No one taking blame for Hannah ticket fiasco
Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:14pm ET
NASHVILLE (Billboard) - Who's at fault for the controversy surrounding the upcoming "Hannah Montana" tour, for which tickets quickly disappeared and then reappeared with huge markups on the secondary market?
Venues, promoters and resellers -- some would call them scalpers -- all say, "Not us."
As attorneys general from three states look into the situation, Ticketmaster will on Monday seek a preliminary injunction in Federal District Court in Los Angeles against software provider RMG Technologies. The ticketing giant believes RMG's automated programs provide resellers repeated access to ticketmaster.com and move these buyers to the head of the digital line, leaving moms and kids very upset.
Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon has announced that the state is suing three ticket resellers on charges they violated state consumer protection laws. Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel says he is investigating resellers in his state, as is Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett.
"Scalping's illegal in Arkansas. The (attorney general) got a lot of complaints. He's investigating, and we're helping him all we can," says Michael Marion, GM of Alltel Arena in North Little Rock, Ark.
The attention from state legal eagles speaks to the huge demand for tickets to the 54-date Hannah Montana tour, which begins Oct. 18 in St. Louis. The tour has been a rude awakening to the harsh realities of the modern concert market for an emotionally invested ticket buyer.
"You're dealing with a mother/child dynamic here that can lead to a very upset child and a very angry mother, and that certainly exacerbates things," Ticketmaster VP/assistant general counsel Joe Freeman says
What seems to be catching ticket buyers off guard and attracting the attention of politicos is a) how quickly tickets in the primary market are disappearing; b) in turn, how quickly these tickets are showing up on the secondary market and; c) the price tag on those tickets once they hit the secondary market.
Many of those Montana tickets are winding up on StubHub, the secondary-ticket market leader that sold 3.3 million tickets in 2006 and has already eclipsed that number in 2007.
Of course, the reselling phenomenon is not new, just new as a kid-pop phenom. "Because it's kids, because it's uneducated consumers, they're up in arms and they're taking it literally to the level of state government, saying, 'What's going on with these tickets?"' says StubHub spokesman Sean Pate.
StubHub says its tickets come from a wide range of sources. "Anybody can post tickets," says Chuck LaVallee, StubHub's head of business development, though he really doesn't have a handle on their origin.
A sophisticated computerized ticketing system can sell out a large arena in minutes. Given production considerations and "holds" for fan clubs and other constituencies, the actual number of tickets available to the general public for a given show may be only a few thousand, even if the listed capacity of the venue is 18,000.
"In the first few minutes 43,000 people were attempting to purchase 9,000 tickets," Marion says of his Little Rock date. "You can do the math real quick."
Pate, though, says angry consumers don't need to be mad at StubHub. "If it's me, I'm directing (frustration) toward the venue, the promoter and/or Ticketmaster. (Consumers should ask), 'You guys hold this inventory, what is actually available to me?"' Pate says. "We don't sort tickets, we don't buy tickets, we don't pull inventory for sale. There wouldn't be one ticket on StubHub if people didn't want to use us."
Debra Rathwell, senior VP for tour producer/promoter AEG Live, says any discussion that the promoter might be taking advantage of the resale market is misguided. "We are doing everything possible to stop scalpers from being able to purchase tickets," Rathwell says. "We do not sell tickets to the secondary market. That is a slippery slope that my office does not want to go down."
Freeman says Ticketmaster is "doing everything we can to ensure fair access to the public," adding that Ticketmaster does not own or control the ticket. "Ticketmaster is acting on behalf of its clients -- the show promoter, the venue -- to ensure the fairest distribution to the public, but we do not own the tickets. It's not our inventory to decide how it's distributed."
About half of the tickets are sold to Montana fan club members, the only presale in this case. "Fan clubs are a reality of modern touring," Freeman says.
Problem is, joining a fan club is no roadblock to an aggressive reseller. "We did some homework on it and determined that all the StubHub tickets were fan club tickets," Marion says. "Scalpers are joining the fan club for the purpose of buying the tickets to resell them. Which stinks."
