Republicans
this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2025
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Ticketmonster has just always been outrageous. I was a teenager in the 80s and it was ridiculous back then too. The prices were lower but the percentages were just as ridiculous, I think. For example, my first concert was Men At Work in 1983. The tickets were $12.50 but my final price at Ticketmonster, which used to be a physical business inside Sears, was over $16, which is around a 30% markup!!
Lack or regulation in their industry. Regulation, while it can be burdensome in some cases, prevents bullshit like this from existing. Republicans want less regulation so businesses are allowed to generally be as horrible as they want and have pushed everything towards less regulation and more monopolistic control, knowing that while some people will boycott individually, mass boycott is unlikely without a massively bad immediate fuck up (target just did this). Boil the masses slowly and they won't notice in time to do anything about it. Kinda like US politics over the last few decades leading to the fuckery we endure now even outside of shit businesses.
I'm boycotting Ticketmaster. I'm just not going to go to shows that force me to use them, even if they're my favourite bands. I will buy my music on Bandcamp Fridays to support the bands instead.
TBH it's difficult to use even if you wanted to, sometimes their site won't even load unless I allow third party cookies, location data, mic and camera access, download their app, and stick their special dongle up my ass.
But the purchasers of tickets aren't the people who pick the ticketing service. If we want tickets to be available from other services we need to actually get shows organized that sell tickets through them, not just not pay Ticketmaster.
What bands do you know? Do they want to come to your town?
I'm not sure what other ticket services we have. I would absolutely look at what shows those services offer if I know what services to look through.
Ticketweb is also owned by Ticketmaster.
The best way I see it is to buy directly from venues if its available by looking at their websites -- and to consider buying tickets in-person if they allow it.
Ticketmaster owns a lot of venues
If enough people stop using Ticketmaster then it will become the profitable option for bands and venues to not deal with Ticketmaster even at risk of not being allowed to by Ticketmaster.
That seems much easier to pull off while also building a replacement infrastructure for ticketing and performances. The hypothetical more profitable option of not dealing with Ticketmaster needs to be manually built out: firms and practices don't just manifest themselves as spontaneous crystallization of pure potential profitability.
Ticketmaster will not allow a replacement structure. Better to just boycott it and have venues sell tickets like Theatres do.
Imagine if two thirds of movies could only be seen at AMC theatres for years after release?
How do they propose to prevent it? They can't stop me from starting a band, they can't stop you from having me play at your house. Exclusivity agreements don't work on the fundamentally disagreeable.
It's already implemented: venues and bands that work with ticketmaster sign contracts of exclusivity. Any venue that doesn't work only with ticketmaster can't work with ticketmaster at all, which is not good for business when Ticketmaster is the de facto monopoly.
You can make a band and you can own a venue and you can choose not to use Ticketmaster, and you should I absolutely support that, but if you want to create an online ticket sales empire you would first have to prove you're more capable of driving sales than Ticketmaster.
That's why we need to show up with a bunch of Ticketmaster boycotters. Every successful social movement needs a carrot and a stick.
That's literally what I said. That was my suggestion 5 comments up this chain, and you replied by saying it would be easier to make a replacement structure.
I didn't say we should only or instead make a replacement structure, I said we should also make a replacement structure, not because it's easier, but because I think the boycott would depend on having one in order to work.
Ticketmaster won't allow a replacement structure.
I can answer that.....for money.
It's literally just a matter of
1: Being informed about how shitty they are.
2: Actually being willing to do something about it.
3: Having the self control to follow through.
Direct your ire towards people unwilling to do any part of 1-3.
We won't boycott them.
All it would take is a good boycott.
Yeah I stopped going to shows a long time ago because of this
ticketmaster is mostly for music that sucks
Ticketmaster now has exclusive control over most venues for any type of event, not just music.
If Pearl Jam couldn’t fix it in the 90s and Taylor swift couldn’t fix it in the 2020s that tells you just how much money is behind them.
It's not something a single artist can fix. You'd need some kind of mass movement of artists organizing and auctioning their labor as a collective unit, rather than a bunch of freelancers and independent labels competing with one another for space in an increasingly monpolized marketplace.
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We were warned in the 90's.
Ticket Ghost of Ticket Future: "Don't buy from Ticketmaster"
Me, in the Present: "Okay, but I still want to go to the concert"
Ticket Ghost: "You're going to feel weird in ten years, when you find out what Kanye gets up to. But you do meet someone at the event to hook up with, have an on-again off-again relationship for three years, the sex is amazing but you're on totally different career tracks. You end up seeing other people, and now you live in the same neighborhood and your kids are friends. Which is nice but also a bit weird at parties."
Me: "Wow. That's... a lot to take in."
Ticket Ghost: "Sorry, bro. I tried to warn you two weeks ago not to take those edibles because they'd give you psychic premonitions, but you hadn't taken the edibles yet so you couldn't listen..."
Me: vomiting sounds as I clutch the toilet
So do the partners know about y'alls past boinking?
There are currently lawsuits against them, but it takes time. This is from NC Attorney General Jeff Jackson's newsletter earlier this year:
"The People vs. Ticketmaster/Live Nation
I’m forcing myself to only pick one case to go into detail about - but it’s a great one.
Let’s say you want to make a bunch of money by supplying live entertainment, primarily the music industry.
Well, the three big pieces in that business are:
The venue
The right to promote the event
The right to sell the tickets
Now imagine you control each of those. You own venues, and you promote the events, and you sell the tickets.
Congratulations - you’re a monopoly.
You’ve achieved vertical integration within your business, which means the sum of those parts has unlocked the ability to gouge customers with the confidence that they won’t be able to find a competitor to offer them a better deal. And using your monopoly to further entrench your power to charge customers higher prices is against the law.
This is exactly what I, along with a bipartisan group of AGs, allege that Ticketmaster/Live Nation has done.
They've turned concert ticket fees into something fans call the “Ticketmaster Tax.” These are the “convenience fees,” “processing fees,” and “handling fees” that add up quickly, inflating ticket prices by huge margins.
Why can they get away with it? Because they've locked venues into exclusive contracts, squeezing out any chance of competition.
But it gets worse. If venues try to resist and explore other options, Live Nation retaliates by threatening to strip venues of popular acts. The internal emails from Live Nation executives detailed in our lawsuit are explicit and awful.
Which means, if you’re an independent venue that doesn't use Ticketmaster, good luck booking artists. Ticketmaster controls ticket sales and Live Nation controls promotion, so artists who are promoted by Live Nation typically won't be allowed to perform at venues that refuse to use Ticketmaster for ticketing.
This is textbook unlawful monopoly behavior. Consumers are paying higher prices and artists and venues are suffering from reduced competition and income.
The good news is that Live Nation just tried - but failed - to get our lawsuit dismissed. That’s a big step toward accountability, including our ultimate request that Live Nation be required to divest Ticketmaster, which it acquired in 2011 and which became the linchpin for much of their monopolistic behavior."
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