DC Springsteen Fans Screwed, Fans Had Better Get Used to It with Live Nation Merger Pending

TicketsNow, a subsidiary of Ticketmaster royally screwed fans who paid up to 3x face value for premium seats to the Boss' sold out DC show at Verizon Center. The ticket reseller --which mysteriously had Springsteen tickets on sale for well over the stated price within minutes of them selling out on Ticketmaster--oversold the premium seats, meaning thousands of fans lost their hot spots on the floor! WTF?!

Oh and the WTF just gets bigger, because the show is sold out, right? But mysteriously TicketsNow has cheap seats still available and offered those seats, plus a full refund, to affected fans. Way to prove you have a scam going! The show isn't really sold out--despite Verizon Center's website and Ticketmaster stating so! I wonder how many of the folks who got screwed by this scam are in politics--oh wait--it's Washington DC.

Meanwhile, according to today's New York Times, the Ticketmaster and LiveNation merger--which would unite the ticket seller (and its reselling sibling) with concert promoter/artist overseer LiveNation has been approved by 50% of its lenders, paving the way for huge monopoly.

In October, 2008 Ticketmaster acquired Irving Azoff's Front Line Management, and Azoff went on to become CEO of Ticketmaster. Front Line handles the careers of Christina Aguilera, the Eagles, Jimmy Buffett, Neil Diamond, Billy Corgan and others. No wonder the Smashing Pumpkins front man Corgan was in Washington DC March 10 delivering a letter to senators in support of the Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger, which you can read here.

Lisa Derrick is LaFiga at Firedoglake.com

Comments

[MalMNN]

01:29 PM on 05/17/2009

well, Bruce is off to the UK and Europe soon, where they have the same ticketing problems;
http://www.musicnewsnet.com/2009/03/top-acts-scalping-their-own-tix-.html

and Bruce news-
http://www.musicnewsnet.com/2009/05/bruce-springsteen-winds-down-usa-spring-tour-.html

[MalMNN]

01:13 PM on 05/17/2009

the whole process, by law, should be made transparent. because of this fiasco, even senators are taking notice, but will allow the Live Nation/Ticketmaster deal go thru if citizens don't keep the pressure on.

[phillymonster]

12:41 AM on 05/15/2009

Springsteen is a fraud. You might want to read about his lying about the behind the scenes action on his Walmart deal here:

http://www.examiner.com/x-7494-LA-Gossip-Examiner~y2009m4d24-Bruce-Springsteen--lied-about-not-understanding-Walmart-deal

[McFlipFlop]

10:01 AM on 05/17/2009

Oh yeah, that LA Gossip bag is a trustworthy source of facts.

[Citizen54]

07:34 PM on 05/14/2009

Musicians/bands should start selling their own tickets. It wouldn't take more than a few servers and a small staff to handle it, if done properly. Sell directly to the audience. Okay, you don't have the Ticketmaster marketing machine, but there are plenty of ways around that. The great Pearl Jam already does this to a certain extent for members of its Ten Club.

Innovation is the enemy of monopoly.

[RevBookburn]

09:59 PM on 05/14/2009

Total agreement. Pearl Jam has long made efforts to prevent fans from being ripped-off. These companies are dirtbags who are now going to become even worse after the merger. Rev. Bookburn - Radio Volta

[Downtown]

10:44 AM on 05/15/2009

If it were only that simple... It takes a hell of a lot more than a "few servers"... LiveNation, who'd you'd expect would have the technical infrastructure to actually support the sales of the tickets for shows they have, is constantly and perpetually plagued by server crashes on on-sale dates. If they can't get it together enough to keep their servers running i doubt that any band could or would take on the task.

and don't forget that there's now integration between the ticket sellers and the venue owners, in many cases pretty much the same entity. PJ tried to sell its own tickets and found that it was getting shut out of the bigger venues that were run by the companies they were no longer using to sell tickets.

it starts with the venues, really.