WEBVTT - The Ticketmaster Racket 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:04.680 From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:09.080 riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:12.119 learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:25.280 production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Greetings, welcome 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:27.479 back to the show. My name is Matt, and our 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:30.520 pal Noel is on some adventures, but we'll return in 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:33.400 the future. They called me Ben. We are joined as 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:37.360 always with our super producer Paul, Mission controlled decade. Most importantly, 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:41.000 you are you. You are here that makes this stuff 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:43.520 they don't want you to know. Welcome to the show. 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:47.400 You did not have to buy tickets, that's right. You 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:50.080 did have to buy a phone or a computer or 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:54.000 something that has a microphone and a processor and at 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:57.960 least headphone outputs or some kind of speaker. Let's call 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:03.880 those associated fees. So the show is free. It takes 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:08.240 some doing to get it in you, to get it 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:11.640 in your ear right, all the all the paraphernalia is 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:15.920 not included. I mean, sure, this is a show. This 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:19.199 is a recorded show, right we we do a call 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:21.280 in line. We've taken the show on the road and 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:24.520 probably will do again and then near to mid future. 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:30.320 But nothing, nothing quite beats the experience, right, if you're 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.920 in your favorite music or your favorite performance whatever it 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:37.200 is live, right, Like, what are some of the memorable 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:42.560 concerts you've been to? Man, I haven't really been to many. 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:50.160 But Dave Matthews back in the day, oh boy, some 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:54.080 of that DMB baby, Oh it was the best. And 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:57.680 you know what tickets were always like, Okay, they were 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:03.160 not insane back in the early two thousand's doing some 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:05.880 old d m B. Though, you know, you get to 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:08.400 you know, that's a fairly large act, right then you 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:13.200 get to um newer shows nowadays, and you're going to 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:15.480 a much smaller venue with a much smaller band. And 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:18.960 I'm paying more now to see those bands than I 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:21.239 did to pay a big ticket band when I was 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:24.400 you know, coming out of high school in college. So 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:26.880 like you would go see Dave Matthews band in a 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:32.400 in a stadium or something, uh, something that large, and 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:36.079 you would get maybe some reasonable tickets on the lawn 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:41.760 or max thirty bucks with everything, yeah, just to get 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:45.000 into Lakewood Amphitheater, which not called that anymore, but who cares? 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:49.639 And also, you know, inflation, obviously everyone is saying inflation, 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:53.640 matt but inflation, but that's not at all. Let's call 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:58.760 it fflation. Okay, maybe okay, asides from sounding very dr 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:01.560 susy and that that is a word that could work 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:05.400 for today's episode, because you know what bothers me about 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:08.560 buying tickets probably the same thing that bothers everyone they 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:12.919 buy tickets nowadays, when you buy a ticket for something, 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:17.600 you're overwhelmingly going to do it online or else you're 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:20.160 gonna show up at a show the day of, you know, 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:24.920 and it's it's probably sold out, if it's worth anything, perhaps, yeah, yeah, 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:30.040 and it's it's really it's relatively rare for someone to 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:34.080 be walking down the street see tickets for a show 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:37.880 like next week or that weekend, and then say I'm 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:40.960 gonna walk in and buy those now in person. People 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:43.600 don't do that near as often, so most of the 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:46.480 time we buy tickets online. And here in the United 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:51.240 States there's been one game in town for quite a while, 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:55.400 and this game continues in other countries as well, a master, 0:03:55.960 --> 0:04:03.200 if you will, of tickets, some sort of ticket master. Yes, 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:06.560 took a while to get to that one, but it's true. 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:09.880 Right since about the late nineteen seventies, it's become increasingly 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:15.560 difficult to get tickets to live events, Broadway plays, uh, symphonies, 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:21.640 the DMB. It's difficult to get these tickets without running 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:25.080 somehow into ticket Master, even if you don't know that 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:29.360 you're running into ticket Master. So what exactly is this thing? 