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| Mojo Concerts and 'Black Market' Secondary Tickets - Hypocrisy Rules the Day |
 by Richard Kastelein Mojo Concerts - owned by Live Nation, canceled 400 Rammstein concert tickets for the December 6th at the Gelredome in Arnhem, Netherlands last year and twelve Dutch online companies lost anywhere up to 100,000 euro, if one uses the top price of 300 euro per ticket being charged at Mojo Concert Ticket Trade Platform as a benchmark (see screenshot below). If Mojo Concerts is so against the secondary market maybe they should set limits on markup over face value... like 25 percent? That would sort out the problem of ensuring one's brand stays away from the idea of being associated with black marketeering, touting, or scalping... old words for a different ballgame. There would be no tickets for sale on the site.
Mojo Concerts is unlikely to have any control over the White Label solution they use in a deal with a London-based company and clearly can't say who is a 'broker' and who is not, nor take any action against them. Dutch ticket seller's won't find their tickets blocked as long as they use the Ticket Trade Platform - but sellers listing them on their own sites or via other ticket marketplaces appears to be off limits. Mojo Concerts advised clients of these banned companies to make contact with the sellers and to demand the money back because the cards were not 'properly' purchased and were not valid for the Rammstein concert. What happened to those tickets that were blocked? Did Mojo simply move them onto Tickettrade and they were resold on their own 'black market' ticket trading platform? For more profit?
Mojo Concerts has been actively blocking tickets against the Dutch secondary ticket for years. They even have a website advocating their anti-secondary ticketing industry stance. The site supports new legislation being introduced by the Social Party in the Netherlands that tries to put a cap of ten percent on the resale of tickets. Mojo Concerts new relationship to the secondary market vis a vis Live Nation severely challenges their own stance in the industry and one has to wonder if Live Nation and Mojo Concerts are even on the same page.
Cutting out Dutch Internet entrepreneurs - legitimate businesses, in the age of global economic crisis - in order to cut a deal with U.K. based secondary ticket industry participants driving business offshore... using a platform that claims to 'reject brokers' but clearly does not is not the smartest move.  Forcing brokers to one's own platform is hardly conducive to what economists call 'supply and demand'. And most economists support the secondary ticket market because it's a reflection of real value. Monopolization of the industry kills competition and in the end - consumers lose. Ticketmaster in the USA has been accused of shifting tickets directly to their secondary platform at Ticketsnow (similar toTickettrade) and reaping huge profits from the Secondary Market.
Also a good reason why the Livenation - Ticketmaster merger needs to be denied by US Legislators next year... because tactics like this are clearly indicative of market abuse and quite possibly a roadmap to the future. Almost all economists are opposed to anti-scalping laws because they create market inefficiencies. The Secondary Ticket Market exists as a necessary mechanism that allows the market to clear. Without it, demand would continue to exceed supply, thus creating an inefficient market. The old adage, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” seems to be applying well to the relationship between American ticket resellers and primary ticket agents. But it appears that the standoff in Holland will continue. Related Articles: Eventim Tickets are now also on MySpace! A deal between CTS Eventim AG, Europe's market leader in the
primary ticketing market and MySpace, the world's largest music platform will
now have MySpace's users able to buy tickets directly from the primary ticketing
company under http://www.myspace.com/ticketshop.
French Football Federation to Try and Block Tickets To avoid a flood of Irish fans at the Stade de France, November 18, in the second leg of World Cup 2010 countdown, the French Football Federation (FFF) is banning the sale of tickets on the Internet. A measure that is easier said than done.
One Million World Cup Soccer Tickets Go on Sale Another one million 2010 World Cup tickets are available and Africans are encouraged to buy. This was the message at the launch of the third ticketing phase in Johannesburg yesterday.
UK-Based Secondary Ticket Marketplaces Fight to Sell World Cup Tickets According to a recent report in the Guardian, current legislation will not allow South African World Cup Tickets to be sold to British Fans from U.K. based websites. And the law has Secondary Ticket Marketplace leaders fighting to get the law dumped.
"Supporters of England are going to miss out... Most Australian Theatre-goers buy tickets online More Australian theatre-goers use the internet to purchase theatre tickets than any other service - according to an AussieTheatre.com poll. 64
per cent of theatre-goers use the usual online ticketing outlets such
as Ticketek or Ticketmaster to purchase tickets to shows.
Eleven per cent still... One Man Monopoly, Sead Dizdarevic, Set to Make Fortune from Winter Olympic Tickets in USA Sead Dizdarevic is the official ticket scalper for the 2010 Winter Olympics for the US secondary ticketing market. And he's spent tens of millions to ensure his monopoly. At least that what the Seattle Times is saying in a recent article about the upcoming winter olympics to be held next door in...
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