Ticketmaster & Live Nation Are One

With the announcement made today of the two giants in ticket sales and concert promotion joining forces, this collaboration will make the nations largest seller of tickets for live entertainment. The new company, which will be called Live Nation Entertainment, will have a value of about $2.5 billion based on current prices and excluding net debt. Will this merge be good for fans? This deal raises antitrust concerns that will have to be addresses. Live Nation, which recently launched its own ticketing operation, has gone from just promoting concerts to actually selling music in recent months. Artists such as Madonna and Jay-Z have both signed multi million dollar contracts to give Live Nation the rights to their next few albums. With that in mind Ticketmaster just recently had come under some fire for a situation involving Ticketsnow. They blame the blunder of “technical difficulties” But after the show sold out, consumers were informed that they could buy tickets on TicketsNow for a much higher price. If this was a mistake, it was a big one and upset not only customers, but a big wig in the business Bruce Springsteen. This is no way to operate. You cant be in this sort of business and upset the talent you work with. Reputations mean everything!There’s lots of money to be made, and LiveNation controls the touring business and now with the merger that control is complete. Antitrust issues aside, Live Nation stands to benefit the most from the deal. They had been competing with Ticketmaster for a while now. The new company is expected to generate approximately $40 million by combining ticketing, marketing data centers and other administrative functions. Both companies claim this merge will help improve access and transparency by combining artist, promoter and ticketing under one banner. It will also enable more innovative and dynamic promotion arrangements, which will create more choice and a more fan-friendly purchasing experience.This remains to be seen. Another claim made by both companies is the merger will also create opportunities to improve attendance at events, the companies said, which will be a boon for concert venues and support a healthier live entertainment industry.

This could be a mistake and we will see exactly how this will affect the live music industry which has already suffered due to people being simply put MONEY HUNGRY!