PreferredSeat.com Blog

Live Nation is introducing a new way to price concert tickets called “dynamic pricing” and it’s already in place in some venues. The idea is to raise or lower the price of tickets depending on the demand for tickets for the event. Live Nation and Ticketmaster say it is a way to take the money from the secondary market to the promoters and artists but it is really a way to maximise profits by jacking up the price of tickets for hot selling concerts.

Sure, Live Nation may drop the price of the slow selling shows, but that’s only to compete with ticket brokers who routinely sell tickets below face value for already overpriced concerts. They also plan to raise the prices of tickets if fans are buying them up too quickly.

What this really means is there will be no real face value for tickets. Some fans will pay more for the same seats and they may be buying them only minutes apart. It also gives the promoters incentive to pull seats to see how the market is going, then release them later at a higher price.

In the long run the fans will be paying much more for a good seat and in some cases less for a lousy seat. It changes the dynamics of going to a concert completely. Those with money will be sitting up front, those without a lot of money will sit in the back. But at least the artist and the promoter will get their fair share.