 0:29:52.840 back with Nathan Hubbard, the ticketing Expert. And there are 0:29:52.840 --> 0:29:55.320 a number of issues, number of challenges that are facing 0:29:55.320 --> 0:29:58.080 the concert business today. Let's stick into the weeds a 0:29:58.080 --> 0:30:00.120 little bit on ticketing because you're the big ex it 0:30:00.200 --> 0:30:04.360 on this. You stated earlier that Live Nation wanted to 0:30:04.360 --> 0:30:08.480 have its own ticketing business inside the business, it's concerned, 0:30:08.480 --> 0:30:11.440 it's considered this point the only money is in ticketing. 0:30:11.720 --> 0:30:15.280 Can you explain that to our listeners? Well, I don't 0:30:15.280 --> 0:30:17.040 know if I agree with that. Okay, start with what 0:30:17.080 --> 0:30:21.160 you mean. Look, let's let's just go back to to 0:30:21.720 --> 0:30:24.280 you know, on the Live Nation side. And I don't 0:30:24.280 --> 0:30:26.360 I don't need to comment on this, but but but 0:30:26.520 --> 0:30:29.480 you know, Michael had the vision which he understood the 0:30:29.480 --> 0:30:33.320 power of content, and he understands understood from the beginning 0:30:33.320 --> 0:30:35.440 if he could aggregate a bunch of content and pay 0:30:35.480 --> 0:30:38.360 the artist as much as possible, that he would find 0:30:38.440 --> 0:30:42.440 other ways to make up that money. And and and 0:30:42.520 --> 0:30:45.560 a lot of that was sponsorship from his background, and 0:30:45.800 --> 0:30:47.040 you know, turned out a lot of that was going 0:30:47.080 --> 0:30:49.480 to be ticketing too. And there's a lot of other 0:30:49.520 --> 0:30:52.400 ways that that that I'm sure that they're inventing. So 0:30:52.400 --> 0:30:57.160 so uh, you know that said that was also in 0:30:57.200 --> 0:31:00.840 a moment right when the merger happened, you know, in 0:31:00.880 --> 0:31:05.360 two thousand nine. That's in a moment when the headlines 0:31:05.400 --> 0:31:07.600 about what's happening in the record of music industry are 0:31:07.720 --> 0:31:10.720 are as bad as they can be, right, And revenues 0:31:10.760 --> 0:31:14.280 have gone with and artists go from making their money 0:31:14.320 --> 0:31:19.680 from from from their albums, from from the road to 0:31:20.400 --> 0:31:24.720 you know the inverse at best um and so so 0:31:24.800 --> 0:31:26.640 there was a lot of money in touring. It just 0:31:26.720 --> 0:31:30.880 depended on what part of the value chain you were in. Okay, okay, 0:31:30.880 --> 0:31:36.080 but let's explain, because Ticketmaster, generally speaking is hated. Explain 0:31:36.320 --> 0:31:39.440 what ticket masters function is and how the money is 0:31:39.480 --> 0:31:43.120 split up, how ticket Masters make steals with buildings, and 0:31:43.120 --> 0:31:46.520 how the the ticket fees, how that comes in, just 0:31:46.560 --> 0:31:48.320 in terms of explaining that because a lot of people 0:31:48.360 --> 0:31:52.520 don't understand it. Yeah, I mean, look, I take issue 0:31:52.520 --> 0:31:54.960 with your hated thing UH at this point in time, 0:31:55.000 --> 0:31:56.880 I'm proud of what they've done since then. But I 0:31:56.920 --> 0:31:59.200 will I will give you the basic layout, right. The 0:31:59.280 --> 0:32:04.040 basic layout is this. You know, Ticketmaster is is a 0:32:04.080 --> 0:32:10.560 software platform that UH signs venues and UH distributes the 0:32:10.560 --> 0:32:13.760 tickets to the fans. And what you're really asking me 0:32:13.800 --> 0:32:15.480 what that question is, what's up with the fees? I 0:32:15.520 --> 0:32:19.440 think and and I think that that's one of the 0:32:19.440 --> 0:32:21.120 most Look, I spent a lot of time when I 0:32:21.160 --> 0:32:23.440 was there and uh, you know, helping to try to 0:32:23.560 --> 0:32:27.880 educate the world about what those fees are about. And um, 0:32:27.920 --> 0:32:32.080 you know, through time they became you know, the economics 0:32:32.120 --> 0:32:34.560 of the business are such that the artist takes a 0:32:34.600 --> 0:32:38.320 really big percentage of the price of the ticket, the 0:32:38.360 --> 0:32:43.360 face value of the ticket, and the fee became away 0:32:43.520 --> 0:32:46.760 for other parties in the value chain to make money 0:32:46.800 --> 0:32:49.280 on the concert, whether that was the venue or the 0:32:49.320 --> 0:32:52.840 promoter or yes, the ticketing company. Also let's insert here 0:32:53.360 --> 0:32:56.719 that the artist had a percentage of the orall income 0:32:56.760 --> 0:32:59.960 but could not commission the fees. That was a big 0:33:00.080 --> 0:33:02.480 driver of the creation of the phase. Yeah, that's right, 0:33:02.480 --> 0:33:05.440 there was kept outside of the deal, right, and so 0:33:05.680 --> 0:33:09.280 needless to say they got bigger through time. Um, but 0:33:09.320 --> 0:33:13.360 I think listen, you know, Ticketmaster has you know, even 0:33:13.360 --> 0:33:15.600 to this day, there's a ton of transparency behind their 0:33:15.600 --> 0:33:18.000 financials because their public company, so you can see what 0:33:18.080 --> 0:33:20.080 their margins look like, you can see how much money 0:33:20.160 --> 0:33:22.440 they make. And I think at the end of the day, 0:33:22.480 --> 0:33:26.000 what's massively misunderstood is most of that feed does not 0:33:26.080 --> 0:33:28.680 go to Ticketmaster. Most of that fee goes to other 0:33:28.680 --> 0:33:30.680 parties in the value chain. In a lot of cases 0:33:30.680 --> 0:33:35.040 of the venue um and they use that to make 0:33:35.120 --> 0:33:38.360 money because so much of the face value and sometimes 0:33:38.440 --> 0:33:40.680 more than the face value of the ticket, as you know, 0:33:40.800 --> 0:33:45.200 in the live business, is going to the artist. And 0:33:45.360 --> 0:33:48.840 what and how many cases does the artists participate in 0:33:48.840 --> 0:33:56.880 that fee? You know? Uh? I don't ye, I don't 0:33:56.880 --> 0:33:59.400 think the artist really directly is participating in that fee. 0:33:59.400 --> 0:34:01.320 But if you've got to deal you know, at a 0:34:01.400 --> 0:34:05.800 venue where the artist is making of the gross and 0:34:05.840 --> 0:34:09.840 then the artist business partners, how's that possible? Well, you know, 0:34:10.000 --> 0:34:12.640 artist business partners are in there too, So you know, 0:34:12.719 --> 0:34:14.719 you've got a whole bunch of other revenue streams, one 0:34:14.719 --> 0:34:17.160 of which is fees. There's beer and popcorn and parking 0:34:17.200 --> 0:34:19.759 and all these other things that that that that make 0:34:19.880 --> 0:34:23.160 up how that artist gets paid in that way. Okay, 0:34:23.600 --> 0:34:26.160 going on to a couple of other issues. Some people 0:34:26.239 --> 0:34:29.520 might say, Hey, I have a fee for these concert tickets, 0:34:29.840 --> 0:34:31.879 but there's no feet when I buy a Dodger ticket 0:34:31.920 --> 0:34:35.440 a sporting event. Why is that? That's one of the 0:34:35.480 --> 0:34:37.759 weird artifacts of the of the business. Right in the 0:34:37.800 --> 0:34:41.960 same arena you can go to to to to uh, 0:34:42.280 --> 0:34:44.360 you can be a season ticket holder and pay no fees, 0:34:45.080 --> 0:34:46.800 and if you go to another event, you're going to 0:34:46.840 --> 0:34:50.120 pay the fees. That um, as you referenced earlier, can 0:34:50.160 --> 0:34:53.520 sometimes frustrate people because they don't understand them to say 0:34:53.520 --> 0:34:56.880 the least um and and so the point there is 0:34:56.960 --> 0:35:01.839 just we're in a world where uh, concert fans are 0:35:02.000 --> 0:35:06.080 subsidizing sports fans. And while there is some overlap, but well, 0:35:06.120 --> 0:35:08.560 well it's not complete. Well go a little bit slower 0:35:08.600 --> 0:35:10.839 so my audience can understand in what way are they 0:35:10.840 --> 0:35:13.880 subsidizing them? Well, so the ticketing company has got to 0:35:14.080 --> 0:35:17.480 make their money, right, The ticketing company gets paid, as 0:35:17.560 --> 0:35:20.879 do a bunch of other players in the value chaine 0:35:20.880 --> 0:35:22.880 the venue. Okay, but but let's go back to the 0:35:22.920 --> 0:35:27.440 beginning here. Let's assume my own arena. I choose a 0:35:27.480 --> 0:35:31.080 ticketing partner and it's an exclusive deal. That's right in 0:35:31.360 --> 0:35:34.640 the u S. It is okay, and money is it 0:35:34.880 --> 0:35:38.800 changes hands when I signed that deal. No. Generally, the 0:35:38.840 --> 0:35:41.320 way that it works is that is that the ticketing 0:35:41.360 --> 0:35:45.640 company gets paid uh percentage of that service fee. It's 0:35:45.680 --> 0:35:48.600 a lot less. I'm not trying to say let's say, uh, 0:35:48.640 --> 0:35:51.520 I own arena X and I make a deal. Let's 0:35:51.520 --> 0:35:54.160 just say with ticket Master. When I sign up for 0:35:54.239 --> 0:35:57.520 three years, this ticket Master either write me a check 0:35:57.600 --> 0:36:01.799 or guarantee me income. Look not to speak generally. Let 0:36:01.800 --> 0:36:04.239 me speak generally about it and not specifically about Ticketmaster, 0:36:04.280 --> 0:36:06.400 because I'm aware of, you know, the practice of a 0:36:06.400 --> 0:36:09.880 bunch of businesses generally speaking. The way that it works 0:36:10.120 --> 0:36:13.640 is you do this is oversimplifying it, but we do 0:36:13.719 --> 0:36:18.440 a deal and uh, yeah, you sign up for some term. 0:36:18.800 --> 0:36:22.320 Pretend it's three to five years or something, and uh, 0:36:22.560 --> 0:36:26.040 I sell those tickets and there's a fee on those tickets, 0:36:26.040 --> 0:36:28.680 and we split that fee and I get as a ticketer, 0:36:28.840 --> 0:36:31.200 I get a small percentage of that. You, as the venue, 0:36:31.239 --> 0:36:33.160 get a larger percentage of that. And then the venue 0:36:33.200 --> 0:36:35.880 sometimes goes and splits that fee with his partner, whether 0:36:35.920 --> 0:36:41.560 that's promoter, artist or you know, whoever, sports team, whoever 0:36:41.560 --> 0:36:42.960 it is. Isn't that okay? But there are a number 0:36:43.000 --> 0:36:45.600 of ticketing options. How does the venue decide which one 0:36:45.640 --> 0:36:49.480 to go with? They'll put out an RFP and everybody 0:36:49.480 --> 0:36:51.439 will come and bid and do a dog and pony show, 0:36:51.480 --> 0:36:54.120 and they'll make decisions about what's best for them. But 0:36:54.120 --> 0:36:58.440 but the key there is that those contracts and this 0:36:58.480 --> 0:37:03.120 is again ticketing platform a stick. Generally charge fees on 0:37:03.320 --> 0:37:09.080 individual events and individual game tickets in sports, but don't 0:37:09.239 --> 0:37:11.960 charge fees on season tickets. Well, in a world where 0:37:12.400 --> 0:37:14.680 most of the tickets for a sporting event are sold 0:37:14.719 --> 0:37:17.200 as season tickets, that means that you make a heck 0:37:17.200 --> 0:37:20.480 of a lot less off fees then on a on 0:37:20.520 --> 0:37:24.600 a game than you do when the circus came to town, 0:37:24.840 --> 0:37:27.440 or a concert or you know, wrestling or whatever it 0:37:27.520 --> 0:37:30.040 is in the building. Which is to say that