Live Nation rolled out its plans to launch its own ticketing business next year in a conference call today, but the most interesting part wasn’t how the company planned to compete with Ticketmaster but how it planned to compete with ticket reseller StubHub.
Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino and its president of ticketing Nathan Hubbard talked about how ticket prices would soon become more like hotel prices or airfares. By moving into the ticket resale market in 2009, Live Nation plans to use more “dynamic pricing” for its tickets, meaning higher prices for sought-after tickets, but also lower prices for less-popular tickets.
The plan is to “sell through every ticket,” Rapino said, adding that ticket prices could change hourly or daily. The company will apparently look to fill seats at its venues – including Nikon at Jones Beach Theater and North Fork Theatre at Westbury – at lower prices rather than have them go empty and keep the original ticket prices intact.
The Live Nation system, which will launch after its current agreement with Ticketmaster ends at the end of this year, would also have a leg up on ticket resellers like StubHub because it would be able to immediately reissue tickets to secondary buyers once the initial buyers confirmed that they were selling them. This would eliminate the worries about whether the tickets were counterfeit or not or how the exchange would take place. Through Live Nation, it would all be automatic. How come? Well, they would charge a fee for the sale, natch.
According to the company, the new ticketing business will add about $25 million in revenues annually, even without the reselling business and sponsorships and other programs it can sell now that it controls ticketing in its venues. If all the new businesses work out, the revenue increases could total up to $50 million.
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