alt Hacker NewsThe claim was that Livenation (or a few insiders) is benefiting from the higher prices. But the financials (low profit margins) don’t show that (absent fraud).
In which case, the benefit of the higher prices would be going to (some) performers. Which supports the claim that Livenation is useful as a punching bag for the most popular performers.
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There's the occasional top performer that's in on it for sure. But yes, the few insiders are benefiting from higher prices.
I know these people personally. I'm telling you that it's true. I can think of one example where all the insiders created a startup in the ticketing space that had no reason to exist, really, and nothing worth buying solely so that they could acquire it and all the insiders could profit off of it. Lo and behold, COVID came along and made it so their plan made even less sense, and they just ran with it anyways. Money went straight from the stock market into their pockets.
There's a million examples, but again, a lot of the stuff is on the record. I'm sure Rapino is giving money to shareholders for the most part (being one is a pretty relevant part of that for him obviously) but he's doing it via illegal actions. He has made himself a billionaire in the process.
You can hedge however you want on that, but it's horrible and bad and your posts sound like they're defending it or acting like it's natural or normal in some way. It's not mitigated by the fact that someone like Ari Emanuel or a few guys in Nashville had their hand in the cookie jar too. Victims are millions of normal Americans, like me and you, and basically every working musician, except for a few special people at the top.
Watch this: https://youtu.be/u--se25_px8
Even Coachella, which was supposed to be an F-U to high ticket prices and Record Label red tape, is now $5,000/ticket.