those 0:37:30.080 --> 0:37:33.919 fans who are going to those non sport events pay 0:37:33.960 --> 0:37:39.960 a fee that subsidizes a lot of the fans who 0:37:39.960 --> 0:37:42.799 come to see a sporting event. Well, as I say, 0:37:42.840 --> 0:37:46.160 that's an historic fact, just like uh, we talk about 0:37:46.160 --> 0:37:48.640 certain things with phone calls or services in our cars 0:37:48.640 --> 0:37:52.440 that don't exist anymore. Question is well that continue to 0:37:52.520 --> 0:37:55.799 be the case or do you foresee some reckoning down 0:37:55.800 --> 0:38:00.400 the road. Well, I think the sophistication level of owners 0:38:00.440 --> 0:38:03.320 of these of these venues is increasing. Right, You've got 0:38:03.400 --> 0:38:06.840 really smart people who are invested in the whole building, 0:38:06.960 --> 0:38:10.680 and so there they know that they're competing against you 0:38:10.760 --> 0:38:13.080 sitting at home on your couch and watching a game 0:38:13.120 --> 0:38:15.719 on TV or or you know, not coming out to 0:38:15.760 --> 0:38:19.000 the event. And so I think as they look holistically 0:38:19.040 --> 0:38:21.279 at their business, one of the things they will think 0:38:21.280 --> 0:38:24.320 about is how can we get somebody to convert more easily, 0:38:24.360 --> 0:38:26.719 just like again Amazon does as they think about a 0:38:26.760 --> 0:38:30.279 fan coming through their purchase funnel. So uh so as 0:38:30.320 --> 0:38:32.719 they look at that problem, if they look at the 0:38:32.760 --> 0:38:37.600 fees as a blocker, Um again, you know, the last 0:38:37.640 --> 0:38:40.440 thing that we wanted a ticketmaster, that I wanted, I'll 0:38:40.440 --> 0:38:44.440 just speak for myself, was you know, I hated the 0:38:44.480 --> 0:38:47.040 fees because because we got blamed for m and we 0:38:47.040 --> 0:38:48.760 didn't even make all of it. I wish I wish 0:38:48.760 --> 0:38:51.319 we were able to make pocket all you know, all 0:38:51.320 --> 0:38:53.719 that fee. And I'm sure every other ticketer feels that 0:38:53.760 --> 0:38:57.520 way too. Um. You know, So it's on the venue 0:38:58.200 --> 0:39:01.680 or the artist or the sports team to make decisions 0:39:01.680 --> 0:39:04.960 about changing that structure. And I think that as owners 0:39:05.000 --> 0:39:07.480 of those venues, who are generally now in a lot 0:39:07.480 --> 0:39:11.200 of cases, the owner of a sports team, big ones, right, um, 0:39:11.840 --> 0:39:15.000 might look across there, they're the entirety their business and say, 0:39:15.160 --> 0:39:18.200 let's think about how we present ourselves to the fans 0:39:18.239 --> 0:39:20.000 in a different way. And I guarantee you that the 0:39:20.000 --> 0:39:23.040 ticketer will happily fall in line very quickly behind that 0:39:23.840 --> 0:39:26.759 because it's better for their brand too. And one of 0:39:26.760 --> 0:39:32.200 the big complaints consumers have is that they see tickets 0:39:32.200 --> 0:39:36.600 for events online before the on sale date. What is 0:39:36.640 --> 0:39:38.720 going on there? Yeah, so that's in a lot of cases, 0:39:38.719 --> 0:39:42.320 that's speculative ticketing, and that UM. Frankly, we talked a 0:39:42.320 --> 0:39:45.520 lot about issues in the industry now that UM, some 0:39:45.520 --> 0:39:47.279 of which have been addressed, some of which are are 0:39:47.320 --> 0:39:49.680 sort of evolving. There's a lot of interesting solutions to them. 0:39:49.840 --> 0:39:52.640 One of which that the big issue, a big issue 0:39:52.680 --> 0:39:54.920 that has not been touched a speculative ticketing. And what 0:39:55.000 --> 0:40:00.840 that effectively is is a broker will post a ticket 0:40:00.960 --> 0:40:05.799 to a site that he does not have, and uh, 0:40:05.960 --> 0:40:08.280 it will not be communicated to you that that ticket, 0:40:09.239 --> 0:40:10.840 at least it won't be communicated to you in a 0:40:10.920 --> 0:40:13.560 in a clear way that that ticket doesn't exist. And 0:40:13.560 --> 0:40:16.200 the broker will say something like, hey, it's you know, 0:40:16.239 --> 0:40:19.279 for the National Championship Collegiate National Championship game that's in 0:40:19.280 --> 0:40:21.719 Atlanta this year. Um, you know, you can buy a 0:40:21.719 --> 0:40:25.640 ticket for five thousand dollars and two tickets in you know, 0:40:25.760 --> 0:40:28.520 row twenty and the broker will post that because he 0:40:28.560 --> 0:40:32.920 knows that he if you buy those two tickets um, 0:40:32.960 --> 0:40:35.279 even though he doesn't have them, he knows or he 0:40:35.360 --> 0:40:38.560 believes that he can go into the secondary market and 0:40:38.640 --> 0:40:41.160 find two tickets that are as good or better for 0:40:41.280 --> 0:40:44.239 less than that. So he arbitrages the difference. Maybe he 0:40:44.280 --> 0:40:47.919 can go find those tickets for two thousand dollars each um. 0:40:48.040 --> 0:40:50.720 And so what that really means is that they're fishing 0:40:50.719 --> 0:40:54.120 for suckers. They're trying to find people who are so 0:40:54.160 --> 0:40:56.800 anxious to go that they're willing to pay an exorbitant amount. 0:40:57.320 --> 0:40:59.640 And then the broker has the money in his pocket, 0:40:59.719 --> 0:41:01.879 he leaves he can go out and find those those 0:41:01.920 --> 0:41:04.399 tickets for less. Not not everybody does this. But there's 0:41:04.400 --> 0:41:07.120 a couple of problems here. Number one, there's not clear 0:41:07.120 --> 0:41:11.480 communication to the fan about about whether or not those 0:41:11.480 --> 0:41:15.319 tickets actually exist. That's not a problem, I guess. I 0:41:15.320 --> 0:41:17.440 mean it is a problem because the consumer should know. 0:41:17.800 --> 0:41:20.400 But in practice, if the broker goes and fulfills that 0:41:20.440 --> 0:41:22.800 request and you get your tickets for five thousand bucks, 0:41:23.160 --> 0:41:25.000 you know, did you get did you get? You know? 0:41:25.040 --> 0:41:26.880 Were you a sucker? Yeah? But at least you got 0:41:26.920 --> 0:41:31.480 your tickets. Now what happens, unfortunately, is brokers. This is 0:41:31.520 --> 0:41:34.480 like short selling a stock, and sometimes broke will get 0:41:34.520 --> 0:41:39.439 pinched and there's so much demand for an event that yeah, 0:41:39.480 --> 0:41:41.520 maybe you bought your ticket for five thousand dollars, but 0:41:41.560 --> 0:41:44.160 the broker can't actually buy those tickets for less than 0:41:44.200 --> 0:41:47.080 five thousand dollars. So he's in the hole now because 0:41:47.080 --> 0:41:49.120 tickets are being priced for seven thousand dollars for the 0:41:49.160 --> 0:41:51.440 National Championship game. And what happens in a lot of 0:41:51.440 --> 0:41:55.200 those cases is broker's close up shop and disappear the 0:41:56.080 --> 0:41:58.799 you know, uh, sort of bad acting brokers. There are 0:41:58.800 --> 0:42:00.920 a lot of good acting brokers on guys who run 0:42:00.960 --> 0:42:04.200 real businesses and have real relationships with with with customers 0:42:04.200 --> 0:42:07.359 and so forth. But in the speculative business, if they're 0:42:07.360 --> 0:42:10.880 getting pinched, they disappear. So none of these brokers ever 0:42:10.920 --> 0:42:13.560 say I charge five thousand, but I'm gonna go out 0:42:13.560 --> 0:42:17.239 and buy the ticket for There may be some who 0:42:17.280 --> 0:42:20.200 fill their orders in service of protecting their brand, but 0:42:20.239 --> 0:42:22.440 there are a lot who don't. And that's a problem 0:42:22.480 --> 0:42:24.960 for a game like a National Championship game, where somebody's 0:42:25.000 --> 0:42:27.880 traveled from miles away. They show up, their tickets don't exist, 0:42:27.920 --> 0:42:30.480 and they're stuck because there's so much demand that that 0:42:30.560 --> 0:42:34.120 they can't actually get access to those tickets. Now. Um. Now, 0:42:34.560 --> 0:42:37.640 you know, I think there's been some governmental interest in 0:42:37.719 --> 0:42:41.319 that issue. Um, but that to me is one of 0:42:41.360 --> 0:42:45.879 the sort of hanging there's no reason why you can't 0:42:45.920 --> 0:42:48.680 have a a concierge service that says, Bob, I don't 0:42:48.680 --> 0:42:50.279 have the tickets right now, but tell me what you want, 0:42:50.280 --> 0:42:51.799 tell me what you're looking for, tell me how much 0:42:51.800 --> 0:42:53.480 you want to spend, and I'll go find it in 0:42:53.480 --> 0:42:56.440 the market. That seems like a totally reasonable service. But 0:42:56.560 --> 0:43:01.920 to offer that alongside in the same user experience as 0:43:02.640 --> 0:43:06.440 tickets that supposedly do exist feels pretty misleading to me. 0:43:06.719 --> 0:43:10.279 And so um, that's a practice that I expect will 0:43:10.320 --> 0:43:13.440 be cracked down on in in you know, in in 0:43:13.440 --> 0:43:15.399 the kind I know there was example was at last year, 0:43:15.400 --> 0:43:18.720 everybody went to some big football game, they traveled, maybe 0:43:18.719 --> 0:43:21.440 not Tre Dame or something, and their tickets didn't exist. 0:43:22.080 --> 0:43:25.120 But what I've viewed stuff like this, it's like, you know, 0:43:25.120 --> 0:43:27.880 we've talked earlier about spam email, and we talked about 0:43:27.920 --> 0:43:31.120 the no call list. Every day my phone rings with 0:43:31.239 --> 0:43:34.960 illegal phone calls, and the government seems to be powerless 0:43:35.000 --> 0:43:37.840 against that. So I think you could deter this, but 0:43:37.880 --> 0:43:40.080 I'm not sure you could eradicate. The solution is if 0:43:40.120 --> 0:43:42.480 you digitize every ticket, you know if it exists or not, 0:43:42.840 --> 0:43:45.880 so you can you know, you should have secondary market 0:43:45.920 --> 0:43:48.239 sites that can look the fan in the eye and say, yes, 0:43:48.320 --> 0:43:50.120 we have the ticket, will deliver to you right now, 0:43:50.320 --> 0:43:52.680 or no, this ticket does not exist. As long as 0:43:52.719 --> 0:43:56.040 tickets are pieces of paper divorced from identity and payment 0:43:56.080 --> 0:43:59.360 and geolocation, you have all sorts of scurl less like 0:43:59.680 --> 0:44:04.000 you know, um, bad actors and and bad behavior that 0:44:04.080 --> 0:44:06.640 can happen around that ticket. Because it's really just a 0:44:06.640 --> 0:44:09.040 piece of paper. It can be photocopied ten thousand times 0:44:09.080 --> 0:44:11.120 and sold and the first guy gets in the building 0:44:11.200 --> 0:44:14.040 and the rest are stuck. Right, it can be transferred 0:44:14.040 --> 0:44:17.360 around sort of without you know to to to again 0:44:17.400 --> 0:44:20.680 other bad actors. If you if you actually digitize the 0:44:20.719 --> 0:44:24.280 access credential, you can solve a ton of those problems 0:44:24.320 --> 0:44:27.839 around fraud, around the consumer experience, and and sort of 0:44:28.160 --> 0:44:32.080 massively make make the user experience better. Let's go to 0:44:32.160 --> 0:44:34.759 Broadway for a second. You have the Hambletons. They give 0:44:34.760 --> 0:44:37.920 a certain number of tickets away in a lottery, and 0:44:37.960 --> 0:44:40.160 they have a certain