alt Hacker NewsOne component of the total picture also is that many of these stadiums/arenas are being funded by the public / tax payer often by tax breaks etc. and the politicians / lobbies are using their relationship to monopolize that public good.
IMO every event at an area should go through a public auction / RFP of who is the ticketer for that event (maybe artist gets right of first refusal to pony up the difference for their preferred ticketer?)
This sort of thing is a strong argument (IMO) that these stadiums, arenas, theaters should be owned by the municipality they reside in.
Fine, we can call it a public good which is why they have nice tax incentives. But why stop there? If its truly a public good then why shouldn't the public simply own it? Why isn't the city operating these venues and using the ticket prices to offset tax burdens?
It might be harder to do this with a sports arena as there's a bunch of issues around the monopolies that are the MLB/NBA/etc. But when it comes to a theater style venue, I'd think most artists would be ecstatic to deal with a city rather than ticketmaster. It truly isn't the case that ticketmaster is providing almost anything of value for their venues. And for very large events they have to coordinate with the city anyways.