Archive for the ‘Live Music News’ Category
Digital Music News are carrying this story about online ticket scalping – a case in which an LA based company calling themselves ‘Wiseguy Tickets’ employed a ring of Bulgarian computer programmers to buy up all the best tickets to high profile, high demand concerts and resell them online for a huge mark-up. Perhaps parting with more than six times the face value of the ticket is painful for whoever buys the ticket second hand, but presumably no-one is twisting their arm as they click ‘confirm bid’, and as far as eBay is concerned it’s perfectly legitimate (at least in the UK – some US states have laws against it).
So who is at fault here? Blocking the public from buying tickets wholesale with highly organised, bulk buying and reselling operations seems pretty underhand and unsporting, but the scalpers are taking the risk that people will purchase the inflated tickets, so isn’t it just the normal exercise of a free market? Are the promoters missing a trick in the first place? A staggered ebay auction style release of tickets by the promoter, with say 25% of total tickets released 12, 8, 4 and 2 weeks before the gig, with prices starting at a reasonable face value would surely have the same free-market effect. There’s the strong argument that this competetive model would be a disservice to the less affluent fans, but promoters would have the same chance of selling out a venue at the starting price, and could only benefit from any uplift if the tickets ended up being worth more to a punter than the original price – if they were bid up by competing punters, and this would make it harder for scalpers to get hold of tickets in the first place, as to get them they’d have to compete with Joe Public in the first place, paying the elevated prices themselves. It would also go some way to eliminating their profits – why buy from an unofficial auction when there’s an official one happening, and could potentially make more money for the promoter, venue and artist if the ticket revenue is split out between them.
What do you think, internet people? Is sclaping fair practice, or callous parasitism? Would selling online like this just be a way for promoters to benefit at fans’ expense, or would it be a neat way of cutting scalpers out of the loop and rationalising ticket prices for the rest of us?
Lady GaGa will play North American and European arenas this year and Live Nation Entertainment’s global touring division will take the reins as promoter/producer.
Lady GaGa is set to begin a run of dates in the U.K. (promoted by AEG Live) on Feb. 18 at the MEN Arena in Manchester, followed by shows in Australia, New Zealand and Japan, which are all almost sold out. According to sources, it is now expected that the artist will play arenas in Europe some time this spring, then North American arenas in the summer.
Live Nation has previous run heavy international tours for both U2 and Madonna, so Lady GaGa will be in good hands.
HMV is increasing it’s investments in the live music business. Having entered into partnership with Luminar to cross promote between live venues and their music store, and having operated a joint venture with MAMA in the same manner for just over a year, they have succeeded in obtaining just over 56% of shares in MAMA, giving them a controlling stake, and another place to promote their own artists and keep an eye on up and coming artists.
Sometimes getting bogged down in the mud at Glastonbury isn’t a bad thing! This year many revelers will be doing exactly that but the only difference is that they will be watching soul legend Stevie Wonder headline.
Stevie is bound to bring the house down (or at least the cowsheds) as he takes to the piano to close the festival’s 40th anniversary spectacular on the Sunday night.
Additionally, Muse have just been signed up for Glastonbury to feature in the Saturday night slot.
We mentioned a while back that LCD Soundsystem are releasing a new album – well, what usually happens is that a new LP is accompanied by a tour, and that’s exactly what the fuzzy edged Mr. Martin has revealed on the LCD Soundsystem myspace page blog.
basically, we’re back. and going on tour in a few months. so we’re packing up our lives and getting progressively better at packing light and working with airmiles, etc. and i guess gathering gear and practice and all the other crap that comes with putting on this broadway musical called “lcd soundsystem” (jazz haaands!).
otherwise it’s the same. i (james) miss playing live a bit, which means it was a GOOD idea to take an extra year between these records. now i can finally get rid of that pesky life i was living and actually live from april on in either a bus, plane, stage or hotel room. sometimes i can go out to eat, too.
…
um, so… we’re going on tour.
Great news, as far as we’re concerned – dates below, more details on venues here.
16 Apr 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem indio, California
20 Apr 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem dublin
21 Apr 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem dublin
23 Apr 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem london
24 Apr 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem london
24 Apr 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem birmingham
27 Apr 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem leeds
28 Apr 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem glasgow
29 Apr 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem glasgow
1 May 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem manchester
2 May 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem bristol
4 May 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem amsterdam
5 May 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem brussels
8 May 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem paris
Tired of missing out on gigs from your favourite artists? Buying tickets at a premium after you miss the official site runs out? Trawling through Myspace pages and gig listings to find out who’s playing where in the next year, only to find venues have sold out before you’ve even heard a gig is on?
Songkick will solve all these problems for you. They have a plugin for iTunes and for Last.FM that will analyse your music library or your top listened bands and compile a list of when and where they’re gigging in the foreseeable future, and will send you alerts when gigs come up close to you for your listened artists. They also provide direct links to ticket vendors, with a price comparison for each, so you’ll always know first, and never pay over the odds for a ticket.
From the artist’s perspective, you can also add concerts to the online database, so that your listeners are automatically updated when you list new gigs. Just make sure that we distribute your music to last.fm when you sign it up to our digital music distribution service, so that your music can be discovered on their streaming service.
After months of speculation and reels of red tape, the world’s biggest live music company has been created by the combination of the two giants Ticketmaster and Live Nation have finally secured approval from the necessary legal bodies to go ahead with their merger. The company formed is now called Live Nation Entertainment, Inc., and TKTM’s stock ceased trading at close on the 25th. According to Reuters, common stock in Ticketmaster will be exchanged for 1.474 shares of stock in the new entity. This news has seen a massive jump in the share price of both companies, and will undoubtedly have a seismic effect throughout the live music world over the coming year.
Nominees for the 2010 Brit Awards are out an it looks like another year for the ladies.
Amongst others, Lady Ga-Ga and Lilly Allen have both been nominated for three awards each. Lilly has been nominated for the Best British Album and Best Single Awards. As well as Best female act up against Florence (and the machine), Bat for Lashes, Pixie Lot, Leona Lewis and Lady Ga-Ga. Lady Ga-Ga is a favourite for both best international breakthrough artist and best debut album.
Whilst, Calvin Harris, Dizzee Rascal, Mika, Paolo Nutini and Robbie Williams were all nominated for Best British Male. Florence And The Machine, Friendly Fires, JLS, La Roux and Pixie Lott are all up for British Breakthrough Act. And the nominees for Best British Group are Doves, Friendly Fires, JLS, Kasabian and Muse.
HMV
is one high street music chain that has thus far survived the decimation that has killed off Zavvi, Fopp, and other music retailers, and Luminar is a behind the scenes operator of a large group of nightclubs across the UK. According to a report in the Times ‘the two companies are discussing the possibility of setting up a small number of pilots that would involve HMV stores and Luminar clubs cross-marketing to each others’ customers.’ This seems like a smart move on HMV’s part, taking a few more of their eggs out of the physical retail market. In the light of the proposed deal between Ticketmaster and Live Nation, which if approved would sweep the board on high level gigs, it makes sense for mid level venues to start tying in with big players in the music industry for some marketing support, thereby providing another route to heavliy promoted artists, and safeguarding their territory from downward incursion.
HMV already has its own record label, and close ties into live venues, which are proving more resistant to the general slump in the music market than physical record sales.
Live Nation’s shareholder’s have voted to approve the merger between their company and Ticketmaster. You can read the SEC filing here – the news was at first positively recieved, but now indications are that the stock market is going slightly cold on the two closely linked companies, with a 2% fall yesterday.
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