Sunday Roundup. A Day Of Rest: Ticketmaster & The Cure, UK Tourist Attractions & The Movies

It’s the Sunday evening after a couple days away at the Ticketing Professionals Conference (https://ticketingprofessionals.co.uk/) in Birmingham and time to catch up with various news reports, emails, and commentary.

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Ticketmaster & Anti-Trust

Particularly noteworthy is Nilay Patel’s Decoder podcast on Ticketmaster & Anti-Trust Law, an extract of which is reprinted in Verge, and features Dean Budnik, Florian Ederer, Russ Tannen and Sandeep Vaheesan:

https://www.theverge.com/23645057/taylor-swift-ticketmaster-eras-tour-beyonce-antitrust-monopoly-reagan-senate-hearing-congress

Bill Werde in the Full Rate No Cap newsletter discusses ‘Why The Cure Onsale Is Everything That is Right - And Wrong - About Ticketing’ confirming the strength of artists, the importance of communication and consistency of message, and highlights that both SeatGeek and StubHub cooperated with the stated wishes of The Cure to restrict ticket resale, but that VividSeats in particular did not.

The newsletter further highlights that the re-selling of Ticketmaster Verified Fan accounts is one possible way for scalpers to enable the unauthorised resale of The Cure tickets, and highlights that the transfer of these ‘account details’ are ‘Shipped by UPS’. For further details also see: Jason Koebler & Joseph Cox ‘The Cure Tried To Stop Scalpers. Brokers Are Selling Entire Ticketmaster Accounts Instead’ - https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxjqz4/the-cure-tried-to-stop-scalpers-brokers-are-selling-entire-ticketmaster-accounts-instead

The question as to whether a significant proportion of the middle-aged, middle-class, mid-market who previously enjoyed the performing arts, cinema or visiting historic houses have lost some cultural appetite, and/or moderated their behaviour, continues to be asked.

Reading a little beyond the headline ‘Number of visits to UK attractions are bouncing back says ALVA’ (https://www.alva.org.uk/details.cfm?p=413&codeid=351046) is the stark admission that: ‘Many attractions are still not back up to 2019 visitor levels’.

What the report reveals is that the rising energy prices, the cost-of-living crisis, post-pandemic wariness, and reduced international tourism have all contributed to a drop of 23% of visitors to the UK’s leading attractions from 2019.

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Full Post Via:

https://tjchambers.com/2023/03/27/sunday-a-day-of-rest-ticketmaster-the-cure-uk-tourist-attractions-the-movies/