David Ball from Stereoboard has written a comprehensive piece on the brouhaha surrounding the recent Alicia Keys concert in London, and AEG's choice to force fans to show ID at the gates that matched their tickets in order to shut down the secondary ticket market.

He called it a fiasco. And is not alone:

On announcing the show it was made known that ticketing for this event would be different to your usual gig. A decision was made that the organisers didn’t want anyone selling their tickets to anyone else so chose to go with a name checking system to avoid touting. This is where the problems began. BBC Radio 4’s ‘You and Yours’, a consumer news show hosted by Winnifred Robinson, decided to track the show and whether this system could work. What they found appears to be that it didn’t.

As part of their research, BBC spoke with Seatwave who are one of the leading ticket re-seller’s for people who no longer want or can use their tickets for an up-coming show, designed to give people who missed out on sold-out events the opportunity to get hold of tickets. As discussed in previous features this is a system many people are unhappy with but what can’t be denied is that tickets are sold at whatever market value deems it to be. Take this year's Reading & Leeds festival as an example, tickets are selling for up to 50% less than face value as the demand for tickets is actually lower than expected, therefore giving people who felt they wouldn’t be able to afford to go an opportunity they otherwise wouldn’t have had.

Alfred Branch Jr., from Ticketnews.com also covered the problem:

Dozens of fans, however, were delayed entry and hassled for their ID, according to press reports, and some were turned away from some gates and had to go to other gates in order to get in.

"It was chaotic," Graham Burns, chairman of the Association of Secondary Ticket Agents (ASTA), told TicketNews of the show.

With the show not selling out, organizers ended up eventually relaxing the requirements, which led Cohen and others to question what was the point of the whole exercise? Red Light Management, Keys' management company, did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Both Billboard and Ticket News are reporting that documents filed with the SEC last week reveal James Dolan, president and chief executive officer of Cablevision Systems Corporation was elected to the Live Nation board of directors.

The addition adds substantial media heft to the company's board. Dolan is also executive chairman of The Madison Square Garden Company, which Cablevision spun off as a separate, public company in 2010. MSG owns such venues as Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, the Beacon Theater and the Chicago Theater. It also owns sports teams (New York Knicks, New York Rangers, New York Liberty) and media properties (MSG, Fuse).

There is no doubt about Dolan's clout in live entertainment. In addition to heading cable television company Cablevision, which owns the AMC and IFC networks and New York Newsday, Dolan is also the executive chairman of the Madison Square Garden Company (MSG), which owns the venerable New York City arena and the Beacon Theatre, Radio City Music Hall and The Chicago Theatre, and combined the four venues are among the most successful in the U.S.

The Washington Post reports that round two of ticket sales for the 2012 London Olympics drew public ire within hours of its launch on Friday for the slowness of the website as thousands of sports fans across the UK logged in at the wee hours Friday morning to get an early start in bidding, and found the site was working — but almost impossibly slow.

Edwin Parkinson, Director of Viagogo told Associated Press:

"This frantic Friday has created the biggest rush ever in U.K. history... It's even bigger than Michael Jackson's comeback tour."

The latest chapter in a ticketing mess that has drawn criticism nationwide because of its complexity and perceived lack of fairness, comes after two-thirds of ticket seekers failed to earn any in a first round that ended in April.

More than one million people in the UK missed out on tickets according to the Australian Herald Sun:

Nearly two-thirds of the 1.9 million people in the UK who applied to see events at the 2012 London Olympics were left empty-handed.

Despite a batch of three million on sale, only 700,000 applicants - 36 percent - landed the "greatest tickets on Earth."

That left 1.2 million people forced to enter a second round of sales to get a chance to attend the global spectacular next year.

Apologetic organizers promised that those who lost out would be given the first opportunity to buy the next batch of 2.3 million tickets when it goes on sale early June 24.

Ticketnews.com is writing that it's a mere two weeks away from the sixth annual Ticket Summit conference and trade show in Las Vegas, scheduled for July 13-15 at the Venetian Resort, Hotel & Casino.

Over the course of the conference's three days, Ticket Summit attendees will have their pick of more than a dozen panels and training sessions, including the much-anticipated keynote speech of Outbox Enterprises CEO Fred Rosen. Attendees can also network throughout the days, both in the exhibition hall and at the Summit's after-hours events.

