Ticketmaster Merges with Live Nation Case Study

Ticketmaster Merges with Live Nation - Case Study Example Ten years ago, the record labels saw a way to increase sales by getting involved with the internet. The goal was to spread the word about music faster than ever before and generate a new outlet for income. This whole idea was based on the customer buying music downloads from the online stores. In order to do that there would have to be encrypted legally authorized music. It was soon to be found out that this was almost an impossible task. It would take many people in full time jobs to manage this, but the damage had already been done. There were then many side businesses built on digital downloads which eroded not only the internet but previous business as well (Waddell, 2009). The idea, then, became consolidation. It was determined that if they consolidated more of the companies it would help them gain in the competition for customers. They were now faced with plunging record and music sales of all kinds. Merging these companies meant becoming more diversified and taking on more than the sale of music. They began to diversify and include management, merchandising, agencies and promotion and all were driven by the economy and the sales of music as the time. However, the decline in music sales continued and many of the large companies as well as some of the mergers were eliminated from the business. Some of those eliminated were companies like Tower Records and Circuit City. Consolidation also became p... Live Nation was picking up merchandise firm signatures and music e-commerce companies like Musictoday. When merchandising was added to Live Nations menu of ticketing, promotion and sponsorship services it was able to strike multirights contracts with such artists as Madonna and Jay-Z (Peoples, 2009). In the beginning of the decade, you could go down to the store and buy a ticket to a venue and you were sold a paper ticket. While you can still buy a ticket this way, chances are when you get there the tickets will be sold out. The day when you can pick up a local ticket for a Sunday evening concert are gone, especially if you want to see some of the hot acts. Tickets are now only made available to the public after VIP tickets are sold to fan clubs etc. This created a online secondary market which has been in great demand by the customer who wants to buy tickets in his own time and does not mind paying for the convenience. Tickets Now has held a large piece of the business of selling tickets after tickets were sold out. Ticketmaster and Live Nation Just about a month before Ticketmaster and Live Nation announced their plans to merge, Live Nation had started its own ticketing company. The reason that Live Nation had decided to control its own ticketing was so it could then control some of the fan club profit available. This opportunity, because of the information it provides, allows for targeting of populations for ticketing sales, even before the tickets are available. This gave them a larger piece of the market. Ticketmaster too has evolving to become a full service company selling tickets and boosting sales of other products. Pricing of tickets has become even more strategic at this point (Waddell, 2009). Live Nation