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Friday, November 17, 2023
Fan Fairness Coalition Launches Fictional Band 'The Monopoly'
www.ticketnews.com: In an attempt to protest Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation’s control of the ticketing industry, the non-profit organization Fan Fairness Coalition has launched a fictional band: The Monopoly.
This fake band is a hilarious idea. I’ve known for a while that ticketmaster has some of the most fraudulent and deceptive business practices, but there's simply no way for artists to get around it, as ticketmaster is literally a monopoly. Live nation controls the venues, and ticketmaster controls the ticketing. They allow their own bots to scrape tickets off their website, and sell them on competitors websites to give the appearance of competition, all while driving up the prices and pocketing a huge bonus. This doesn’t allow actual fans to get seats, and many of the seats are simply left empty because of the huge prices these companies artificially inflate the ticket prices to. I’d love to see this fake band in concert protesting ticketmaster and live nation’s control over the nation's venues. I don’t like things that hurt both fans and artists, and so I’m really glad that someone is bringing more attention to this issue.
There is an undeniable convenience to Ticketmaster for artists and fans alike. Artists teams don’t have to change their methodology for every individual venue’s ticketing process and fans have all their live event information in one place. The concept is great and could have been great if Live Nation hadn’t turned Ticketmaster into a capitalistic monopoly. I worked at a non-ticketmaster concert venue last summer and watched too many people get scammed by Ticketmaster and the third-party resale platforms that have popped up since Ticketmaster’s rise. There is simply no way to look up a SeatGeek ticket in a non-Ticketmaster platform and verify ownership; my hands were often tied. I find the use of comedy by the Fan Fairness Coalition to be quite wise. With Ticketmaster having reached Congress, engaging constituents to engage their congresspeople is how political change can be made. Making silly videos is an easy way to engage constituents and encourage them to fight for fair concerts and prevent the monopoly from growing even bigger.
2 comments:
This fake band is a hilarious idea. I’ve known for a while that ticketmaster has some of the most fraudulent and deceptive business practices, but there's simply no way for artists to get around it, as ticketmaster is literally a monopoly. Live nation controls the venues, and ticketmaster controls the ticketing. They allow their own bots to scrape tickets off their website, and sell them on competitors websites to give the appearance of competition, all while driving up the prices and pocketing a huge bonus. This doesn’t allow actual fans to get seats, and many of the seats are simply left empty because of the huge prices these companies artificially inflate the ticket prices to. I’d love to see this fake band in concert protesting ticketmaster and live nation’s control over the nation's venues. I don’t like things that hurt both fans and artists, and so I’m really glad that someone is bringing more attention to this issue.
There is an undeniable convenience to Ticketmaster for artists and fans alike. Artists teams don’t have to change their methodology for every individual venue’s ticketing process and fans have all their live event information in one place. The concept is great and could have been great if Live Nation hadn’t turned Ticketmaster into a capitalistic monopoly. I worked at a non-ticketmaster concert venue last summer and watched too many people get scammed by Ticketmaster and the third-party resale platforms that have popped up since Ticketmaster’s rise. There is simply no way to look up a SeatGeek ticket in a non-Ticketmaster platform and verify ownership; my hands were often tied. I find the use of comedy by the Fan Fairness Coalition to be quite wise. With Ticketmaster having reached Congress, engaging constituents to engage their congresspeople is how political change can be made. Making silly videos is an easy way to engage constituents and encourage them to fight for fair concerts and prevent the monopoly from growing even bigger.
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