This deal has been in talks for almost a year now, but today it was made official in the US. Ticketmaster and Live Nation, the two largest concert ticket retailers, are now merging.
I can’t even begin to explain how bad of a deal this is. Sure, the stock prices will probably rise, but musicians and fans are going to get severely screwed when it comes to buying concert tickets now.
Now that one company is in charge of most of the touring industry, this only means that it’ll be harder for independent musicians to get their foot in the door. And as for the days of $10-$20 tickets, you can kiss those goodbye.
Obviously the Chairman of Ticketmaster is going to defend a deal that will make him a ton of money; so when he says that the deal “won’t lead to higher prices” I find it extremely hard to believe.