number of tickets that are sold 0:44:40.719 --> 0:44:44.000 close to a thousand dollars. Now, in this particular case, 0:44:44.160 --> 0:44:47.360 we're not talking about repeat business. The play will the 0:44:47.440 --> 0:44:49.760 music will be on Broadway for X number of years, 0:44:49.960 --> 0:44:52.239 maybe it'll be a revival ten or twenty years down 0:44:52.280 --> 0:44:55.600 the road. Most people don't go more than once. Why 0:44:55.680 --> 0:44:59.120 not just either charged with the ticket is worth. It's 0:44:59.120 --> 0:45:00.759 not like a band that going to continue to be 0:45:00.800 --> 0:45:03.440 on the road for two decades. Why in that case, 0:45:03.880 --> 0:45:07.560 just not make every seat in the house a fair price. Well, 0:45:07.800 --> 0:45:10.120 I mean you have to ask the produces that my 0:45:10.600 --> 0:45:13.160 senses that they believe that what they have is a 0:45:13.320 --> 0:45:15.960 very very important piece of content, and that they want 0:45:15.960 --> 0:45:18.080 to spread it far and wide, and that they feel 0:45:18.120 --> 0:45:21.080 like there's one part of their mission, which is to 0:45:21.320 --> 0:45:24.160 make a bunch of money, but that they've made a 0:45:24.200 --> 0:45:27.839 shipload of money, and that that from here they're also 0:45:27.920 --> 0:45:30.800 interested in in educating people and bringing them in. I 0:45:32.400 --> 0:45:34.480 love what they're doing, and I think I think from 0:45:34.520 --> 0:45:37.080 an artist's perspective, By the way, there's gonna be a 0:45:37.080 --> 0:45:40.000 Hamilton's movie. There's a ton of Hamilton's merch people are 0:45:40.040 --> 0:45:42.279 going to see that thing multiple times. God knows, I've 0:45:42.320 --> 0:45:48.080 taken my daughters twice. Uh, so you know they're they're uh. 0:45:48.400 --> 0:45:51.120 I think when you think about lifetime value of a fan, 0:45:51.520 --> 0:45:54.359 you start to think about distributing your inventory differently. We 0:45:54.440 --> 0:45:57.880 now have more interesting sets of data, more usable tools 0:45:58.000 --> 0:46:01.160 to flush that data through, to help you think about 0:46:01.200 --> 0:46:03.719 how to distribute the inventory in some way other than 0:46:04.000 --> 0:46:06.520 first come, first served. Everybody go, the gun goes off, 0:46:06.760 --> 0:46:08.960 there's a big stampede, a bunch of people get trampled, 0:46:08.960 --> 0:46:13.160 and whoever survives gets the tickets and comes into the show. Okay, 0:46:13.200 --> 0:46:17.360 so we understand from a business standpoint why the fees exist, 0:46:17.800 --> 0:46:20.919 but the public can't wrap their head around these fees 0:46:20.920 --> 0:46:22.480 the same way the public has had a hard time 0:46:22.480 --> 0:46:26.040 wrapping it set around streaming. I still get email people saying, hey, 0:46:26.080 --> 0:46:27.799 if I don't have a connection, I won't be able 0:46:27.840 --> 0:46:31.560 to stream, not knowing that you can sink files to 0:46:31.680 --> 0:46:34.000 your hand set with a streaming service, assuming you have 0:46:34.000 --> 0:46:37.960 the premium version. So is there any way to grant 0:46:38.040 --> 0:46:42.040 transparency or to clean this up so that the person 0:46:42.120 --> 0:46:45.759 at the end, the person buying the ticket, we'll understand 0:46:45.800 --> 0:46:49.240 what's going on. Yeah, I think I think the ticketing 0:46:49.280 --> 0:46:51.839 business has gotten better at this. We talked a lot 0:46:51.920 --> 0:46:55.880 about this when I was there, and and you know, 0:46:56.880 --> 0:47:00.160 the fee is an extension of the ticket price. What 0:47:00.239 --> 0:47:02.360 we've done in the live event business, and I'm not 0:47:02.360 --> 0:47:04.520 talking about ticket mester, I'm talking about just the ticketing 0:47:04.560 --> 0:47:06.560 business in general. What we've done in the live event 0:47:06.600 --> 0:47:10.560 business is, uh is we have sort of shipped our 0:47:10.719 --> 0:47:13.520 order chart, which is to say, we've exposed the inner 0:47:13.560 --> 0:47:16.520 workings of the deal structure. Right, why should the fan know? 0:47:17.600 --> 0:47:19.799 You know, all the fan cares about is how much 0:47:19.800 --> 0:47:22.520 of my hard earned money are you asking me to pay? Right, 0:47:23.000 --> 0:47:25.919 and you know, don't show me that it's forty bucks 0:47:25.960 --> 0:47:27.960 and then there's another twenty dollar fee on top of that. 0:47:28.000 --> 0:47:29.759 And one of the things that that we did and 0:47:30.080 --> 0:47:33.040 that continues to this day, is we started showing the 0:47:33.080 --> 0:47:36.279 all in upfront and you can see the breakout. But 0:47:36.560 --> 0:47:38.239 at the end of the day, trying to tell the fan, 0:47:38.480 --> 0:47:40.360 here's how much of your money that you've got to 0:47:40.400 --> 0:47:45.040 spend to go see artist X and um, And that 0:47:45.080 --> 0:47:49.640 has a remarkable impact on a fan's happiness with the processes. 0:47:49.719 --> 0:47:52.319 You can imagine now. You know, one of my big 0:47:52.320 --> 0:47:55.239 criticisms of the secondary market right now, and I'm sure 0:47:55.239 --> 0:47:57.960 we'll get into this, is, you know, the secondary market 0:47:58.000 --> 0:48:00.200 is way less transparent about what those fees are. You 0:48:00.200 --> 0:48:02.480 can get up to the very last about to buy 0:48:02.520 --> 0:48:04.399 it button and all of a sudden be slammed with 0:48:04.480 --> 0:48:07.440 fees that can increase the overall price by ten fifteen 0:48:07.480 --> 0:48:11.560 sometimes of what you thought you were actually paying. And 0:48:11.800 --> 0:48:13.640 you know, I'll leave it to I'll leave it to 0:48:13.640 --> 0:48:17.520 others to stop stop Hub go to an all in pricing. 0:48:17.640 --> 0:48:20.640 And then their sales went down. You know that's the 0:48:20.760 --> 0:48:25.319 sort of um, that's that's the lore. Uh. You know, 0:48:25.920 --> 0:48:27.960 I also think that their growth has slowed in a 0:48:28.000 --> 0:48:30.680 significant way regardless because of a whole bunch of other 0:48:30.760 --> 0:48:35.200 dynamics in the business. So sure when you um, you know, 0:48:36.200 --> 0:48:39.520 that's in part I think because other companies in the 0:48:39.560 --> 0:48:44.000 secondary space continued the practice of what I think is 0:48:44.040 --> 0:48:48.040 effectively tricking fans and telling them, hey, come on in 0:48:48.320 --> 0:48:50.719 the prices X and then it ends up being X 0:48:50.719 --> 0:48:54.200 plus Y and lies a lot. SOUM. Did they suffer 0:48:54.239 --> 0:48:57.440 from that? Maybe? Um, but it still feels to me 0:48:57.560 --> 0:48:59.880 like an issue in the industry as a whole, which is, 0:49:00.440 --> 0:49:03.720 how can we be more forthright with the fan about 0:49:03.719 --> 0:49:05.840 how much of his or her harder money we're asking 0:49:05.960 --> 0:49:08.640 them to pay. Okay, let's start. Let's start in the 0:49:08.680 --> 0:49:14.080 concert business, because there's certainly sports and other events. Why 0:49:14.120 --> 0:49:20.040 does the secondary market exist? Well, it exists because historically 0:49:20.600 --> 0:49:24.279 with two reasons. One does it exists because we used 0:49:24.280 --> 0:49:26.399 to be really bad at pricing and and we still 0:49:26.480 --> 0:49:30.360 don't have as much data to price the inventory as 0:49:30.640 --> 0:49:36.879 most of the rest of retailers have. Um. And then 0:49:36.920 --> 0:49:39.400 I think, to a sec you know, to a lesser extent, 0:49:39.520 --> 0:49:43.680 I think the secondary market exists because, hey, being being 0:49:43.719 --> 0:49:47.759 a concert promoter, being a a sports team owner is 0:49:47.800 --> 0:49:52.160 a risky business in getting people out, and brokers have 0:49:52.239 --> 0:49:55.080 historically and to this day, um, you know, much more 0:49:55.120 --> 0:49:57.520 so in sports than concerts at this point. But uh, 0:49:57.760 --> 0:50:01.120 you know, brokers have been an insurance policy, basically, a 0:50:01.200 --> 0:50:04.000 way to offload risk in the event that people aren't 0:50:04.000 --> 0:50:06.840 going to come out. Let's let's speak English year for 0:50:06.880 --> 0:50:10.000 the person at home. What we're saying is that the 0:50:10.040 --> 0:50:14.239 promoter is paying so much money for talent that they 0:50:14.239 --> 0:50:17.800 are literally selling the tickets to brokers to make sure 0:50:17.880 --> 0:50:20.000 that they can help meet their number. I think that 0:50:20.000 --> 0:50:26.080 that happens way more in in sports than in concerts, right, UM, 0:50:26.960 --> 0:50:30.400 I think you know, just generally speaking, you know, brokers 0:50:30.400 --> 0:50:33.640 are now partnered with teams UH in a lot of 0:50:33.680 --> 0:50:37.400 cases to help take some of that risk off. But 0:50:37.200 --> 0:50:39.440 a but a sports season is way different than a concert, right, 0:50:39.440 --> 0:50:41.840 A sports season. You've got eighty one home games for 0:50:41.920 --> 0:50:45.160 the for the Yankees. UH. As a season ticket holder, 0:50:45.320 --> 0:50:47.720 you know, you may not come to all any one games. 0:50:47.719 --> 0:50:49.400 And by the way, the Yankees might be crappy in 0:50:49.440 --> 0:50:51.479 August and you're not gonna go sit in the upper 0:50:51.520 --> 0:50:54.719 decks to go watch the team play. UM. And so 0:50:54.880 --> 0:50:57.399 for teams, sometimes there's an opportunity to offload a little 0:50:57.400 --> 0:51:00.480 bit of risk that that happens, UM, and brokers are 0:51:00.480 --> 0:51:02.680 happy to do that because the upside is that if 0:51:02.680 --> 0:51:06.400 the Yankees are great, then as a season ticket holder, 0:51:06.480 --> 0:51:10.640 you get face value access to playoff in World Series tickets. 0:51:10.640 --> 0:51:13.080 And so that just happened with the Dodgers, right the Dodgers. 0:51:13.480 --> 0:51:15.399 There are a lot of brokers who through the Okay, 0:51:15.480 --> 0:51:17.320 since we're going into this, let's go a little bit slower. 