Since the first Ticket Summit event in 2006, the event has expanded into a twice-a-year format. The conference has already scheduled its 2012 return to New York City for January 18-20 at the Waldorf=Astoria.

The Ticket Summit audience has also evolved into a cross-section of the ticketing industry and its extended community — both nationally and internationally. More than 600 people have already registered to attend the Vegas 2011 event, according to current estimates.

Get your tickets online at Ticketsummit.org

SeatGeek, a popular secondary ticket market consolidation site, is launching its “Three For Free Summer Ticket Giveaway” to send a group of three Facebook friends to a summer concert or sporting event of their choosing for free.

To enter, simply do the following:

1. Like SeatGeek on Facebook.
2. Search for the event you’d like to attend on SeatGeek.com, copy the link and share it on SeatGeek’s Facebook Wall, mentioning two friends you’d like to bring with the following message:

“I want SeatGeek to send me to this event for FREE with @Name, @Name.”

Each entry will automatically be posted to the wall of all three fans, who will be entered into the drawing to win tickets to that event. The promotion ends next Friday. Why not surprise your friends or family with a chance to attend a hot show like Summer Stage in Central Park or Paul McCartney, to the New York Yankees, or Seattle Sounders? And it makes sense SeatGeek has chosen Facebook as its avenue for the promotion. After all, music is one of the ultimate social experiences.

It's now common knowledge that the advent of large-scale, consumer use of the internet changed the record business irrevocably. Prior to the online explosion, the music industry expected consumers to take a trip to their local record stores to buy CD's. And when ordinary consumers decided that they wanted a more instantaneous, easier way of sourcing music via their computers, the music industry initially fought tooth and nail to stop them. The didn't just initiate legal action against software developers and website operators who provided the infrastructure for file-sharing and downloading, they also sued individuals too. Of course, the inexorable tide of consumer power won the day, and accessing music via the internet is now the norm. The record business reacted badly and slowly, and much of it was simply wiped off the map as a result. The moral of this particular tale is that what the consumer wants, the consumer invariably gets

Jonathan White, the founder of ticketola.com - a ticket exchange which specialises in concert and festival tickets said recently:

"It's a bit of a myth that all tickets sold via the ticket exchanges have vastly inflated price tags. Over 12,000 tickets have been purchased at Ticketola over the last six weeks, and 96% of them were bought for their original price, or lower. And if there's any ticket touting happening at the ticket exchanges, the touts soon realise that ridiculously priced tickets simply don't sell. It's a buyers market out there."

Over the last three years or so, the same dynamic has hit the live music industry, and specifically the way concert tickets are purchased and re-sold. The secondary ticketing market has enabled people who cannot attend the events for which they've bought tickets, to sell those tickets directly to other consumers. Ticket exchanges like Worldticketshop, Seatwave, Viagogo and Ticketola provide easy to use platforms for consumers to trade tickets amongst themselves. But just like the recording industry ten years ago, many people who work in the live music sector are distinctly unhappy that this is happening. Once again, most of these industry executives are missing the central, and most relevant issue; and that's the fact that the secondary ticketing market is not being driven by website owners, but by consumers themselves. The vast majority of tickets which can be purchased at ticket exchanges are listed by people who have bought tickets for events which they cannot subsequently attend. And most of those tickets are sold for their original price, or for less than their original price. Just like people appreciate the ease with which they can now download music when they want to, they also appreciate it when they are not stuck with tickets that they no longer have any use for. And the buyers who use ticket exchanges are now able to obtain tickets for events that are officially 'sold-out'. So it's a win/win situation for both parties.

"Ticket fraud is almost non-existent on the leading ticket exchanges because buyers are protected against this kind of thing. At Ticketola (Ticketola.com), buyers are immediately refunded if the tickets they have purchased turn out to be fakes, and we verify the identity of all our sellers. The real cases of fraud have occurred when criminals masquerade as primary ticket agencies, and they advertise tickets that don't even exist. My advice to ticket buyers is to always use either a reputable ticket agency or ticket exchange - it's very easy to check out which company is operating a particular website. And if you can't find that information out, then don't use that site. Also, if you buy tickets using your credit card or paypal account, you will automatically be refunded if you've been scammed. And whilst I do think that ticket fraud is a very real issue, there's a lot of scare-mongering going on, and it certainly isn't as prevalent as some people would have us all believe."