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:33.159 It's been here for for the three of us, for you, 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:37.640 mission control of myself, for our entire lives, yeah and 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:41.560 beyond and before. Yeah. So let's go back to Phoenix, Arizona, 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:46.400 nineteen seventies six. A couple of gentlemen. We got Albert Lefler, 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:50.839 Peter Godwa and another man of businessman named Gordon Gunn. 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:55.040 What a great name. Yeah, seriously, Gordon gun So Leffler. 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:58.839 He comes up with this name, this idea for a thing, 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.440 uh uh, and he calls it ticket Master. And it's 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:05.760 this new company that's just gonna control tickets and for 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:09.080 these guys when they founded in nineteen seventy six, really, 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.159 all they're trying to do in the beginning is sells 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:16.039 some tickets to an electric light orchestra concert at the 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:19.240 University of New Mexico. That's the first big thing. And 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:22.039 electric light Orchestra is something that my dad told me 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:25.640 about actually that he really enjoyed. Um, look it up, 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:28.400 Google it. If you don't know it, Spotify it. I'm 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:30.560 sure you can find it. Mr. Blues Guy is a 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:35.240 great song. It really is. It really is. Uh. But anyway, 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:38.640 so this one little thing in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'm 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:41.360 so sorry to interrupt that to say, Turned to Stone 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:45.119 is also a great song in my in my mind, 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:48.560 it's one that I've had stuck in my head. Awesome, right, 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:53.040 Blue Sky, turned to Stone. It's the seventies, it's Albuquerque, 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:57.479 out of college. Awesome, good times rolling, right, Let the 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:03.120 good times roll. And so then uh, they figure out, hey, 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:05.599 this is working. We're just you know, control a hub. 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:09.159 We're controlling the tickets to one thing. We're good at this. 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:12.039 Let's keep doing it. So they keep doing it for 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:14.720 a few years. Then by night they have their first 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:20.080 international clients, um, coming in from Norway, Oslo, Norway. And 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:23.039 that same year they signed their first major venue, this 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:26.520 place called the Louisiana Superdome, along with their first Major 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:30.640 League team, the New Orleans Jazz, which is now the 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:32.560 Utah Jazz, but in the city of New Orleans it 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:37.320 was the Jazz. So they actually have the NBA as 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:40.279 one of their major clients, one one team on the NBA. 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:43.480 But still that's huge for just a couple of guys 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:47.200 starting with a startup, right, Yeah, And it happened so quickly. 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:52.120 It's just a few years. When Leffler and Godwa originally 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:56.000 thought of the company, they were going to be licensing 0:06:56.640 --> 0:07:01.400 software for tickets, really, and they've got on from that too, 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:06.680 being the ticket provider for stadiums, which sounds kind of 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:12.840 like maybe a boring business, right it's not as uh, 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:19.840 you know, endlessly fascinating as being a professional uh skydiver, 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:23.520 maybe a podcaster or something like that, you know, an 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:28.080 underwater tattoo artist. But but still, what we have to 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.240 realize is they get a cut of every ticket sold, 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:34.880 and when you get to something as large as a superdome, 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:37.360 that's a lot of money in a very one like 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:42.440 in one night other people knew about the game. There 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:45.960 were other things that existed at this time before Ticketmaster. 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:51.280 There was a business called ticket Tron like ticket and 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:54.240 then the movie Tron, and that's nineteen sixty. So it's 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:59.040 difficult to It's hard for me to imagine computerized ticket 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.520 sales being organ eyes and enough with software with computers 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:04.400 of that are powerful enough to like do it in 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:08.680 any large scale. But it was happening, Yeah, yeah, it wasn't. 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.400 It wasn't necessarily happening on the customer end, but you 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:14.200 would make a phone call to take a tron and 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:17.640 they would have this database. Right, So can I tell 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:22.800 you fun fact about Aron. They were purchased by a 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:33.199 thing called the Lovecraft Investment Group. What's the Lovecraft Investment Group? Had? 