Oh, it's not a bad idea for the companies, but it's a horrible prospect for the average consumer, who's already finding it harder and harder to get a decent seat for a concert through Ticketmaster. See last week's Springsteen sales debacle, in which people trying to purchase tickets were told there were none available, but that they could be found for twice the price or more at TicketsNow, which just so happens to also be owned by Ticketmaster. That's not the first time that's happened, not by a long shot, and a Canadian man is suing Ticketmaster over a similar bait-and-switch for Smashing Pumpkins tickets.
But it's only going to get worse if the world's largest ticketing service merges with one of the world's largest concert promoters and artist management firms; "monopoly" doesn't even begin to describe it. A few major acts--like those with "360" deals with Live Nation, were in exchange for a huge advance Live Nation gets a piece of every bit of the artist's revenue stream--might do OK, but most artists aren't going to be helped by this merger, either. And music fans are going to be hurt the worst, as noted in this MarketWatch commentary.
By all reasonable accounts, this merger shouldn't be approved, but I'm betting it will be. I'm just looking forward to the time that the government "has to" bail out the merged company because it's "too large to let fail"
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