PreferredSeat.com Blog

The Live Nation and Ticketmaster Merger has prompted John Malone’s Liberty Media Corp. to make an offer to acquire almost 35 million shares of the newly formed company. After getting regulator approval on Monday both Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s stock have risen on the expectation of increased earnings.

Unfortunately those earnings will have to be borne by the fans attending live concert events with increased ticket prices and worthless overpriced tour packages leaving the average fan in the upper deck. Consumer groups and ticket brokers around the country have opposed the merger because of the possible increase in price of concert and event tickets.

If anyone is surprised by the decision of the fed to allow the merger to go forth all you had to do is look at how Liven Nation and Ticketmaster started referring customers between each other as soon as the proposed merger was announced. No business gives up their customers to a competitor on the hope that they will join forces. This was decided long ago, only the details had to be worked out.

The public is still in charge though, if they say no to the artist scalping their own tickets then maybe it will change. In the meantime, I’m not putting my money in that merger, the Apple iPad is way cooler!