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:36.240 All I know is it's Lovecraft. There's a Lovecraft involved, 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:40.040 That's all I know. Oh boy, let's see it's true, 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:46.760 the Hewlett Packard Lovecraft. I don't know what the I 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:50.000 don't know what the Lovecraft Investment coming. This may be 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:53.600 fodder for another podcast. Here's the thing. As you said, 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:59.440 there were other there are other similar creatures around in 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.440 this more ticket right, other places that wanted to be 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.720 the ticket provider, in the middleman for that. But like 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:13.240 a hungry invading species, Ticketmaster consumed and digested these competitors. 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:18.440 In one it opened its first overseas operation. In two, 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:21.520 they got a new CEO, a guy named Fred Rosen. 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:26.160 Rosen told the l A Times back in that his 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:29.560 competitors were asleep at the switch he said he was 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:33.400 an aggressive businessman and proud of it and got this 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:36.839 American psycho vibe going on. Right. He was so good 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:41.160 at dominating the ticket industry that it became the only 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:45.240 game in town. And other people, other artists, primarily not 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:49.800 just uh wound up consumers, other artists started to take 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:55.080 issue with it. Pearl Jam launched a campaign in that 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:58.680 they called a strong language for some people ticket bastard, 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:02.280 because he's you. Pearl Jam was hearing from their fans 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:05.920 that they literally couldn't afford tickets to a show, or 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:10.800 that they were getting saddled with these egregious hidden fees, 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:13.680 and so they said, well, look man, we we want 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:17.280 to make a living, but we want our fans to 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:20.839 see our music. We don't want to uh milk them 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.600 for every penny they're worth, Like what are we kiss? 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:25.440 You know what I mean? They don't want to do that. 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:27.559 They want to be human, They want to stay humans. 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:31.120 So they wanted to offer summer tour tickets to fans 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:35.640 for under twenty bucks, and they asked ticket Mastered, you know, hey, guys, 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:40.560 can you just not charge another twenty bucks and fees? 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:43.360 Can you actually keep the fees around two dollars or 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:49.920 whatever that your cost of doing businesses and they said no, no, 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:59.400 your pearl Jam, and we our ticket Master. Yeah so yeah, 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:01.560 that but it's easy to think about because they really 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:05.520 did say no, and Pearl Jam just decided, well, it's 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:07.600 not worth it. We're not even going to go on tour. 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:11.800 We're canceling everything. We're not gonna like go and play 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.440 a bunch of empty stadiums where nobody can show up 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:18.240 for for this these exorbitant prices. They end up going 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:22.320 to Congress and guess what, Pearl Jam one and everything 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.120 was okay and everyone was happy, and ticket sales went 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:27.000 down to twenty dollars for the rest of our lives. 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:29.040 Thanks so much for tuning in, folks. We hope you 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:33.320 enjoyed this episode. Oh wait, nope, nope, that's not what happened. 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:38.160 What happened ticket Master one? Right, And there's one more 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:43.120 sort of detail for this story. The band, the members 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:46.880 of the band Pearl Jam maintained and say to this 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:49.160 day you can ask them today and they'll confirm this 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:53.200 that private investigators were sent to snoop around in their lives, 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:57.760 sent by Ticketmaster and having a p i um sicked 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:04.720 on you by a company, very common occurrence. Unfortunately, what 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:09.640 they were probably trying to do, what the allegation implies 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:15.679 is that Ticketmaster was attempting to find something discrediting to 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:20.080 members of Pearl Jam, not something that had anything to 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:24.079 do with their crusade to get better ticket prices. They 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:27.360 wanted to be able to say, well, this person is 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:30.960 doing heroin and we'll put it in the news if 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:34.680 you guys don't straighten up until the corporate line. But 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:37.240 you know, again, that's a terrible example because this is 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:42.880 the nineties in Seattle grunge, right, So doing heroin may 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:47.080 unfortunately not have been the huge scandal that they would want, 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:52.280 but they wanted something to hold over their heads, and eventually, 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:57.760 probably more so, through just the sheer, ungodly amount of 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:02.160 money Ticketmaster has, they were able to they were able to, 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:05.000 as you say, prevail. So that brings us to the 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:10.200 modern day. A company called Interactive Corps, oddly enough not 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:14.000 a video game company, purchased a majority stake and ticket Master, 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:16.280 and then it bought the rest of the company n 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:22.360 the name changed to Ticketmaster Online. Dash City search doesn't 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:28.160 exactly roll off the tongue, right, So they didn't care 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:32.400 that it didn't roll off the tongue. The company expanded, diversified, 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:36.319 it kept evolving its business model, increasingly going from phones 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:40.960 to online sales, and this constant evolution, the way of 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:45.040 many businesses right uh, unfortunately, did not go in the 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:49.760 direction that critics wanted it to. They didn't see cheaper tickets, 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:54.360 they didn't feel like things were more transparent. These moves 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:57.920 did not quell all of the critics, and today ticket 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:03.200 Master controls and estimate aided of the little more than 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:09.880 of the ticketing market in North America. M So they're 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:12.640 doing something right. But let's get back to the critics. 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:16.120 What are these critics saying. Well, they're saying that we 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:18.120 need to take a quick break to hear from our 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:21.560 sponsor and then we'll find out what ticket Master may 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:31.320 or may not have been getting into. Here's where it 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:34.920 gets crazy. So it turns out that in addition to 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:39.840 be massively successful, Ticketmaster has been accused of numerous abuses, 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:44.960 breaches of law, and shady business practices. There's genuine stuff 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:48.400 they don't want you to know here. It's probably not 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:53.560 gonna stop snow Compellingnipetus to stop it. And yes, ticket 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:58.120 Master has been sued for conspiracy. Oh snap, the big 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:02.800 c all right, stake another time traveling trip here to 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:09.440 two thousand nine. Bruce Springsteen. Oh everybody knows or Bruce 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:12.040 the Boss. Yeah, he's the boss. He's your boss and 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:15.160 my boss. He publicly calls out ticket Master in two 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:19.640 thousand nine for a little um, let's say, misdirection, redirection, 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:25.480 if you will, from from a website. So as fans 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:28.680 were going and trying to buy tickets through ticket Master 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:31.960 to the Springsteen concert, they were getting sent to this 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:36.480 other place called ticket now dot com, completely separate site. 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:39.520 It looks very different. There's no you know, when you're 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:42.400 on that site, you don't understand what's happening. You feel 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:44.680 like a pop up maybe has occurred, or you've gotten 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.640 redirected through an ad maybe, or this is your last 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:51.400 chance to get some kind of ticket to see the 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:55.800 Boss live. Well, yeah, there's a certain desperation that's happening 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:58.560 when you are being redirected to this ticket now dot 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:02.800 com because guess what, the tickets are marked up by hundreds, 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:07.560 sometimes thousands of dollars at ticket now versus ticket Master. 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:11.640 So then all these fan complaints are coming through because 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:16.160 of this weird steering to this place called tickets Now. Um, 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:20.880 a New Jersey congressman gets a call and basically this 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:24.240 guy says, Hey, we need a federal antitrust investigation into 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:27.640 whatever the heck is going on between ticket Master and 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:31.400 ticket Now. What is this? Let's figure this out. Yeah, 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:36.280 So here's what they find. They find that ticket Now, 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:39.880 in addition to having a very similar name to ticket Master, 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:46.600 is owned by ticket Master, and when Bruce Springsteen's fans 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:50.080 were going to a website to buy tickets to his show, 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:54.680 they were automatically redirected to ticket Now, which, as he said, 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:57.480 met sells tickets from much higher than their face value. 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:01.560 And it prays on that desperate san Right, that's psychological 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:05.280 fear that someone else will get the thing I want. So, 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:08.800 you know, I may not necessarily think this is a 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:13.119 good financial decision, but I will be gosh darned and 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:16.719 gali ged if I allow somebody else to get that ticket. 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:20.119 You know what I mean, It's an artificial scarcity essentially. 