Ticketola claims its service fee's are significantly lower than those charged by the major players, Worldticketshop, Seatwave, Viagogo and Getmein and they don't expect members to pay extra for insurance policies or postage. On average, it is 20% cheaper to sell at Ticketola and 44% cheaper to buy at Ticketola than the aforementioned sites.

American heartland rocker John Mellencamp is set to play a series of live dates in Europe in July, including his first UK shows in almost two decades. Taking in 14 dates, including three in the UK, Mellencamp will perform his greatest hits and tracks taken from last year’s full-length No Better Than This, released through Rounder Records. The album was recorded at various historic locations including Sun Studio in Memphis, the First African Baptist Church in Savannah, Georgia and in the same San Antonio, Texas hotel room where Robert Johnson recorded in 1936.

Performing in Manchester, London and Glasgow, Mellencamp will bring his staple heartland rock back to UK shores. Intent on giving his fans an unforgettable night given his lengthy absence from UK live scene, Mellencamp will be searching deep into his back catalogue to bring unique performances, detailing his musical journey over the past 35 years.

Mellencamp says: “We’re no longer trying to replicate greatest hits as you heard them on the records. We are looking to rediscover the music that we’ve made in the last 35 years and present a larger repertoire and reimagining the songs that you think you know. We are hoping to strive to discover new ways of presenting the music as such, not as spectacle and we have no desire to be the equivalent of a human juke box. At the very heart of this is the blues and the spirit of rock and roll that we all love.”

Known for his compelling, everyman storytelling, John Mellencamp was inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in 2008 and was recipient of the Woody Guthrie Award in 2003. Consistently hardworking with a hugely impressive repertoire of over 20 studio albums, these UK tour dates see the long awaited return of one of America’s all time great singer songwriters.

UK tour dates

1st July – O2 Manchester Apollo, Manchester
2nd July – HMV Hammersmith Apollo, London
3rd July – Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow

The Courthouse News in the US is reporting that the NY Yankees, eBay and StubHub crushed a rather frivolous,  proposed class action lawsuit over ticket resales to baseball games.

On June 14, 2010, Newman's client Andrea Weinstein says, she surfed the Yankees website looking for tickets to a game against the Kansas City Royals. She says the Yankees page redirected her to StubHub, where she bought six tickets in the outfield grandstand from an unknown seller.

Weinstein says the tickets cost her $33 each, plus a $19.80 service charge and a $4.95 fee to receive the tickets electronically. She says she found out later that their face value was $20. Weinstein sued StubHub, its parent company eBay and the New York Yankees on Nov. 3, 2010, alleging deceptive business practices. She said the resellers should cite the prices on their tickets.

But the Judge was not having any of it:

"...in a blistering 23-page opinion, U.S. District Judge John F. Keenan said that her claim presumes that consumers have "a level of stupidity that the Court cannot countenance."
bU

"If a consumer is forced to pay more than face value for a Yankees ticket, it is due to the economic forces of supply and demand, not StubHub's business practices," Keenan wrote. He also dismissed claims accusing StubHub and eBay of "intentionally aiding and abetting unlicensed ticket resellers," such as the John Doe that sold her the ticket. "The very nature of StubHub and eBay's business is to aid and abet third party ticket sales by sellers who are most likely unlicensed," Keenan wrote.
 

CTS Eventim is the frontrunner in a bidding match over the UK's See Tickets along with The Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) according to a recent report in the Financial Times.

See Tickets, one of the largest ticketing companies in Europe, is in the advanced stages of being sold by Dutch investment firm Parcom Capital for between £100m and £120m. The sale, which has reached second round bidding, has attracted interest from a handful of private equity parties and at least three trade participants.

And, according to the article, they are not alone - The Ambassador Theatre Group, which is backed by private equity firm Exponent and owns London’s Apollo Victoria Theatre and the Lyceum, is another interested trade bidder.

Rumour has it that Parcom is dumping See Tickets See Tickets due to a shifting and disrupted primary ticketing market that is being eaten by smaller startups as well as companies such as Event Brite and other new online competitors in the European ticketing business. The plethora of new and different technology options for venues and promoters has chomped into the traditional value chain.

