When I hear about outrageous ticket prices, I would always think how selfish the artists were. After all, who would charge so much for a concert ticket that many of their fans could never afford to go see them live? And it especially seemed unfair with the really wealthy mega stars that don't clearly don’t need the money.
But I've learned that artists can do their best to hold their ticket prices down, but Ticketmaster, which has been operating as a monopoly, has ultimate control and can charge what they think desperate people will pay. Nobody can undercut their prices because nobody else is really able to sell tickets.
Everyone loses except Ticketmaster. That’s not competition - that’s not fair. Even if an artist wants to keep ticket prices down, if Ticketmaster thinks the market will support much higher prices, then the price goes up and Ticketmaster goes to the bank, and the artist doesn’t see any of that money.
Congress is now taking a serious look into the practices of Ticketmaster and may move to regulate the company. Maybe it’s time to treat Ticketmaster like the monopoly that it is - think Standard Oil, American Tobacco, etc - and break it up.