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:24.639 Bruce Springsteen found out about it, and he was he 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:30.320 was righteously indignant. He wrote a public statement about this 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:34.960 because what he found out was that this sort of 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:39.959 second chance or reselling site. Ticket Now was something that 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:43.720 Ticketmaster was sending the audience to when there were still 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:47.840 regular tickets available. So they could have gotten that you know, 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:52.080 thirty or forty or whatever dollar ticket to sit on 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:54.800 the lawn in the back and have a great time. 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:57.440 But instead they were going directly to this place where 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:00.879 it was you know, this huge markup, and that that 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:07.040 that markup goes to Ticketmaster. Man. So Ticketmaster gets a 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:13.000 fifteent cut from tickets Now, which it owns. H So 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:17.600 that's in addition to the fees it already gets as Ticketmaster, 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:21.639 so that that money is already spent and baked into 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:25.680 the price. So uh, a lawsuit comes about, and essentially 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:31.359 what they're doing is making money off the same ticket 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:38.119 two times. Clever, you know, brilliant, very clever, evil, lawful evil, 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:43.359 and so uh. Probably because Friedenstein himself took such a 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:47.560 strong stance against the Ticketmaster issued an apology to the 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:50.880 fans and said, we will refund you the price difference 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:53.359 between the face value of the tickets and those you 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:55.879 got from ticket Now, which is a lot of you know, 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:59.160 it's a lot of scratch. But that's also that's also 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:02.760 like being caught stealing, you know, being caught stealing a 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:07.000 car and then saying I'm I'm gonna drive it back 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:10.080 to your house. Yeah, and then like I feel bad, 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:17.600 I mean some gas money here, just a little bit gas. No, 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:22.439 they didn't they but but it's strange, right, and this 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:26.200 is just one of the allegations against Ticketmaster. We've got 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:30.119 that Pearl Jam example. But let's talk about those fees, 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:32.440 because that's where a lot of this comes back in. Right. 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:35.159 Have you ever bought a twenty dollar ticket only to 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:38.600 find that it becomes more than forty dollars by the 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:45.840 time you get to the actual place your order? No? Never, Never, Tabernacle, 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:50.520 that's a that's a local venue here in Atlanta. What 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:53.520 kind of fees have you run into? Literally twice as much? 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:57.000 I mean, yeah, I've seen I have seen tickets double 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:00.400 when I buy them for just a local You're here 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.720 because of ticket Master's weird fees to get me my 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:06.680 ticket somehow that I can print out already. Yeah, there's 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:09.960 like a two to five dollar fee for getting a PDF. 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:14.159 Essentially you can print somebody. I'm paying somebody's salary who's 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:17.760 just on a floor somewhere making calls like I need 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:19.800 three Pearl jam but like no, no, I got four 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:22.880 Radiohead No. And it's like it has to be that 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:27.960 to justify twenty or thirty dollar fees on top of 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:31.520 everything else. Otherwise I do not understand. Yeah, you're absolutely right. 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:35.239 There's a there's a service charge, and that would be 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:40.199 ticket masters charging you for the privilege of giving you 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:43.600 a ticket. And then there's the facility charge, which is 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:47.120 a charge added by the venue. So ticket Master takes 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:50.879 its cut, and then the Tabernacle, for example, takes its cut. 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:55.240 And then there are shipping, convenience and processing charges. So 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:59.600 that's a charge for you know, using your visa American 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:03.200 Express US, that's a charge for having the tickets delivered 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:08.960 to you via post or choosing your own printer. But 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:11.600 then who who pays Cardi b e? Then is what 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:14.800 I'm trying to figure out, Like what's her cut? Everybody 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:17.320 else is taking their cut. Who's where's Cardi B's money? 