0:51:17.800 --> 0:51:22.000 The Dodgers. Dodger Stadium is the largest baseball venue. But 0:51:22.080 --> 0:51:26.239 let's just say approximately forty tickets are on sale for 0:51:26.320 --> 0:51:29.359 any baseball team. Okay, how many of those season How 0:51:29.360 --> 0:51:32.759 many those tickets are sold as season tickets? How many 0:51:32.760 --> 0:51:34.759 to the public, how many to brokers? Obviously there's no 0:51:34.840 --> 0:51:39.160 rigid numbers, but your best estimates. Look, it's hard to 0:51:39.160 --> 0:51:43.080 generalize because these teams take super different strategies, right they 0:51:43.120 --> 0:51:47.920 they There's some teams that think, um, you know that 0:51:48.160 --> 0:51:51.200 think that have trouble selling season tickets in their market, 0:51:51.360 --> 0:51:55.400 and so they're happy to offload big chunks of their inventory, 0:51:55.560 --> 0:51:58.640 more than fifty of their season tickets, for example, to 0:51:59.600 --> 0:52:04.040 a broker or a series of brokers in that case. Um. 0:52:04.120 --> 0:52:06.360 And then there's others who say, no, you know what 0:52:06.560 --> 0:52:08.440 I want to UM, I want to try to sell 0:52:08.560 --> 0:52:12.000 directly to as many consumers as I possibly can, and 0:52:12.040 --> 0:52:14.000 I'm not going to use those brokers. And and so 0:52:14.480 --> 0:52:16.320 it really does run the gamut in the sports business 0:52:16.440 --> 0:52:18.680 right now. But there are teams who sell more than 0:52:18.719 --> 0:52:20.719 fifty percent of their seasons he gets to brokers. Now, 0:52:20.880 --> 0:52:24.239 it's important. It's important to point out any fans who 0:52:24.360 --> 0:52:26.040 come in and who want to buy a season ticket, 0:52:26.080 --> 0:52:28.040 it's there for them. It's not like you can't get 0:52:28.080 --> 0:52:31.080 access to that inventory. That's the problem we've had historically 0:52:31.120 --> 0:52:33.680 in the concert business, which is that, you know, the 0:52:34.520 --> 0:52:39.160 prevalence of bots has kept, uh, kept fans from being 0:52:39.160 --> 0:52:42.239 able to actually access the tickets that they want. In 0:52:42.239 --> 0:52:43.799 the sports business, if you want to show them buy 0:52:43.800 --> 0:52:45.319 a season ticket from a team, you're gonna be able 0:52:45.360 --> 0:52:47.400 to do that. It's just that, you know, in a 0:52:47.440 --> 0:52:50.520 market where uh, you know, there's eighty one home games 0:52:50.600 --> 0:52:53.279 or forty one home games for an NBA team, sometimes, 0:52:53.800 --> 0:52:56.319 uh you know, there's some markets where where there aren't 0:52:56.320 --> 0:52:58.400 twenty thousand people who want to go all in to 0:52:58.440 --> 0:53:01.480 spend the big money on that secondary market is accelerated 0:53:01.480 --> 0:53:03.839 that because as a fan, you know, now for a 0:53:03.920 --> 0:53:07.280 game tonight in any of your local NBA or NFL 0:53:07.480 --> 0:53:11.319 teams markets, you can go onto the secondary market and 0:53:11.360 --> 0:53:14.360 buy a ticket at a reasonable price for the for 0:53:14.400 --> 0:53:17.120 that game. So why am I investing in season tickets? Now? 0:53:17.120 --> 0:53:20.279 There are good answers to that, um that involved how 0:53:20.360 --> 0:53:23.040 the experience on site can be, you know, really great 0:53:23.080 --> 0:53:25.960 and fun, and teams have invested in these venues to 0:53:26.000 --> 0:53:29.279 make great physical space. Uh. So that there's clubs and 0:53:29.800 --> 0:53:31.920 you know, food options and all these things to make 0:53:31.920 --> 0:53:34.640 it worth getting off your couch. But but but that's 0:53:34.680 --> 0:53:37.880 why it happens. Okay, just to go back to your point, 0:53:37.960 --> 0:53:41.400 that you can in sports, you can buy a season 0:53:41.400 --> 0:53:44.480 ticket in sports. Is it like concerts where you can't 0:53:44.560 --> 0:53:48.200 get the good seats because they're taken already by inside 0:53:48.200 --> 0:53:52.439 relationships or brokers. Um that's true to a certain extent, 0:53:52.480 --> 0:53:54.680 except that that you know, there's people who have held 0:53:54.719 --> 0:53:58.520 their season seats for fifty years in their families. Right, 0:53:58.560 --> 0:54:00.640 So it's much less that they're being sort of handed 0:54:00.640 --> 0:54:02.880 out to v I p s more than it is 0:54:03.360 --> 0:54:05.279 people have control of those seats and they hang on 0:54:05.320 --> 0:54:08.720 to them because because the team plays, you know, forty 0:54:08.719 --> 0:54:11.160 one times this season and they're coming back next year. Right. 0:54:11.200 --> 0:54:13.520 It's it's a lot different than a concert, which is 0:54:13.520 --> 0:54:15.960 a one off event that you may not you may 0:54:15.960 --> 0:54:17.439 not be able to see that artist in your town 0:54:17.480 --> 0:54:20.640 for another three for five years, if ever. Right. So, 0:54:20.920 --> 0:54:25.400 um so wholly different dynamics, um Uh. In terms of 0:54:25.440 --> 0:54:28.960 how those season seats are are distributed, It's hard to 0:54:29.000 --> 0:54:32.640 get a courtside seat for the Knicks because nobody's given 0:54:32.680 --> 0:54:35.680 those up. Um, it's you know, you can get in 0:54:35.719 --> 0:54:38.200 there and get a decent season seat for the Knicks 0:54:38.640 --> 0:54:41.000 if you're willing to invest the money that takes to 0:54:40.760 --> 0:54:45.000 to do that. And for hot games like the Yankees 0:54:45.040 --> 0:54:48.680 come to Dodger stadiums. To what degree are brokers buying 0:54:48.840 --> 0:54:54.200 tickets from season ticket holders in order to resell? You know, 0:54:54.320 --> 0:54:56.719 in sports, that happens a little bit, and basically they'll 0:54:56.760 --> 0:55:00.120 they'll they'll search for suckers who are willing to were 0:55:00.120 --> 0:55:03.480 willing to to, you know, sell tickets for cheap. But 0:55:03.600 --> 0:55:07.320 mostly the dynamic in sports is brokers make decisions about 0:55:07.360 --> 0:55:10.120 how many season tickets they want to buy, they buy them, 0:55:10.200 --> 0:55:12.400 they try to basically break even through the course of 0:55:12.400 --> 0:55:17.160 the season, and then you know, regardless of sport, Um, 0:55:17.239 --> 0:55:18.879 maybe they can make a little more in football, maybe 0:55:18.880 --> 0:55:20.840 they're can be a little more in in in basketball. 0:55:20.880 --> 0:55:22.840 If you know your Warrior season ticket holder right now, 0:55:22.880 --> 0:55:26.600 you're probably doing pretty well. Um, but you know, uh, 0:55:26.760 --> 0:55:29.240 you're holding for the playoffs because that's when the games 0:55:29.280 --> 0:55:31.800 get tight and the competition gets gets awesome, and people 0:55:31.800 --> 0:55:33.520 want to go and they're willing to pay hundreds If 0:55:33.600 --> 0:55:37.280 not thousands of dollars, right, and so so they're really 0:55:37.320 --> 0:55:41.200 taking a bet that and it's not just a one 0:55:41.280 --> 0:55:44.840 year bet. Their betting you know, Dodgers season ticket Uh, 0:55:45.320 --> 0:55:48.279 Dodgers brokers who bought a bunch of season tickets for 0:55:48.280 --> 0:55:50.480 the Dodgers were in there for years. I mean, they 0:55:50.480 --> 0:55:53.279 were betting over the last five years that the new 0:55:53.280 --> 0:55:55.719 ownership group was going to build a team with the 0:55:55.760 --> 0:55:57.520 payroll that they were spending, that was going to make 0:55:57.520 --> 0:56:01.360 it to the playoffs. And um and you know that 0:56:01.400 --> 0:56:03.480 paid off for them this year with a seven game 0:56:03.480 --> 0:56:08.839 World Series. Now, so you're saying that one good year 0:56:08.840 --> 0:56:11.719 it can make up for five break even years if that, 0:56:12.840 --> 0:56:16.160 well sure, I mean, uh, if you're basically breaking even 0:56:16.200 --> 0:56:18.279 and then you get to the playoffs and you know 0:56:18.360 --> 0:56:21.120 you're clearing a thousand dollars a ticket, uh, and you 0:56:21.200 --> 0:56:23.880 control a significant number of tickets and there's four games, 0:56:23.960 --> 0:56:27.520 that math adds up pretty nicely. Uh, you know, over 0:56:27.520 --> 0:56:31.800 the course of just a World Series. Um, so yeah, 0:56:32.000 --> 0:56:34.200 it was. Okay, Let's assume you are a ticket season 0:56:34.320 --> 0:56:37.759 a season ticket holdering four sports. To what degree at 0:56:37.760 --> 0:56:41.320 this point are the teams controlling your ability to resell 0:56:41.360 --> 0:56:43.759 those tickets. Yeah, they're not right now. I mean it's 0:56:43.760 --> 0:56:46.960 in the team's interests for a fan who invests that 0:56:47.040 --> 0:56:48.920 much in the season ticket to have liquidity and be 0:56:48.960 --> 0:56:51.799 able to resell when they can't go. So I don't 0:56:51.840 --> 0:56:54.640 I don't see teams put in many constraints on on 0:56:54.760 --> 0:56:58.319 their fans in that regard. Um, I mean I think 0:56:58.400 --> 0:57:02.160 they you know, obviously, secondary market is come in and 0:57:02.160 --> 0:57:05.160 and has various deals with the leagues and and you 0:57:05.160 --> 0:57:07.719 know Stubbubs got deals and you know ticket Master's gut 0:57:07.760 --> 0:57:10.880 deals and Sea Geeks gut deals and but but for 0:57:10.920 --> 0:57:14.120 the most part, I think, uh, teams are happy to 0:57:14.200 --> 0:57:18.120 have this. The season ticket holders invested. You know, they're 0:57:18.120 --> 0:57:20.520 putting their money up front, and there's a lot of 0:57:20.560 --> 0:57:22.240 reasons why you can't go to games. You know, my 0:57:22.240 --> 0:57:24.680 my dad was a Redskin season ticket older for thirty 0:57:24.680 --> 0:57:28.880 five years and uh, you know he um, at some 0:57:28.920 --> 0:57:32.480 point he just couldn't go to the night games anymore. Well, uh, 0:57:32.560 --> 0:57:34.160 he should be able to resell it. They still want 0:57:34.240 --> 0:57:36.600 him to have that ticket, And I just think down 0:57:36.640 --> 0:57:37.960 the road they want to know who that fan is 0:57:37.960 --> 0:57:41.280 who's actually walking in on Monday night. But okay, Um, 0:57:41.320 --> 0:57:45.000 but are they forcing new to use a specific reselling platform. 0:57:45.520 --> 0:57:47.640 I I don't see that. I don't see that much. 0:57:47.920 --> 0:57:50.200 I don't see that much. I mean, I think there's, um, 0:57:50.240 --> 0:57:53.560 there's some sort of official ones, but I'm not I'm 0:57:53.560 --> 0:57:56.960 not really aware and I'm probably missing something, But I'm 0:57:56.960 --> 0:57:59.200 not really aware of a situation which you're forced to 0:57:59.400 --> 0:58:02.360 only use one platform to resell. There's some situations. I 0:58:02.360 --> 0:58:05.240 know in Cleveland, Uh, they've got a plat. In Houston, 0:58:05.280 --> 0:58:07.600 they get a platform called flash seats where sometimes they 0:58:07.600 --> 0:58:10.400 lock it down and they force you to only resell 0:58:10.440 --> 0:58:14.240 the ticket to that exchange. And I think in general, 0:58:14.320 --> 0:58:17.520 for the fan, being able to resell in a bunch 0:58:17.560 --> 0:58:19.840 of places is generally a good thing if that's what 0:58:19.880 --> 0:58:26.280 they want. Um. But yeah, okay, let's witch, let's witch 0:58:26.320 --> 0:58:28.840 the concerts. Yeah. I've been made aware of the fact 0:58:28.880 --> 0:58:32.720 that if you are buying tickets to resell it concerts, 0:58:33.280 --> 0:58:37.000 generally you will be It's a very difficult process because 0:58:37.040 --> 0:58:40.400 the broker's own tickets have their algorithms. Let's say that 0:58:40.440 --> 0:58:44.520 if you price the ticket fifty, they'll price it at 0:58:45.240 --> 0:58:47.640 so they will always scoop up that money. Can you 0:58:47.680 --> 0:58:50.160 talk about that? Well, I think what you're I think 0:58:50.240 --> 0:58:53.560 what you're referring to is that now brokers are sharks, 0:58:53.800 --> 0:58:57.440 and whether it's sports or concerts, And I mean I 0:58:57.480 --> 0:58:59.760 say that, I say that almost admiringly, and that in 0:58:59.800 --> 0:59:01.520 the in that they're getting really good at how they 0:59:01.520 --> 0:59:06.440 price and they're sophisticated. They've written software that is interacting 0:59:06.480 --> 0:59:09.000 with a bunch of the secondary site API s and 0:59:09.200 --> 0:59:11.960 scraping a bunch of data and figuring out what is 0:59:12.000 --> 0:59:14.800 the optimal price for each ticket right now. So if 0:59:14.800 --> 0:59:17.640 your question is if I'm a regular fan and I'm 0:59:17.680 --> 0:59:20.600 trying to sell my ticket, um, are there going to 0:59:20.720 --> 0:59:23.680 be you know, I'm competing with a lot of sellers 0:59:23.720 --> 0:59:26.800 who have access to they have asymmetric information, They have 0:59:26.920 --> 0:59:29.920 better data than I do as sort of the ordinary 0:59:29.960 --> 0:59:32.920 fan in terms of what you know, the clearing prices 0:59:33.000 --> 0:59:36.200 for this ticket. Um. And yes, there's a whole bunch 0:59:36.240 --> 0:59:39.680 of automated software that's making pricing changes on secondary markets 0:59:39.720 --> 0:59:43.280 to try to match supply with demand. That said, if 0:59:43.280 --> 0:59:45.040 you're a fan, you can't go and you want to 0:59:45.080 --> 0:59:47.120 put that ticket up and sell it. You know, as 0:59:47.160 --> 0:59:50.400 you said earlier, UM, certainly a a broker would be 0:59:50.400 --> 0:59:52.480 willing to buy a ticket at a certain price if 0:59:52.520 --> 0:59:55.080 they know they can get a higher one. And um, 0:59:55.120 --> 0:59:58.360 you know I I have shows or games that I 0:59:58.400 --> 0:59:59.720 go to all the time where I'm just trying to 0:59:59.720 --> 1:00:03.000 get my money back, and the secondary market super efficient 1:00:03.040 --> 1:00:06.200 for that. Okay, But as I say, I've got an 1:00:06.200 --> 1:00:09.000 email from certain people who say I had X number 1:00:09.040 --> 1:00:12.000 of tickets I wanted to unload them. It's, you know, 1:00:12.040 --> 1:00:14.880 below face value. As I said earlier, fifty bucks, I 1:00:14.960 --> 1:00:17.280 put them up as soon as I go at fifty bucks, 1:00:17.320 --> 1:00:22.920 there's a bot that will offer the ticket marginally cheaper. Well, 1:00:23.000 --> 1:00:26.240 I think it depends on the supply and demand dynamics 1:00:26.240 --> 1:00:29.560 in that moment. If no inventory is selling, then yeah, 1:00:29.600 --> 1:00:32.000 the bot will likely lower the price because they're just 1:00:32.040 --> 1:00:35.160 trying to liquidate it. Right. If you've got some demand 1:00:35.240 --> 1:00:38.919 coming in, then that broker definitely doesn't want to lower 1:00:38.960 --> 1:00:41.280 the price because he knows that he can make a 1:00:41.280 --> 1:00:43.480 lot more than you, and he might buy your ticket 1:00:43.520 --> 1:00:46.960 from you. Well, this begs the question of how many shows? 1:00:47.840 --> 1:00:50.600 What is the demand for certain shows? We all know 1:00:50.680 --> 1:00:53.120 that there are certain there's a thin layer of shows 1:00:53.120 --> 1:00:56.840 where there's unbelievable demand. Yeah, okay, then on these other 1:00:56.920 --> 1:00:59.760 shows when ticket because we know, if you go out 1:00:59.800 --> 1:01:02.640 like on jay Z is on tour right now, okay, 1:01:02.680 --> 1:01:05.120 you want to buy a ticket in anywhere in the building, 1:01:05.440 --> 1:01:09.320 there are tickets available. So one would say the people 1:01:09.320 --> 1:01:13.680 who own those tickets were speculators, correct, if they were 1:01:13.680 --> 1:01:16.880 on the secondary market. Some probably, some probably were. I 1:01:17.120 --> 1:01:19.480 don't know the specific dynamics, but yeah, if people are 1:01:19.520 --> 1:01:22.560 reselling tickets, then there's probably some speculators. It's also probably 1:01:22.560 --> 1:01:25.040 some people who just bought. Remember we're putting tickets on 1:01:25.080 --> 1:01:27.400 sale now, sometimes eleven months beforehand. I don't think that 1:01:27.440 --> 1:01:29.400 happened the case of jay Z, but you know, there 1:01:29.400 --> 1:01:31.080 are some people who buy tickets. They have no idea 1:01:31.120 --> 1:01:35.720 what they're doing on you know, October eighteen, and time 1:01:35.760 --> 1:01:37.640 comes and they got to resell the tickets. So there's 1:01:37.680 --> 1:01:40.240 some totally legit reasons why why tickets would be resold 1:01:40.240 --> 1:01:43.280 in the secondary market. Like I wouldn't I wouldn't touch 1:01:43.400 --> 1:01:46.600 the jay Z situation other than to say, um, yeah, 1:01:46.600 --> 1:01:48.840 I wouldn't touch it at all. Your question is about 1:01:49.720 --> 1:01:52.040 is about are there is there a lot of speculative 1:01:52.080 --> 1:01:55.080 buying that happens in concert business. Yes, And when you 1:01:55.120 --> 1:01:58.080 see a lot of tickets that are um at low 1:01:58.160 --> 1:02:00.920 dollar value in the secondary market. Does that generally indicate 1:02:00.960 --> 1:02:03.680 that maybe there isn't a ton of demand? Yes? Does 1:02:03.760 --> 1:02:10.600 that mean that the artist isn't making a ton of money? No, because, um, 1:02:10.640 --> 1:02:14.440 because you can optimally price a whole bunch of great seats, 1:02:14.960 --> 1:02:18.320 and you know, the marginal return on pricing a ticket 1:02:18.320 --> 1:02:21.080 at ten bucks versus six versus twenty in the upper 1:02:21.120 --> 1:02:24.200 deck is generally pretty low when somebody's paying hundreds, if 1:02:24.200 --> 1:02:26.120 not thousands of dollars in the front. Yes, but that's 1:02:26.120 --> 1:02:29.080 a very inside view in terms of the business the promoter, 1:02:29.560 --> 1:02:32.440 the agent, the act, etcetera. But peep, there's a lot 1:02:32.480 --> 1:02:38.960 of opacity, uh to the end buyer. And the question 1:02:39.160 --> 1:02:41.640 is as the what do we know? It's stub hub, 1:02:41.800 --> 1:02:46.000 which is the giants of secondary sites. People have learned 1:02:46.080 --> 1:02:48.439 rather than buy the ticket a year in advance, wait 1:02:48.520 --> 1:02:51.240 to find out if they can actually go, and they're 1:02:51.240 --> 1:02:54.600 willing to pay more to get a good seat. So 1:02:54.640 --> 1:02:59.000 the question is does this undermine the monolith that the 1:02:59.040 --> 1:03:03.240 promoter at a an act have built. I don't think so. 1:03:03.280 --> 1:03:05.360 I just think it changes the risk curve. I mean, 1:03:06.040 --> 1:03:10.320 then it becomes not unlike sports, right, well over fifty 1:03:10.760 --> 1:03:13.000 of secondary activity at this point is happening in the 1:03:13.080 --> 1:03:17.479 last forty hours, and so that's just that's just that's 1:03:17.560 --> 1:03:20.720 fans being conditioned. That's what happens over time when fans 1:03:20.720 --> 1:03:23.480 know there's tickets available, So inevitably, in the last forty 1:03:23.480 --> 1:03:26.600 eight hours before any event, there's a staring contest between 1:03:26.600 --> 1:03:29.520 a whole bunch of demand that wants to go and 1:03:29.960 --> 1:03:32.280 brokers who are going, Am I going to get my 1:03:32.360 --> 1:03:34.880 number or not? Right? And you can always see who blinks. 1:03:34.920 --> 1:03:37.320 If prices hold, it means that fans are blinking, they 1:03:37.360 --> 1:03:39.680 want to go. If prices don't hold, it means that 1:03:39.720 --> 1:03:41.800 brokers are blinking and they're just trying to get you know, 1:03:41.800 --> 1:03:44.320 they're just trying to get their their their tickets cleared. 1:03:44.720 --> 1:03:47.880 So I don't think. I think what's interesting is now, 1:03:48.520 --> 1:03:51.320 um it gives the artist and his business partners, whether 1:03:51.360 --> 1:03:53.760 that's the promoter or somebody else, it gives the artist 1:03:53.840 --> 1:03:57.120 an interesting decision to make. Um, do I want to 1:03:57.320 --> 1:04:00.360 just lock in money now and put tick it's up 1:04:00.360 --> 1:04:03.120 for sale and be a little bit less concerned about 1:04:03.120 --> 1:04:05.480 exactly who's buying them and whether they get resold but 1:04:05.520 --> 1:04:08.080 I get guaranteed money and I know it's in my pocket. 1:04:08.800 --> 1:04:11.360 Or do I want to start to think about, um, 1:04:11.480 --> 1:04:13.720 challenging what an on sale is. Do I need to 1:04:13.760 --> 1:04:16.280 put all my tickets up front for sale, you know, 1:04:16.920 --> 1:04:19.320 up front eleven months out? Do I want to wait 1:04:19.480 --> 1:04:21.480 until I have a better sense for what the market 1:04:21.520 --> 1:04:24.280 looks like. Do I want to control supply a little 1:04:24.280 --> 1:04:26.919 bit more and release those tickets in a different way? 1:04:26.960 --> 1:04:28.920 I think, you know, look, I think in broad strokes, 1:04:29.200 --> 1:04:33.200 we can probably all agree that um that uh, you know, 1:04:33.840 --> 1:04:37.400 the traditional first come, first serve on sale put everything 1:04:37.400 --> 1:04:40.840 on sale months and months before the event probably isn't 1:04:40.840 --> 1:04:45.000 the most efficient way to optimize pricing in the venue. 1:04:45.400 --> 1:04:49.640 It is probably the best way to defray risk. But 1:04:50.040 --> 1:04:53.120 artists and their partners and concert promoters are getting way 1:04:53.200 --> 1:04:57.360 smarter about how they price the show itself, and so 1:04:57.760 --> 1:05:00.640 that gives them a bunch of options to maybe hang 1:05:00.720 --> 1:05:04.040 in there longer and wait and and and be able 1:05:04.120 --> 1:05:07.520 to to make sure that the product that they're selling 1:05:07.760 --> 1:05:10.120 is being priced at the intersection of supply and demand, 1:05:10.160 --> 1:05:12.800 which is what this is about. Okay, So why are 1:05:12.920 --> 1:05:16.680 tickets being sold a year in advance? Well, I think 1:05:16.840 --> 1:05:23.640 in general, Uh, my observation is that, uh, you've got 1:05:23.680 --> 1:05:25.520 some artists who are like, we are hot right now, 1:05:25.640 --> 1:05:28.360 let's put these tickets on sale and let's capitalize while 1:05:28.400 --> 1:05:31.560 we can because you never know. And um, that is 1:05:31.680 --> 1:05:36.960 basically an artist making a decision to offload risk um 1:05:37.080 --> 1:05:41.320 or capitalize on on you know, the state of the brand. 1:05:41.440 --> 1:05:44.200 Maybe that's maximizing inventory because they think they're their brand 1:05:44.280 --> 1:05:47.320 is going to go down. Um. I think in general 1:05:47.400 --> 1:05:50.439 that's about hey, let's get this, let's get this this 1:05:50.680 --> 1:05:53.080 uh this revenue stream locked and loaded. And you know 1:05:53.120 --> 1:05:54.920 it's hard it's hard to blame an artist for that 1:05:55.040 --> 1:05:59.520 when now their money is coming from that tour. You 1:05:59.560 --> 1:06:02.920 can see how that artists would say, let's make sure 1:06:03.080 --> 1:06:06.520 that we are locking this in and and uh and 1:06:06.520 --> 1:06:08.760 and if that means that I, you know, I lose 1:06:08.760 --> 1:06:12.160 out on five what I could have made, That's okay, 1:06:12.160 --> 1:06:14.280 because I'm really happy to make this money and lock 1:06:14.320 --> 1:06:16.800 it in. What about the float that they have the 1:06:17.120 --> 1:06:21.480 uh customers money for a year. Well, you know, nobody's 1:06:21.640 --> 1:06:24.240 nobody's forcing a fan to buy that ticket, right, So 1:06:24.440 --> 1:06:28.360 I think if played right, um, you can give an 1:06:28.400 --> 1:06:31.520 advantage to those fans who are passionate enough to do that. Well, 1:06:31.520 --> 1:06:34.680 I guess they're saying in the promoter's mind, to what 1:06:34.800 --> 1:06:37.120 degree of the tickets going on sale a year in 1:06:37.160 --> 1:06:40.880 advance because they could hold onto the money. Well, I'm 1:06:40.920 --> 1:06:43.919 not a promoter psychas to that. But when you put 1:06:43.920 --> 1:06:46.360 money in the bank, does it generally appreciate over time 1:06:46.400 --> 1:06:48.760 and you know you earn interest on it. Yes, But 1:06:48.920 --> 1:06:51.560 at the end of the day, it's it's the consumer's decision. 1:06:51.960 --> 1:06:54.480 Is it worth it to me now in this moment 1:06:54.520 --> 1:06:57.080 to buy a ticket for a year from now? Yes? 1:06:57.320 --> 1:07:00.600 Or if not? Uh. Generally a fan gonna say yes 1:07:00.680 --> 1:07:03.680 if you're offering them a great seat at a great price. Okay, 1:07:04.000 --> 1:07:07.120 if you're not doing that now, fans are generally educated 1:07:07.240 --> 1:07:10.000 enough to know that I can wait until forty eight 1:07:10.040 --> 1:07:12.560 hours before the event and I'm going to get a ticket. 1:07:12.600 --> 1:07:15.880 That is you know, every fan, Look, every fan falls 1:07:15.880 --> 1:07:18.840 on a graph. Cost of seat on one, access quality 1:07:18.880 --> 1:07:21.640 of seat on another. Every fan is a point somewhere 1:07:21.640 --> 1:07:23.520 on that graph if you just go math on it, 1:07:24.240 --> 1:07:27.600 and so uh. You know, from a fan's perspective, the 1:07:27.640 --> 1:07:31.479 question is when's the best moment to get to find 1:07:31.480 --> 1:07:34.360 my point on that graph right, and increasingly it's becoming 1:07:34.400 --> 1:07:38.160 in those last forty eight hours. Now, the unique part 1:07:38.160 --> 1:07:41.080 of this industry is it's supply driven. There's only so 1:07:41.160 --> 1:07:43.000 much supply. It's not like we're going to go make 1:07:43.040 --> 1:07:46.600 another you know, uh, two thousand U two tickets or 1:07:46.640 --> 1:07:49.720 whatever it is. Um, there's only it's it's only this night, 1:07:50.000 --> 1:07:54.280 right and and so um. You know, with better data, 1:07:54.880 --> 1:07:58.400 incredibly smart tour promoters like you know are theur Vogel 1:07:58.440 --> 1:08:01.360 for you too, are gonna make really interesting decisions about 1:08:01.480 --> 1:08:04.560 how they release that supply and and and put it 1:08:04.600 --> 1:08:07.840 on sale. I think the gap historically has been we 1:08:07.960 --> 1:08:11.400 don't really have the information to price this ticket properly, 1:08:11.840 --> 1:08:14.360 and maybe we don't even have the distribution channels to 1:08:14.480 --> 1:08:16.960 reach the consumers in those in those right moments. And 1:08:17.000 --> 1:08:19.840 I think that's a big part of the progress that 1:08:19.920 --> 1:08:22.920 the industry has made over the last decade. Okay, let's 1:08:22.920 --> 1:08:25.320 just talk about an arena show, and I'll use the 1:08:25.400 --> 1:08:28.639 large arena. Let's call it twenty thousand tickets. When how 1:08:28.680 --> 1:08:32.280 do they actually do twenty thousand tickets? Are those available 1:08:32.320 --> 1:08:36.439 for sale? Well, you're asking the wrong guy, because I'm 1:08:36.439 --> 1:08:40.559 not a tour promoter. But but what I can uh, 1:08:40.680 --> 1:08:45.639 are they all available for sale? They need to sell Listen, 1:08:45.760 --> 1:08:48.400 there's I guess what I'm saying is just when you 1:08:48.439 --> 1:08:51.479 start with twenty thousand, you can chop off a couple 1:08:51.479 --> 1:08:55.080 of thousand for what are so called senate seat season 1:08:55.120 --> 1:08:59.000 ticket holders in the building, okay, and hold backs, So 1:08:59.120 --> 1:09:03.280 even when you go on sale, there's notts. Yeah. I 1:09:03.280 --> 1:09:05.160 think like the State Attorney General in New York did 1:09:05.200 --> 1:09:07.360 a did a sort of reveal on this about a 1:09:07.439 --> 1:09:09.439 year and a half or maybe two years ago, where 1:09:09.439 --> 1:09:12.240 they looked at a bunch of data. They they you know, 1:09:12.600 --> 1:09:16.920 foyed a bunch of a bunch of seat manifests and 1:09:16.960 --> 1:09:19.880 so forth, and and there are some situations in which, yeah, 1:09:19.920 --> 1:09:22.439 for for an on sale, uh you know, half of 1:09:22.479 --> 1:09:25.960 the half of the arena wasn't going on sale. Um. 1:09:26.040 --> 1:09:30.160 And I don't at the court, I don't have a 1:09:30.200 --> 1:09:33.240 problem with that. In principle. I think the question is 1:09:33.280 --> 1:09:36.680 what do we communicate to the fan about their likelihood 1:09:36.720 --> 1:09:39.439 of getting tickets in this moment. So let's say there's 1:09:39.479 --> 1:09:41.160 a certain number of people who are locked into the 1:09:41.160 --> 1:09:45.280 building for every event. Then for tours, there's the fan club, 1:09:45.760 --> 1:09:49.800 and there's also a credit card company can explain those presetts. 1:09:49.840 --> 1:09:53.479 So so yeah, there there are a lot of pre 1:09:53.560 --> 1:09:56.479 sale lists that are out there, whether the building has 1:09:56.520 --> 1:09:59.880 a deal with American Express or you know, Chase car 1:10:00.280 --> 1:10:03.879 and anybody who owns one of those cards gets access 1:10:03.960 --> 1:10:06.679 to a select pool of inventory, so they're basically fishing 1:10:06.680 --> 1:10:09.639 in a smaller pond. Um. The venue sometimes has its 1:10:09.640 --> 1:10:12.800 own list, the artist fan club sometimes has its own list, 1:10:13.479 --> 1:10:17.160 and those uh, you know, not unlike an Amazon Prime 1:10:17.200 --> 1:10:20.880 member gets benefits. Um. There are people that venues and 1:10:20.960 --> 1:10:24.200 artists have that they take care of because because they've 1:10:24.240 --> 1:10:27.960 they've achieved some sort of status, right. Um, And again 1:10:28.040 --> 1:10:30.920 that seems like normal business to me. What doesn't seem 1:10:30.960 --> 1:10:34.280 normal is the way that historically it was communicated to 1:10:34.320 --> 1:10:36.920 the fan about what their odds were of getting a 1:10:36.920 --> 1:10:40.080 ticket in the moment. And I think a lot of 1:10:40.120 --> 1:10:45.360 that is starting to change. Uh is starting to change. Okay, So, 1:10:45.520 --> 1:10:47.320 as you know, I've talked to some of these promoters. 1:10:47.560 --> 1:10:49.639 They can have an arena where fewer than a thousand 1:10:49.680 --> 1:10:54.799 tickets are available at the traditional Saturday Saturday morning on sale. 1:10:55.320 --> 1:11:00.479 So what we hear from the average concert goers, I 1:11:00.560 --> 1:11:05.600 can't get a good seat at face value. Forget that 1:11:05.640 --> 1:11:08.439 a number of concert goes are delusional because everyone believes 1:11:08.439 --> 1:11:09.880 they should be able to sit in the front row 1:11:09.920 --> 1:11:14.600 for free price. Um, what is the best way to 1:11:14.880 --> 1:11:18.639 tackle the problem of getting the so called fan into 1:11:18.680 --> 1:11:22.880 the seat at whatever the price is? Yeah, I mean 1:11:22.880 --> 1:11:24.880 you're right that. When there's two million people who want 1:11:24.920 --> 1:11:27.679 twenty thousand seats, and by the way, those two million 1:11:27.680 --> 1:11:29.920 people all want the first twenty rows, you're gonna have 1:11:30.200 --> 1:11:33.880 you know, one million, eighty thousand disappointed people, and then 1:11:33.920 --> 1:11:38.000 another you know, eighteen thousand disappointed people who did get 1:11:38.000 --> 1:11:40.320 exit tickets. So it's a tough business in that regard. 1:11:41.240 --> 1:11:43.719 There's two weights. Look, I think about solving the problem 1:11:43.880 --> 1:11:48.479 like the um like the animated uh lady in the 1:11:48.479 --> 1:11:50.719 Tramp movie where the two dogs are eating the piece 1:11:50.760 --> 1:11:52.360 of pasta all the way and they meet in the middle. 1:11:52.479 --> 1:11:55.680 There's two sides to it. One is, um, how do 1:11:55.720 --> 1:11:58.000 we price the inventory? Right? Let's stop pretending that the 1:11:58.000 --> 1:12:01.160 ticket isn't worth what it's worth, and either you're going 1:12:01.200 --> 1:12:04.439 to charge the fan what that ticket is worth, or 1:12:04.560 --> 1:12:07.360 a bunch of capitalist arbitragers are going to come in 1:12:07.840 --> 1:12:10.479 and figure out how to get ahold of that inventory 1:12:10.520 --> 1:12:14.880 and resell it. That's what happens um and the only 1:12:15.000 --> 1:12:17.479 there's only one way around that, and that is if 1:12:17.479 --> 1:12:22.160 you make a ticket absolutely locked, tied to identity, non transferable, 1:12:22.520 --> 1:12:24.120 and say, Bob, I'm going to sell you this ticket 1:12:24.160 --> 1:12:26.719 for twenty dollars that could be resold in the secondary 1:12:26.760 --> 1:12:30.000 market for two thousand, but the deal is for this ticket, 1:12:30.040 --> 1:12:32.080 you're gonna spend twenty bucks. That's the benefit to you. 1:12:32.280 --> 1:12:34.400 The metaphan to me is I know it's you, Bob, 1:12:34.439 --> 1:12:36.320 who walks through the door. And by the way, if 1:12:36.320 --> 1:12:38.000 you can't go, maybe I'll give you a refund up 1:12:38.080 --> 1:12:39.920 until a day or two before the event, because I 1:12:39.920 --> 1:12:42.160 got a line a mile long of people who want 1:12:42.160 --> 1:12:45.320 to pay only twenty bucks. But but that's one way 1:12:45.360 --> 1:12:49.480 you handle let's stop you price it. But let's start there. 1:12:49.520 --> 1:12:52.320 The so called paper lift ticket. Now, what do we know? 1:12:52.560 --> 1:12:55.360 Miley Cyrus went on and all these parents could get 1:12:55.439 --> 1:12:57.839 went out people, all these parents couldn't buy their kids tickets. 1:12:58.080 --> 1:13:00.400 Then they went out paperless and found out the man 1:13:00.600 --> 1:13:03.200 was not as strong as they expected. You know, there 1:13:03.240 --> 1:13:06.120 are some people say sell the good tickets paperless. What 1:13:06.280 --> 1:13:10.559 is holding back paperless. Is it the government, the fan 1:13:10.920 --> 1:13:15.080 or the act I don't know that anything is holding 1:13:15.080 --> 1:13:17.719 back paperless. It's an option for the it's a tool 1:13:18.240 --> 1:13:21.080 for the artist to use. I mean to forget about paperless. 1:13:20.880 --> 1:13:25.160 It just restricting transferability. Is a tool for the artist 1:13:25.240 --> 1:13:28.280 to use as a way of getting a ticket that 1:13:28.439 --> 1:13:32.240 is probably below face value into the hands of the 1:13:32.240 --> 1:13:35.720 fans that they want to have. Uh, get that ticket now, 1:13:35.720 --> 1:13:38.960 I think, you know again, one way to approach that 1:13:39.080 --> 1:13:43.720 problem is to price the ticket right. The other way 1:13:44.040 --> 1:13:46.479 is to try to do something about filtering out the 1:13:46.560 --> 1:13:50.959 bad actors who come in and snap up those tickets, 1:13:51.560 --> 1:13:54.000 you know, basically by cheating. And I think there's been 1:13:54.000 --> 1:13:56.360 a lot of documentation about the role that bots play 1:13:56.439 --> 1:13:58.960 and in buying up tickets today. But if you look 1:13:59.000 --> 1:14:01.519 at spam, you have the best minds on it, and 1:14:01.600 --> 1:14:04.880 for twenty five years we still have an email spam problem. 