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Efforts to legislate against ticket touting “unrealistic”, says Michael Rapino

By | Published on Monday 24 April 2017

Live Nation

Live Nation boss Michael Rapino has said that he doesn’t think efforts to legislate against secondary ticketing will have much effect, reckoning that it’s more of a pricing and technology issue. The live giant, of course, is a big player in the secondary ticketing market through its Ticketmaster business, which owns platforms like Seatwave and Get Me In.

“As long as the [ticketing] market’s gigantic, you’ll have sophisticated players trying to figure out how to monetise it”, Rapino said at the Canadian Music Week conference last week, reports the Globe & Mail. “My instincts are always on the free market”.

“I just think [efforts to legislate against touting are] so unrealistic. I think some of these [efforts] are decent attempts, but I don’t think overall, until you start pricing the product better, and/or have better technology to deliver the fan their ticket, that you’ll start to make a difference. We’re the only industry in the world that has a higher retail value the second it’s sold”.

If that means Rapino subscribes to the idea that artists are simply underpricing their shows and enabling a secondary market as a result, and should therefore charge more to start with, well, there are plenty who will disagree with him – most bands prefer to play to genuine fans who can’t necessarily afford top dollar prices, rather than just a wealthy elite.



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