by Adriana Hamacher

OP/ED - It wasn’t much of a honeymoon, four months after their much maligned union, Ticketmaster and Live Nation -- now known as Mr & Mrs Live Master, or rather Live Nation Entertainment (LNE) -posted  disappointing first quarter figures: concert attendance down by three percent and revenue for secondary site, TicketsNow,  down a whole lot more – from $15 million to $1-2 million annually. It’s clear that a new strategy is what’s needed.

TicketsNow, the company's brokerage site, is suffering.  It came under fire last year after fans trying to buy tickets to see Bruce Springsteen said they had been redirected from Ticketmaster to the resale site, where tickets had a steep markup. As part of the fallout from the New Jersey attorney general's investigation, TicketsNow was forced to further separate from Ticketmaster, hence the deterioration in business.

Even before the Bruce Springsteen debacle, soon after the announcement of the Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger, Irving Azoff, the company’s executive chairman ,  hinted at a possible sale of TicketsNow - responsibility for a resale company didn’t sit well with LNE’s barely disguised  ill will toward the secondary ticket market, But currently, the sale of Tickets Now is not such an obvious option, not only because  it’s not clear who would buy the site, with its history of problems but also because LNE wouldn’t get much for it. Though a sale price has not been disclosed, industry insiders estimate it could sell for less than a third of the original acquisition price.

But what about LNE’s UK secondary site: GETMEIN? The European arm of the business has already been downsized, perhaps paving the way for more drastic measures. An EUTN invitiation to comment on the site’s future, in relation to what’s happening with TicketsNow, was declined by GETMEIN, so we shall wait and see.

But where else can we look for clues to where the company is going? The post 1Q conference call, held a few. Here’s what  CEO Michael Rapino had to say:

"Our fundamental belief at Ticketmaster/Live Nation is the answer to grow our business is less about trying to make $5 or $6 million in service fees off secondaries and much more important to figure out how to capture that $1 billion in up-sell on the face value of tickets.”

And further:

“Whether it's seat maps, dynamic pricing or just convincing the band that the front row is worth $400, not $100, we're noticing a great reception by artists worldwide who would like to capture more of the upside, and our first goal is to figure out how to price the house right."

Reading between the lines, it’s obvious that to compensate for the losses incurred by TicketsNow as well as the costs of the merger (which included selling the company's lucrative Paciolan ticketing division), the face value price of the concert ticket is likely to change. And it’s not going down. Suddenly, the face value of a front row seat seems to have jumped $300 (£200, €237).

Advocates of "dynamic pricing" strategies would argue that the front row is already being sold for £300 on sites such as StubHub, so it might as well be sold at that value from the start. That is, after all, what the market dictates, and dynamic pricing and "seat maps," which easily allow a user to see how much more Row B costs versus Row XX, will add more tiers to concert ticket pricing. Would you pay a little extra for an aisle seat? Someday (whether you like it or not, perhaps sooner rather than later) you might have that option.

It’s the front and the sides of a battalion which are most in danger of  being  hit during a battle. Likening the audience to a battalion gives you a good idea where the expensive seats are likely to be.  But nor should we discount the possibility of rearguard action.

And there’s a perverse logic to it – LNE can conveniently trace its change in strategy to the public's complaints about the Springsteen tickets on TicketsNow.  They can say you forced them to re-evaluate their business, and hey,  you can’t say they’re raising prices because if you book far enough ahead, far enough in front (bring a pair of binoculars) and take a punt on enough auctions, you can still score cheap seats!