Ticketmaster Delivers Social Connectivity Into Interactive Seat Maps

Kyle Cooke · Babson College
I can't believe eventbrite hasn't included a reward system for influential customers. Waita go fanfueled. I like the name too.

Howard Brooks · New York, New York
"Ticketmaster screws artists and venues by charging big service fees that scare away customers." Actually only the fans get screwed by big services fees. Artists almost always receive a sizable guarantee from the promoter regardless of how the show sells, and the venue receives generous rebates from Ticketmaster based on service fees. Until the basic economics of the concert industry changes, there is very little incentive for venues to adopt new ticketing platforms. So unless venues are forced to open up their rooms to competing ticketing systems, it will be very difficult for new ticketing companies to gain a meaning foothold in the market.

Josh Constine · Subscribe · Top Commenter · Writer at TechCrunch · 718 subscribers
That's a good point, Howard. However, I believe venues often make a sizable amount on concessions, and therefore require people to actually attend the events. The high ticket prices that high service fees contribute to can reduce attendance.

Kengyew Tham · Subscribe · Works at Socialwalk
agreed howard, plus the author did not mention the other BIG value that ticketmaster brings which is offline ticketing options. As an organizer ive got a tonne of things to worry about, and last thing i need are multiple suppliers for my ticketing needs with inconsistent processes. so yeah overall its pretty difficult

Kengyew Tham · Subscribe · Works at Socialwalk
i think an interesting statistic to track would be - the distribution of the size of events using ticketmaster and event brite, eg, annually 500 events with over 50000 attendees on ticketmaster vs 50000 events with less than 500 attendees on eventbrite, it would give fanfuel and other ticketing players a strategic direction to take


Nick Bear · Top Commenter
Love to see disruption like this, but what a hill to climb!

Tighe P. Flatley · Top Commenter · San Francisco, California
Hey, all! Quick heads up here - and full disclosure, I'm the Community Manager for Eventbrite.

The point on our fees in this article is not entirely accurate. Eventbrite's fee structure is 2.5% of the ticket price, plus $0.99 per ticket (not the 5.5%/$1.00 structure quoted in this article, as of the time of this comment post.) Also, Eventbrite is always free for free events. Source: http://www.eventbrite.com/fees/

Let me know of any Qs.

Matthew Donegan-Ryan · Subscribe · Kirkland, Washington
First off, I love Eventbrite and have recommended it to event organizers. I think the fees quoted here were meant to include your credit card processing fees which are on top of the 2.5%, if I am correct. This inclusion makes it easier to compare your fees to TicketMaster's exorbitant 17% fees.

Tighe P. Flatley · Top Commenter · San Francisco, California
Matthew Donegan-Ryan Ah, great point, Matthew. It does depend on the CC payment plan, (each of which are a little different and outlined on that link), which I probably should have stated in my original comment. My apologies for any further confusion! Thanks so much for clarifying (and for the kind words!).

Peter Ricci · Carlsbad, California
Eventbrite, Tickemaster killer!

Andrew Platkin · Bloomington, Indiana
Congrats guys, good work.

Bala Musrif
nothing new here, we have done this already, also filed patents around this concept years back, by the way our fee is $1 flat per ticket sale, no other ticketing company in the industry can match up with our pricing n functionality!

check out mashable article on eventbee, http://mashable.com/2009/07/21/facebook-connect-new/.

Bala Musrif
we also recently introduced credits concept to the idea, http://wp.me/p5kwI-6c

Josh Constine · Subscribe · Top Commenter · Writer at TechCrunch · 718 subscribers
Bala Musrif $1 flat fee may be too low. I'm not sure how Eventbee could make enough money to really compete without taking round after round of funding and giving away all the equity.

Bala Musrif
Josh Constine That is the good point, we are doing it without raising any outside capital :)


Richard Tafoya · Subscribe · Co-Founder & CEO at SoundSpike Media
The only real way to bring down fees is to convince artists to leave a little more money on the table for the venue/promoter. In most cases, they need their fee rebates from ticket companies because they gave away all their margin on the booking. That's the lever that ultimately cranks up not only ticket fees but parking prices and beer and concession prices. And it's for that reason that most major venues would never consider a ticket agreement that doesn't include a significant revenue stream from a significant fee base.

Michael Ruhfus
Sounds a lot like www.posse.com.

William Reardon · Engineering Manager at Google
"Ticketmaster screws artists and venues by charging big service fees that scare away customers."

That's like saying high gas prices screw oil companies.

The fees may screw fans, but not the artists & venues. They're in on it. Ticketmaster doesn't keep most of the fees -- it's passed on to others. E.g., venues, artists, promoters, etc.

Ray Boggiano · University of Manchester
Fan to fan promotions and fan rewards is something that we have specialised in at www.fatsoma.com in the UK for 5 years now. We have over 28,000 reps selling tickets for their favourite events. It's great to see this shift from traditional ticketing models like Ticketmaster continue.

Alexandros Trimis · Subscribe · Stanford
Eventbrite's charge I believe is 2,5% +$1, not 5,5% + $1. Eventbrite also carries a very sophisticated referral/ affiliates program, but that is not what matters. The important thing is instigate a "friends" program and do so in a manner that will increase Eventbrite's user retention (offering credits/ discounts for next events etc).