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:20.200 Unless you're a huge name artist, which I guess Cardi 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:23.879 b is now. Uh, the the amount of money you 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:29.600 get per ticket can be surprisingly alarmingly small because the 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:31.640 label will take some money, you know what I mean, 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:34.200 Your road crew will take some money and all all 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:38.080 this other stuff craft services. Eat that cheese because it's 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:41.199 coming out of your kind of the profits, right. Uh, 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:44.800 but all all this adds up to u to an 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:49.439 unpleasant experience for people when we're buying these tickets. The 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:53.560 problem is there's not really any transparency with this fees 0:21:53.640 --> 0:21:59.760 between events, very even at the same venue and pre 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:03.000 princes of the artist as well is some people will 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:08.640 try to buck like Radiohead or Pearl Jam. And the 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:11.960 problem with it is that none of this, none of 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:15.639 this ultimately goes into a situation where and ticket prices 0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:20.280 are lower. None of this is meant to nor will 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:24.520 it ever create cannot yes, none, None of this is 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:26.960 meant to create a situation where artists get paid more 0:22:27.280 --> 0:22:31.520 and the audience pays less. Absolutely none. If anything. It's 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:34.439 kind of like, you know, nobody talks about this, but 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:38.840 it's pretty weird that you and you know historically can't 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:41.119 buy a car directly from the people who make cars. 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:47.760 It's weird. It's a weird thing. It's normalized and you know, 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:51.840 I'm not choosing sides on it, but that that is 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:55.280 something we think about. You know, you can buy almost 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:58.320 you can buy so many other things directly from the 0:22:58.400 --> 0:23:02.760 people who make them. Vertical integration is scary though, and 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:07.480 it can it can be highly it can be highly problematic. Yeah, 0:23:07.560 --> 0:23:11.920 and it can also be dangerous for the bottom line. Right, So, 0:23:13.000 --> 0:23:17.639 the allegation here is that Ticketmaster is sort of a 0:23:17.720 --> 0:23:22.560 rent seeker and it's now a middle It's maybe it 0:23:22.880 --> 0:23:26.919 needed to be in the process before everybody had a 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:30.520 brilliant computer on their phone, but now maybe it doesn't 0:23:30.560 --> 0:23:33.639 have to be right, Maybe that kind of software is 0:23:34.359 --> 0:23:38.040 easier to handle. We don't really know. We just know 0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:40.840 that they are the largest game in town, and we 0:23:40.920 --> 0:23:48.520 know that the the entire operation is exceedingly opaque. We're 0:23:48.560 --> 0:23:51.159 going to take a break for a brief word from 0:23:51.160 --> 0:23:54.920 our sponsor, and then we'll come back with an investigation 0:23:55.200 --> 0:24:06.760 in Canada that that makes this even weirder. All right, 0:24:06.800 --> 0:24:12.400 here's where it gets crazier. This is hard for me 0:24:12.480 --> 0:24:16.320 to understand that this is real. Okay, what we're gonna 0:24:16.320 --> 0:24:20.200 talk about from now mostly through the rest of this episode, 0:24:20.880 --> 0:24:26.320 we got from a CBC news um investigation that was 0:24:26.359 --> 0:24:30.359 carried out and specifically there's a journalist named Dave Seglins 0:24:30.840 --> 0:24:36.280 who actually physically went undercover as a scalper at a 0:24:36.359 --> 0:24:41.480 ticket industry convention out there in Las Vegas. And you 0:24:41.520 --> 0:24:43.359 can watch video of this online right now. If you 0:24:43.359 --> 0:24:45.919 want to take a break, you can. You can search 0:24:45.960 --> 0:24:53.679 this up CBC ticket Master. UM segling l I N S. 0:24:53.800 --> 0:24:57.160 That's good, you'll find it. Check it out. It's pretty crazy. 0:24:57.920 --> 0:25:03.600 Could we set some just some axiomatic beginnings here. Okay, So, 0:25:03.600 --> 0:25:08.320 so imagine your ticketmaster. You make money selling tickets. Um, 0:25:08.400 --> 0:25:14.320 you want people to buy tickets from you? Definitely? Um, 0:25:14.480 --> 0:25:16.440 does it matter who that person is buying a ticket 0:25:16.480 --> 0:25:19.280 from you as long as somebody's buying a ticket from you, right, right, 0:25:19.320 --> 0:25:22.960 as long as the transaction occurs. But you want to 0:25:22.960 --> 0:25:24.840 be on the side of the people in the artists, 0:25:24.840 --> 0:25:29.040 and you would probably say hey, at least in public, 0:25:29.080 --> 0:25:33.840 you say, hey, I think scalpers are the worst and 0:25:33.880 --> 0:25:36.560 they take advantage of people. Yeah, because we want you 0:25:36.640 --> 0:25:38.639 to have low prices and see all the stuff you 0:25:38.640 --> 0:25:41.800 want to see. Don't be mad at us. Right, So 0:25:42.000 --> 0:25:46.560 it's it's established then in the public mind. The axiom 0:25:46.640 --> 0:25:52.359 is that uh, ticket distributors or these these middle segments 0:25:52.400 --> 0:25:55.920 between the artists and the event and the customer, that 0:25:55.960 --> 0:26:00.439 they should not not be down with scalpers, like you 0:26:00.440 --> 0:26:03.040 guys making it weird, you're making it worse. I don't 0:26:03.040 --> 0:26:06.719 want to be in a situation where, for instance, there are, uh, 0:26:07.320 --> 0:26:10.920 what's a great what's a great event that people would 0:26:10.920 --> 0:26:14.320 go to today? Like a band or a performance or 0:26:14.359 --> 0:26:19.439 alien Con alien Con. They're only, yeah, it's a one 0:26:19.520 --> 0:26:23.320 night only, four hundred, four hundred seat event and it's 0:26:23.400 --> 0:26:25.959 called alien Con. Who knows what it is. Maybe it's 0:26:25.960 --> 0:26:30.640 a mariachi band, and uh they ticket Master, one would assume, 0:26:31.040 --> 0:26:34.640 does not care for a situation where one person goes 0:26:34.680 --> 0:26:37.879 in and buys all four hundred or whatever those tickets 0:26:37.920 --> 0:26:41.520 in one block and then turns around and sells them 0:26:41.560 --> 0:26:48.439 through fifty more on you know eBay. Yeah, basically Ticketmaster 0:26:48.680 --> 0:26:53.000 is not down with O P t right other people's tickets. 0:26:53.000 --> 0:26:57.520 They don't. They're like, look, these these are the people's tickets, right, right, right? 0:26:57.640 --> 0:27:01.040 So what that's what we assumed, right, And it turns 0:27:01.720 --> 0:27:03.840 right and it turns out that we were very wrong, 0:27:05.200 --> 0:27:08.320 like cartoonistly, So they're all they're quite all right with 0:27:08.640 --> 0:27:12.399 anyone buying their share of the tickets as long as 0:27:12.480 --> 0:27:17.560