Reuters/Billboard
© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved.
Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:14pm ET
NASHVILLE (Billboard) - Who's at fault for the controversy surrounding the upcoming "Hannah Montana" tour, for which tickets quickly disappeared and then reappeared with huge markups on the secondary market?
Venues, promoters and resellers -- some would call them scalpers -- all say, "Not us."
As attorneys general from three states look into the situation, Ticketmaster will on Monday seek a preliminary injunction in Federal District Court in Los Angeles against software provider RMG Technologies. The ticketing giant believes RMG's automated programs provide resellers repeated access to ticketmaster.com and move these buyers to the head of the digital line, leaving moms and kids very upset.
Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon has announced that the state is suing three ticket resellers on charges they violated state consumer protection laws. Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel says he is investigating resellers in his state, as is Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett.
"Scalping's illegal in Arkansas. The (attorney general) got a lot of complaints. He's investigating, and we're helping him all we can," says Michael Marion, GM of Alltel Arena in North Little Rock, Ark.
The attention from state legal eagles speaks to the huge demand for tickets to the 54-date Hannah Montana tour, which begins Oct. 18 in St. Louis. The tour has been a rude awakening to the harsh realities of the modern concert market for an emotionally invested ticket buyer.
"You're dealing with a mother/child dynamic here that can lead to a very upset child and a very angry mother, and that certainly exacerbates things," Ticketmaster VP/assistant general counsel Joe Freeman says
What seems to be catching ticket buyers off guard and attracting the attention of politicos is a) how quickly tickets in the primary market are disappearing; b) in turn, how quickly these tickets are showing up on the secondary market and; c) the price tag on those tickets once they hit the secondary market.
Many of those Montana tickets are winding up on StubHub, the secondary-ticket market leader that sold 3.3 million tickets in 2006 and has already eclipsed that number in 2007.
Of course, the reselling phenomenon is not new, just new as a kid-pop phenom. "Because it's kids, because it's uneducated consumers, they're up in arms and they're taking it literally to the level of state government, saying, 'What's going on with these tickets?"' says StubHub spokesman Sean Pate.
StubHub says its tickets come from a wide range of sources. "Anybody can post tickets," says Chuck LaVallee, StubHub's head of business development, though he really doesn't have a handle on their origin.
A sophisticated computerized ticketing system can sell out a large arena in minutes. Given production considerations and "holds" for fan clubs and other constituencies, the actual number of tickets available to the general public for a given show may be only a few thousand, even if the listed capacity of the venue is 18,000.
"In the first few minutes 43,000 people were attempting to purchase 9,000 tickets," Marion says of his Little Rock date. "You can do the math real quick."
Pate, though, says angry consumers don't need to be mad at StubHub. "If it's me, I'm directing (frustration) toward the venue, the promoter and/or Ticketmaster. (Consumers should ask), 'You guys hold this inventory, what is actually available to me?"' Pate says. "We don't sort tickets, we don't buy tickets, we don't pull inventory for sale. There wouldn't be one ticket on StubHub if people didn't want to use us."
Debra Rathwell, senior VP for tour producer/promoter AEG Live, says any discussion that the promoter might be taking advantage of the resale market is misguided. "We are doing everything possible to stop scalpers from being able to purchase tickets," Rathwell says. "We do not sell tickets to the secondary market. That is a slippery slope that my office does not want to go down."
Freeman says Ticketmaster is "doing everything we can to ensure fair access to the public," adding that Ticketmaster does not own or control the ticket. "Ticketmaster is acting on behalf of its clients -- the show promoter, the venue -- to ensure the fairest distribution to the public, but we do not own the tickets. It's not our inventory to decide how it's distributed."
About half of the tickets are sold to Montana fan club members, the only presale in this case. "Fan clubs are a reality of modern touring," Freeman says.
Problem is, joining a fan club is no roadblock to an aggressive reseller. "We did some homework on it and determined that all the StubHub tickets were fan club tickets," Marion says. "Scalpers are joining the fan club for the purpose of buying the tickets to resell them. Which stinks."
Reuters/Billboard
© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved.