Man I’ve been busy the last couple days, and it appears that the live music space has been quite busy, too. My Morning Jacket announced a one-night stand at Radio City Music Hall for June 20 (presale this Friday at 10am), and the Coachella promoters announced a rival festival set to compete with the already announced Vineland Festival. Sexy and quite scandalous all around.
And I’m not sure if this would be much of a surprise to anyone following the live music industry itself, but Live Nation officially released an announcement detailing some plans to enter the ticketing business sometime next year (via HT).
Concert promoter Live Nation Inc will launch its own ticketing business in 2009 after it ends ties with Ticketmaster, the dominant box office service, and expects the venture will add to earnings in its first year.
Sure, it’ll add earnings…but will it really do anything for the consumers except introduce another bloated, slow-moving behemoth of a corporation to choose who to buy tickets from? My business textbooks tell me that competition is good for the consumer, but can we really trust that coming from a company snatching up competitors of their own? Discuss and have a good night, folks. We’ll be back for more tomorrow, including a new Drymount! column to satisfy the ravenous poster collectors in the room.