Ticketmaster chief says venues have choices in ticketing market
Ticketmaster's global president says concert venues do have a choice about which company sells their tickets.
Saumil Mehta rejected the idea that venues are left without options. He spoke with Trapital founder Dan Runcie at the Trapital Summit in Los Angeles on Sept. 15, according to Billboard.
Mehta took the global role last November. He joined Ticketmaster after nearly a decade at Square, the payments company best known for its card readers and cashier systems. His background is in payments and product, not promotions.
"I categorically reject that venues don't have choices," he said on stage. Ticketing, in his description, is a free market. It is wildly competitive.
He then set out how the deals work. In the United States, he said, live entertainment runs on an exclusivity model. That means a venue signs an exclusive contract with one ticketing company, which then handles primary sales, the first sale of tickets for its events, from on-sale to scan at the door.
Short version: one building, one seller.
He contrasted that with Britain. There, he said, many large venues use several ticketing companies for the same show. They allocate inventory, which means they split the available tickets and give each company a share to sell. A fan might therefore buy for the same night from different sellers, depending on where the venue placed the tickets.
Mehta said Ticketmaster could adapt if the American system changed. The company, he said, is perfectly willing and able to respond if the U.S. moved to an allocation model. He did not set out a timetable or proposal for such a change.
For fans, this matters because the name on the checkout page decides where you queue online, where you turn for refunds and what fees you see at payment. Venue contracts are usually invisible to buyers. They shape the whole experience long before a tour date is announced.
What makes this stand out is the directness. Mehta did not argue that the American and British systems are the same. He argued that competition already exists inside the American system, and that his company could also work inside the British one.