1:14:04.920 --> 1:14:08.160 As long as the tickets are priced below fair market value. 1:14:08.680 --> 1:14:11.000 Can you get rid of the so called box or 1:14:11.040 --> 1:14:14.519 whatever they invent to get the best inventory. I don't know, 1:14:14.600 --> 1:14:17.719 But um complaining about it and not taking a shot 1:14:17.760 --> 1:14:20.559 at trying to do something is probably the dumbest thing 1:14:20.560 --> 1:14:23.400 we can do. But my question is, is it is 1:14:23.439 --> 1:14:27.720 the best solution that the primary ticket seller like Ticketmaster, 1:14:27.880 --> 1:14:31.880 like Access price the ticket at what it's truly worth. Well, 1:14:32.000 --> 1:14:35.160 remember that those the primary ticketer is not setting the price. 1:14:35.280 --> 1:14:39.240 It's the artist in the promoter right the I was 1:14:39.280 --> 1:14:42.120 CEO Ticketmaster, I never sold, I never dictated what the 1:14:42.120 --> 1:14:44.960 ticket price was. We get told by the client. You know, 1:14:45.200 --> 1:14:47.800 in that moment, of course, what the ticket price is 1:14:47.840 --> 1:14:52.000 going to be. Yes. Number one, The best possible way 1:14:52.040 --> 1:14:55.200 to to eliminate that activity is to price the ticket 1:14:55.200 --> 1:14:59.200 at the intersection of supply demand. Yes, and I think 1:14:59.280 --> 1:15:03.160 there is um. Just think about it from a business perspective. 1:15:03.479 --> 1:15:06.880 You don't always try to shake as much money as 1:15:06.920 --> 1:15:10.560 possible out of a customer on a single transaction. Amazon 1:15:10.920 --> 1:15:14.160 thinks about the lifetime value of a customer, and so 1:15:14.280 --> 1:15:16.879 they think about how do I give you some value 1:15:16.920 --> 1:15:20.800 with every purchase so that instead of instead of spending uh, 1:15:20.840 --> 1:15:24.439 you know, two dollars with me today, which I could 1:15:24.439 --> 1:15:26.920 probably get you to spend, um, I'm going to have 1:15:26.960 --> 1:15:30.439 you only spend fifty dollars, and over the life cycle 1:15:30.640 --> 1:15:34.280 of your experience with me, you're gonna spend dollars right, 1:15:34.320 --> 1:15:37.439 that that's the idea, And so I think there is 1:15:37.479 --> 1:15:42.559 something um not just noble but smart business sense to 1:15:42.840 --> 1:15:46.479 building the lifetime value of a fan, especially in this 1:15:46.560 --> 1:15:51.880 day and age when live income is so important to artists. Right, 1:15:51.960 --> 1:15:55.360 So the idea is, can I get that sixteen year 1:15:55.400 --> 1:15:58.120 old kid who can't afford the two thousand dollar front 1:15:58.200 --> 1:16:00.559 row seat or first twenty row seed. Can I get 1:16:00.600 --> 1:16:05.040 that kid in the venue for a massively reduced fee 1:16:05.120 --> 1:16:07.559 because I know that she is going to grow up 1:16:07.640 --> 1:16:09.960 and make millions of dollars and over the course of 1:16:09.960 --> 1:16:12.519 her lifetime, she's going to spend a hundred thousand dollars 1:16:12.600 --> 1:16:15.559 or fifty thou dollars or twenty dollars with me. That 1:16:15.600 --> 1:16:18.559 to me is something that I feel like the artist 1:16:18.600 --> 1:16:21.600 has the right to be able to control. And the 1:16:21.680 --> 1:16:25.760 question is, is is their technology that we can give to 1:16:25.840 --> 1:16:28.800 the artist as a tool to help them give a 1:16:28.800 --> 1:16:32.439 ticket below face value to a fan. One way to 1:16:32.520 --> 1:16:36.280 do that is to restrict transferability. The other way to 1:16:36.320 --> 1:16:38.840 do that is to try to create a net that 1:16:39.040 --> 1:16:42.760 catches the bad actors. So what's the status of that 1:16:42.840 --> 1:16:46.040 net today. Well, there's a couple of companies that are 1:16:46.320 --> 1:16:47.760 that have tried to do that, you know, the the 1:16:47.840 --> 1:16:51.800 verified fan product that Ticketmaster has done them. You know, 1:16:51.840 --> 1:16:53.640 song Kick had had a product. I think there's some 1:16:53.680 --> 1:16:57.520 others who are working on that. And look, I'm biased. Uh. 1:16:57.560 --> 1:17:01.120 You know, Adam Baine, the CEO Twitter, introduced me to 1:17:01.360 --> 1:17:03.479 the guy who's the chief data officer a ticket Master, 1:17:03.720 --> 1:17:06.479 and I hired him, and probably the first meeting, he 1:17:06.520 --> 1:17:09.960 walked in with a graph that showed probabilities of every 1:17:09.960 --> 1:17:12.599 request on the system being a broker or not and said, 1:17:12.760 --> 1:17:14.880 I think I can solve this problem. So you know, 1:17:14.880 --> 1:17:16.280 there's a whole bunch of people who have worked on 1:17:16.320 --> 1:17:19.000 that sense and long since I left, and they're doing 1:17:19.120 --> 1:17:22.679 you know, a whole lot with that product. Um, I'm biased, 1:17:22.760 --> 1:17:24.679 meaning like those are my like I I of course 1:17:24.680 --> 1:17:28.160 agree that that's a an approach. Um that is that 1:17:28.280 --> 1:17:31.040 is worth investing in and is it going to be 1:17:31.120 --> 1:17:33.080 you know, is that app And now I'm speaking just 1:17:33.120 --> 1:17:35.479 generally about about the approach And again there's a lot 1:17:35.479 --> 1:17:38.040 of companies that are thinking about this. Um is the 1:17:38.040 --> 1:17:40.120 approach going to be fail safe right out of the gate? 1:17:40.160 --> 1:17:43.320 I don't know, but boy, I really commend to anybody 1:17:43.320 --> 1:17:47.080 who's trying to do something to shake up the traditional 1:17:47.120 --> 1:17:51.000 way that we distribute tickets, Like think about it this way, Um, 1:17:51.320 --> 1:17:53.640 when two million people want twenty tho tickets, probably the 1:17:53.720 --> 1:17:56.559 least efficient way of distributing that inventory is first come, 1:17:56.600 --> 1:18:00.360 first served. Like that's a that's a very usable UM 1:18:00.400 --> 1:18:05.559 distribution vehicle. If you're selling TVs at Walmart on Black Friday, 1:18:05.680 --> 1:18:08.040 you know, you know, next week, Like, first come, first 1:18:08.040 --> 1:18:10.160 serve people can line up at Walmart and they trample 1:18:10.160 --> 1:18:12.520 each other trying to go get you know, cheap Samsung's. 1:18:12.560 --> 1:18:15.200 That's not the best way to create an online and 1:18:15.360 --> 1:18:19.479 mobile you know, distribution experience. So UM, if you can 1:18:19.520 --> 1:18:23.320 slow it down, if you can identify, get to know 1:18:23.640 --> 1:18:27.040 all of the people in line. Why do we only 1:18:27.040 --> 1:18:29.320 know the first people who show up in line. Let's 1:18:29.360 --> 1:18:31.680 get to know all two million people in line and 1:18:31.680 --> 1:18:33.960 then make some decisions based on a set of business 1:18:34.000 --> 1:18:37.719 rules around who gets access to that inventory. That feels 1:18:37.800 --> 1:18:41.880 like a and more fair, be a more enjoyable experience, 1:18:42.479 --> 1:18:44.559 um for everybody involved. And I think some of the 1:18:44.600 --> 1:18:47.360 products that you're seeing out there are just the first 1:18:47.439 --> 1:18:52.479 full ray into making that happen. So verified fan live 1:18:52.600 --> 1:18:55.559 Nation is going on with Live Nation and Ticketmaster how 1:18:55.600 --> 1:18:57.960 well it's working. Do you believe it's working as well 1:18:58.000 --> 1:19:00.280 as they say it's? It's not for me to say. 1:19:00.400 --> 1:19:03.560 I think it's it's really not for me to say. 1:19:03.280 --> 1:19:06.400 I again, I am biased in that I'm rooting for 1:19:06.439 --> 1:19:09.960 those guys, and it sure looks to me, um like, 1:19:10.360 --> 1:19:12.680 there weren't a whole lot of tickets. You know, there 1:19:12.720 --> 1:19:15.280 were obviously tickets on StubHub for the Springsteen show, but 1:19:15.760 --> 1:19:17.559 but it's sure you know, there wasn't have the house, 1:19:17.760 --> 1:19:21.760 so um uh, you know, I those are my guys 1:19:21.760 --> 1:19:24.479 over there, working hard and and I'm cheering for him. 1:19:25.000 --> 1:19:28.719 So as we march forward the best way to get 1:19:28.720 --> 1:19:31.880 the fans in the building. We have certain options we have. 1:19:32.280 --> 1:19:35.640 You can't transfer it. One, you can price it according 1:19:35.680 --> 1:19:40.040 to its value. Three you could have this net. Okay, 1:19:40.520 --> 1:19:44.320 Now this seems relatively complicated to me. Are those the 1:19:44.400 --> 1:19:47.240 paths we're going down? Or is there something in the 1:19:47.280 --> 1:19:53.800 future that's going to solve this problem? I mean, how 1:19:53.800 --> 1:19:56.720 do you solve supply and demand if you believe in capitalism? 1:19:56.760 --> 1:20:00.600 I mean, no, those are the options, and you know 1:20:00.720 --> 1:20:03.360 the hurdles in the way of that are you know, 1:20:03.479 --> 1:20:06.680 I think there's probably some some stakeholders in the industry 1:20:06.720 --> 1:20:10.840 who get nervous about restrictions on transferability. There's some stakeholders 1:20:10.880 --> 1:20:15.400 in the industry. Yeah, look, you know it is an 1:20:15.479 --> 1:20:19.160 arms race. And I guarantee you that you know when 1:20:19.200 --> 1:20:22.960 song Kick did their um you know, their equivalent product 1:20:23.160 --> 1:20:27.400 on the adel ship. There are people who have five 1:20:27.840 --> 1:20:30.840 burner phones in India and a bunch of social profiles 1:20:30.880 --> 1:20:33.000 and you know who are thinking about how do I 1:20:33.160 --> 1:20:37.280 basically create a fake identity? And it's gonna be you know, 1:20:37.280 --> 1:20:40.200 there's gonna be times when the when the defense is winning, 1:20:40.200 --> 1:20:42.360 and there's gonna be times when the offense is winning. 1:20:42.920 --> 1:20:45.080 And I'm sure that that that's how it will work 1:20:45.120 --> 1:20:46.720 in our industry. But if you look at it, Let 1:20:46.800 --> 1:20:51.040 if you look at like buying electronics, TVs, stereo equipment whatever, 1:20:51.040 --> 1:20:53.599 it used to be that you went to the store 1:20:53.800 --> 1:20:55.240 and it was kind of like buying a car, you 1:20:55.320 --> 1:20:58.599 haggled over the price. Now you go online and there 1:20:58.720 --> 1:21:01.919 is a price and you can possibly get a slightly 1:21:02.000 --> 1:21:05.479 cheaper price two percent or something if you're not willing 1:21:05.560 --> 1:21:12.200 to buy it from a traditional retailer i e. Walmart, Amazon, etcetera. 1:21:12.520 --> 1:21:14.439 How come we don't have the same thing in tickets, 1:21:14.479 --> 1:21:16.959 and I think it's coming. I think the problem historically 1:21:17.040 --> 1:21:21.680 has been data and and you know that was one 1:21:21.720 --> 1:21:24.200 of the most important things that I focused on a Ticketmaster. 1:21:24.280 --> 1:21:25.920 I know they have considered that. I mean I heard, 1:21:25.960 --> 1:21:28.240 you know, you asked me about that startup a guy 1:21:28.280 --> 1:21:30.360 that I worked with at that startup in San Francisco. 