In 2010, CTS Eventim in Bremen acquired 100% of Hamburg-based See Tickets Germany (sold more than 20 million tickets a year) and Ticket Online Group for $183.5 million on July 06, 2010. See Tickets Germany was a member company of See Tickets International in Amsterdam; 40% was owned by Stage Entertainment BV and 60% by Parcom, a private-equity group.

By acquiring See Tickets Germany, CTS Eventim also took over Ticket Online Software GmbH, Ticket Online Sales & Service Center and Ticket Online Polska Sp zoo in Warsaw last year.

Alfred Branch Jr at Ticketnews.com also covered the emerging merger:

A source with direct knowledge of the bidding, who spoke to TicketNews on a condition of anonymity, said that the possible acquisition figure quoted by the Times was "significantly inflated," but they declined to offer more specifics. In addition to AEG/Outbox, CTS and Ambassador, several private equity firms are also reportedly interested in See Tickets. 

MusicTank have announced the first raft of speakers for their fourth industry conference, Remake, Remodel: Challenging the ‘Dinosaur’ Myth. 

Muff Winwood, who began his career in the Sixties as the bass player of the Spencer Davis Group before rising through the ranks to become President of Sony Music UK, joins Paul Smernicki (Director Of Digital, Universal Music UK), Peter Thompson (MD [PIAS] UK), Martin Goldschmidt, (Founder, Cooking Vinyl), Robert Horsfall, Founder Partner, Sound Advice and of course Tony Wadsworth, BPI Chairman and former Chairman & CEO, EMI Music UK & Ireland, for the half-day conference.

The event builds upon Wadsworth’s recently published report into the future of the record label, which raised questions about the recordings business that can no longer be ignored.  Five key questions about the business will be explored in an attempt to map out its new dynamic.

Said Wadsworth “I'm thrilled that my report has got people talking! We put the report together with the input and opinions of many people in the industry. Several key themes came through from these conversations that we began to explore and try to make sense of over the course of the report.

“This conference is an opportunity to explore these themes further across a wider group of music people. I certainly don't feel we arrived at all the answers, but perhaps during the conference we may get a lot closer to some of them.

“The role of the record label, whatever part of the business you come from, is a key question. Whether you believe it's had its day, or that its role in the digital world is as pivotal as ever, or indeed you are somewhere in between, the debate is timely and promises to be anything but boring.”

Commented Keith Harris “Having allowed time for people to digest Tony's report, we are now looking to widen the debate with this conference, and hopefully reach some hard and fast conclusions about the way the Recorded Music Industry is developing."

Building upon the themes and assumptions laid bare by Tony Wadsworth’s report Remake, Remodel: The Evolution of the Record Label, MusicTank’s fourth industry conference will address the future of the recordings business. Tony's authoritative take into the future of the record label raised questions about the recordings business that cannot be ignored.

1. Do financial pressures mean labels will be unable to develop tomorrow’s superstar acts?
2. How are developments in media affecting the recording business? Could media fragmentation hasten a decline in the number of superstar acts coming through?
3. What could this mean for the health of the business?
4. Could record labels adapt more quickly if they ditched physical distribution earlier?
5. What are the alternatives for artists in today’s business for a recording career?
   

Speakers   

• Tony Wadsworth BPI Chairman, Report Author
• Muff Winwood, Former President Sony Music UK
• Paul Smernicki Director Of Digital, Universal Music UK
• Peter Thompson, MD [PIAS] UK
•  Martin Goldschmidt, Founder, Cooking Vinyl
• Robert Horsfall, Founder Partner, Sound Advice
  

Remake, Remodel: Challenging The ‘Dynosaur Myth’
2.30pm to 7pm July 14th 2011
PRS for Music
29/33 Berners Street, London W1T 3AB

Chairman: Keith Harris, MusicTank Chairman, Director of Performer Affairs, PPL
Moderator   Dr. Eamonn Forde, Report Collaborator, Journalist
Content Partner   Music Week

Event Details

Date:         14th July 2011

Time:         14:30 to 19:00

Venue:      The Boardroom

PRS for Music, 29/33 Berners Street, London W1T 3AB                     

Cost:         Standard – £65 / members – £45