Fredric D. Rosen, the man who built Ticketmaster from the ground up, says arenas and clubs should have more control over their ticket sales.  And he recently told the New York Times that he aims to empower them -  he has a new business in which he cuts out the middleman - that would be Ticketmaster - and returns ticketing back in the hands of the arenas, concert halls and clubs. His new firm, Montreal, Canada's Outbox Enterprises, helps venues use their own websites to sell tickets. Outbox uses a different type of ticketing system than Ticketmaster in that tickets are not sold from a centralized hub but from each individual venue.

At 67, Rosen is the godfather of the US $18-billion-a-year primary ticketing business... he originally shook up the ticketing industry by allying himself with venues and promoters as customers, rather than the fans and performers. By creating a centralized distribution system that let people buy tickets over the phone, through retail outlets and, later, online, he saved them from having to queue at venues therefore saving them the hassle of having to line up at a box office.

He bet that arena owners and promoters would sign up in droves if they were offered a percentage of every ticket that was sold using a “convenience” or “service” charge, and he was right. And he's not alone with Outbox... AEG is onboard with him to try to take down the behemoth.

With former CTO and EVP of Ticketmaster, Jean-Francoys Brousseau and Guy Laliberté's Cirque du Soleil behind Outbox, it's a formidable team.

From the New York Times:

...When Mr. Rosen joined Ticketmaster, the company had about 25 employees and annual ticket sales of less than $1 million. When he left, in 1998, it had 5,000 employees and sales of $2.4 billion. In 2010, the combined Live Nation-Ticketmaster had 6,500 employees and sold $7.2 billion in tickets. 

And his goals with Outbox are ambitious: Mr. Rosen expects it to generate $1 billion in sales and employ 500 people within three years. Live Nation’s merger with Ticketmaster created considerable discontent among venue owners and promoters who oppose market dominance. And Mr. Rosen is hoping to cash in on this unrest.

“The merger really set off all kinds of bells and whistles in my head,” Mr. Rosen said. He likens Live Nation to Ticketron, which was the dominant player until Ticketmaster came along. (Ticketmaster bought Ticketron in 1991.) “You have to remember that Ticketron was around for 25 years,” Mr. Rosen said. “I made everyone change how they buy tickets.”