1:21:30.720 --> 1:21:33.439 I hired a ticketmaster to run live analytics, start live 1:21:33.479 --> 1:21:35.920 analytics and and run it, which was a business built 1:21:35.920 --> 1:21:38.120 on how do we capture a bunch of data and 1:21:38.200 --> 1:21:40.920 help teams and artists make better decisions about their fans 1:21:40.960 --> 1:21:43.880 and how they price their inventory. And it sure looks 1:21:43.920 --> 1:21:47.160 to me if you just take a step back, um 1:21:47.280 --> 1:21:49.959 and now again not talking about Ticketmaster, but just generally 1:21:50.000 --> 1:21:52.920 speaking in the industry, it looks to me like value 1:21:53.080 --> 1:21:56.559 is accruing to the people who put tickets on sale first, 1:21:57.160 --> 1:22:00.200 away from people who are trying to resell tickets, which 1:22:00.240 --> 1:22:02.439 is to say, I think we're getting smarter about pricing. 1:22:02.760 --> 1:22:04.439 And it takes time. You've got to build up a 1:22:04.479 --> 1:22:06.479 historical data set, and you've got to put in place 1:22:06.560 --> 1:22:09.960 the tools. But generally speaking, I think artists and teams 1:22:10.000 --> 1:22:13.200 have much much better information I mean, uh, than than 1:22:13.240 --> 1:22:16.760 than they did even even three years ago. And and 1:22:16.880 --> 1:22:20.040 you know, uh, the sports teams in particular have highly 1:22:20.120 --> 1:22:25.360 sophisticated teams of three to ten people who are in 1:22:25.439 --> 1:22:29.400 their offices all day long. They're just thinking about building 1:22:29.560 --> 1:22:33.000 the most sophisticated pricing models they possibly can. Right there's 1:22:33.080 --> 1:22:36.400 sixty five thousand seats in an NFL stadium. Each one 1:22:36.439 --> 1:22:39.639 of those seats ostensibly has its own value. It's kind 1:22:39.640 --> 1:22:42.040 of the same way at a concert. And even still 1:22:42.400 --> 1:22:45.400 in the music business today we basically put three different 1:22:45.400 --> 1:22:47.400 price levels of tickets on sale. At least in the 1:22:47.400 --> 1:22:49.880 sports business, we've gotten a little more sophisticated in that. 1:22:50.240 --> 1:22:52.400 I think the music business is ready for that. I 1:22:52.439 --> 1:22:54.760 think they're smart enough to do it. I think now 1:22:54.800 --> 1:22:57.120 they just have to condition the fan to get ready 1:22:57.160 --> 1:22:59.600 for that. And the secondary market helps in that capacity, 1:22:59.640 --> 1:23:03.040 because today, when so many people buying the secondary market, 1:23:03.160 --> 1:23:04.760 they don't show up and turn to the guy next 1:23:04.760 --> 1:23:06.120 to them and go, hey, how much did you pay? 1:23:06.120 --> 1:23:07.760 Oh you paid a hunter bucks less than me. Oh, 1:23:07.760 --> 1:23:10.160 I'm angry. There's sort of condition to the fact that 1:23:10.240 --> 1:23:12.360 you sometimes get a good deal, sometimes you get a 1:23:12.360 --> 1:23:14.920 bad deal, And and so you know, that's sort of 1:23:14.960 --> 1:23:18.559 the natural progression and evolution of our industry. I think 1:23:18.840 --> 1:23:21.920 is is that as you acquire more data and build 1:23:22.000 --> 1:23:25.200 up a sophisticated internal sort of analytics function, you can 1:23:25.200 --> 1:23:28.680 start make better making better pricing decisions and maximizing the 1:23:28.720 --> 1:23:31.200 intersection of supply and demand. So getting back to the 1:23:31.240 --> 1:23:33.799 point you made earlier, Yeah, when there's six dollar seats 1:23:33.800 --> 1:23:38.200 on StubHub. You know, if if a tour is massively hot, 1:23:38.280 --> 1:23:40.679 would you expect that every seat would be sold? Yeah? 1:23:40.720 --> 1:23:42.920 But does that mean that the artist isn't hitting it 1:23:42.920 --> 1:23:45.719 out of the park and optimizing the revenue and making 1:23:46.000 --> 1:23:49.840 a bunch of money. Uh, it means the artist still 1:23:49.880 --> 1:23:54.200 probably is because those aren't mutually exclusive things. Okay, just 1:23:54.280 --> 1:23:57.360 going uh to slightly different matters the NFL. What's the 1:23:57.400 --> 1:24:03.040 future there? Don't get me? I mean, look, I don't 1:24:03.040 --> 1:24:05.800 I don't have an answer right now other than you know, 1:24:06.120 --> 1:24:10.240 I'll say this on the inside, UM, I have never 1:24:10.280 --> 1:24:14.280 seen as much UM I don't want to see distract 1:24:14.400 --> 1:24:20.240 focus on a series of problems and challenges, uh, and 1:24:20.360 --> 1:24:24.600 ideas and conversations about that are sort of core existential 1:24:24.640 --> 1:24:26.719 things to the league as as we have this fall 1:24:27.080 --> 1:24:30.800 which is to say between you know, I mean we 1:24:30.800 --> 1:24:32.559 we we live in Los Angeles. We've got a lot 1:24:32.560 --> 1:24:36.000 of people around us who cannot even believe that there's 1:24:36.080 --> 1:24:40.320 any issue with the anthem protests. Well, you know, regardless 1:24:40.320 --> 1:24:42.679 of where you fallen the issue. And to be clear, 1:24:42.680 --> 1:24:45.720 I fallen the issue supporting the players right to do 1:24:45.800 --> 1:24:48.720 this and understanding that it's a protest against a bunch 1:24:48.760 --> 1:24:51.080 of social injustice. But there are a lot of folks 1:24:51.160 --> 1:24:54.800 who have who have seen it another way or sort 1:24:54.800 --> 1:24:59.000 of believed propaganda that it that that it's geared towards 1:24:59.080 --> 1:25:04.120 something else, and and they're real business effects on the league, right, 1:25:04.400 --> 1:25:07.000 But the Wall Street Journal did a study and they 1:25:07.040 --> 1:25:12.160 said they found that there was no reduction in viewership 1:25:12.240 --> 1:25:14.080 as a result of the Yeah, but the Wall Street 1:25:14.160 --> 1:25:17.040 Journal isn't answering phones from angry season ticket holders and 1:25:17.080 --> 1:25:19.479 sweet holders. And that's not to say that those people, right, 1:25:19.520 --> 1:25:21.519 I'm just saying it's a real issue. It's a real 1:25:21.560 --> 1:25:24.280 business issue, Okay, but that's a temporary issue. What about 1:25:24.320 --> 1:25:29.080 the ct E I E concussion, Luke Garregg's disease. What 1:25:29.120 --> 1:25:30.960 degree do you think that will have a negative effect 1:25:31.080 --> 1:25:35.800 on the league. I think I think, who the hell 1:25:35.880 --> 1:25:37.800 cares what I think. I'm not a doctor and I'm 1:25:37.800 --> 1:25:41.400 just an idiot. But but the the the answer is, 1:25:41.640 --> 1:25:44.000 I think there are a bunch of existential issues with 1:25:44.040 --> 1:25:46.920 the league right now, and so everything uh that you're 1:25:46.920 --> 1:25:49.920 seeing play out in the press, from health issues to 1:25:50.400 --> 1:25:54.639 the anthem stuff to you know, the breujaja over over 1:25:54.760 --> 1:25:58.360 the over the commissioner and so forth, I think are 1:25:58.400 --> 1:26:01.880 all symptomatic of a league that's really trying to chart 1:26:01.920 --> 1:26:04.040 a new course. Now, I will say this, there are 1:26:04.280 --> 1:26:07.000 really smart people who are involved in this who I 1:26:07.040 --> 1:26:09.960 think don't get enough credit. Um, whether it be the owners, 1:26:10.040 --> 1:26:11.960 some people work at the league, so and so forth 1:26:12.360 --> 1:26:15.639 for how they think about this. You know, the nuance 1:26:15.680 --> 1:26:19.400 of the challenges ahead and um, and so this is 1:26:19.560 --> 1:26:21.360 a whole lot of words for me to sort of duck. 1:26:21.800 --> 1:26:25.160 The answer is, I think the NFL has a whole 1:26:25.240 --> 1:26:29.760 series of challenges that um that we're inevitable and we'll 1:26:29.800 --> 1:26:33.679 see if a bunch of smart people who who understand 1:26:33.680 --> 1:26:35.559 the issues better than I can can weather the storm. Now, 1:26:35.600 --> 1:26:38.639 if we look at concerts, concert ticket prices have gone 1:26:38.680 --> 1:26:42.559 up dramatically since the Eagles health reeze is over, tour 1:26:42.600 --> 1:26:46.360 of the mid nineties, but we did see a reaction 1:26:46.400 --> 1:26:50.120 in the year when people didn't go the contract. Ticket 1:26:50.160 --> 1:26:52.240 sales going to continue to go up in a world 1:26:52.320 --> 1:26:55.800 wards focused on experiences or what are the challenges we 1:26:55.840 --> 1:26:59.920 face there? Well, I mean the music industry is doing 1:27:00.080 --> 1:27:01.519 right right now, isn't it. I mean it's hard to 1:27:01.560 --> 1:27:04.000 find a business that isn't doing well. And so, you know, 1:27:04.040 --> 1:27:06.880 you look at Universal. I'm not picking on Universal, but 1:27:06.920 --> 1:27:08.800 you look at a record label that says, hey, we're back, 1:27:08.840 --> 1:27:11.200 everything is going great. I don't was that the result 1:27:11.240 --> 1:27:14.640 of management decisions or is that the result of you know, 1:27:14.920 --> 1:27:19.200 Spotify right and inventing a solution for them? I don't 1:27:19.240 --> 1:27:21.200 know what I'll say in the live businesses, you know, 1:27:21.240 --> 1:27:24.000 I certainly by the by drink the kool aid and 1:27:24.040 --> 1:27:27.280 by the argument that in a world in which we 1:27:27.320 --> 1:27:29.600 are so focused on our devices and looking down, we 1:27:29.640 --> 1:27:33.720 have so many solitary experiences. Um. Just getting back to 1:27:33.840 --> 1:27:35.800 sort of me and what drives me. I believe that 1:27:35.840 --> 1:27:39.160 we are chemically wired to interact with each other, and 1:27:39.360 --> 1:27:42.200 that you know, so much of retail now is being 1:27:42.200 --> 1:27:46.960 converted to places where people can congregate, and so I 1:27:47.000 --> 1:27:51.120 think the idea that, um, we need, we need opportunities 1:27:51.160 --> 1:27:55.080 to come together and be in a moment. And that's 1:27:55.120 --> 1:27:57.360 fascinating to me that I've always been fascinated by the 1:27:57.439 --> 1:27:59.439 energy of the crowd and so, um, you know, I'm 1:27:59.439 --> 1:28:02.479 always going to be probably overly optimistic on on the 1:28:02.520 --> 1:28:06.280 opportunity there. Well, thank you Nathan for illuminating all these 1:28:06.320 --> 1:28:09.559 issues about ticketing in concerts. So you've been listening to 1:28:09.640 --> 1:28:13.280 Nathan Hubbard opine on the state of ticketing and State 1:28:13.280 --> 1:28:17.680 of America. It's been a very edifying experience. We have 1:28:17.800 --> 1:28:19.439 much more to cover, but we'll do that in a 1:28:19.560 --> 1:28:24.879 subsequent podcast. Thanks again for attending the Bob left Sets podcast. 1:28:24.960 --> 1:28:30.920 Thanks for having me. Hi, this is Bob left Sets. 1:28:30.920 --> 1:28:32.519 I want to thank you for being a fan of 1:28:32.560 --> 1:28:36.320 my podcast. You can email me at Bob at left 1:28:36.320 --> 1:28:39.160 sets dot com and let us know what you think 1:28:39.200 --> 1:28:42.120 and suggestions. We're open to alle ideas. Be sure to 1:28:42.200 --> 1:28:59.520 subscribe and tune in iTunes or your podcast player of choice. 1:29:00.600 --> 1:29:06.600 Can think of in reason and don't know reason