1. Not sure if this topic is the best place to share this, but quite interesting and disgusting. LiveNation even boycotts entire venues/cities if they for instance don't want to use Ticketmaster to sell tickets.
  2. LiveNation is a virus. A shitty cancer-like virus, sneaking all over the music industry.
    They keep buying tons of locations everywhere, big and small. (like several House of Blues venues ie.) - so even if you attend a small band concert in a lovely small venue, NOT off ticketmaster, LN might still gotten their cut from it.

    There was a time when U2 stated, they want every U2 fan be able to afford and attend a U2 concert. Yes, there are cheap seats, but they are usually with restricted view and this is quite not what a real (poor) fan wants to see.
    I actually count on the fact, the screen will play a much bigger and heavier role in the upcoming shows - so the ones on the long ends front e-stage and behind the stage (which were Cat2 mostly!) are screwed show-wise.
    These cheap tix have been like 30€ 10 years ago, they are now 45€

    There are quite some major acts I still would like to see live, like Paul McCartney (have been a huge Beatles fan in my very young days) - and yes, actually, he would be worth to pay 200€, I admit. But he is the only one.
    I'd like to see the Rolling Stones - but neverever for what they call for a ticket! Same with Guns n Roses, Bon Jovi, Coldplay - you name them.

    I meanwhile check out our small venues to see who is coming, that brought me to Little Steven last year (59€) and Toto (58€) this year and will bring me to Kiefer Sutherland (40€) in summer. I also think I will grab tickets for Frank Turner (37€) in fall.
    I mostly buy them off eventim, because they have fancy fan tickets, though they add 2€ to the price and only mail out a cheap letter for 5€ shipping....but I try to avoid TM whenever I can (also because their paper tickets are ugly). For one Bruce gig in 2016 I needed TM, they had the seats I wanted, they were not available on eventim.

    Thinking about old times, I paid 57 DM (thats about 30€) for Bryan Adams open air in 1994 - support acts: Jimmy Barnes, Heroes del Silencio & Texas.
    I paid 67 DM (~35€) for Popmart with a support act. Same year, Michael Jackson played the same venue, which is only a big flat field, holding up to 60k (U2 had 18k) - these tickets were 130 DM and never would I have paid that much for a show ticket back then!

    On 360 a lower priced seat we had 112€......oh well.
    And with U2's productions you don't need to argument with expensive technology, they have always used the latest and fanciest stuff they could find. For other artists - they only need a stage, some PA stuff and lights and a standard screen.

    I pretty much think, U2 and Bruce will remain the only major acts I will attend in the future. And if they want more money, then I will see less shows. Simple as that. The rest of the money I'll invest in other artists in small venues. Or just keep the money for myself.

    I only once bought tickets off StubHub - last spring, when I wanted to go to a baseball game in San Francisco. Fairly priced, instant delivery, all fine.
    Concert tickets I would only buy within fans as secondary market - like all the U2 forums or the U2 ticket group on FB or just people I know.
    Actually in Germany, tickets are considered "official documents" or "certificates" and are actually not meant to be resold.
    The problem in Europe is, we would need a EU law to unite all EU countries to stop these scalpers.
    RHCP sell (sold?) their tickets thru their own website and they are all personalized. You can only change the name by paying a small fee (think it was 10$) in case you cannot attend or whatever. You are absolutely unable to resell them without that. (Yes when you buy two you need to enter both names.)

    The problem with huge acts is - they give everything out of their hands, because they don't want to deal with daily business. That empowers companies like LiveNation. And a company, that has U2, Madonna and Bruce Springsteen under contract, attracts tons of other acts and they all run to LN as well.