WSJ: Top Artists "Scalping" Own Tickets on Resale Sites

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 12, 2009 - 8:54am.

New York - A number of top music artists, including Neil Diamond, Britney Spears, Bon Jovi, Celine Dion, Billy Joel and Elton John, are partnering with Ticketmaster (NASD: TKTM) to sell some premium tickets to their concerts on a secondary ticket exchange for hundreds of dollars more than face value, The Wall Street Journal reported. Several managers of top artists and Ticketmaster executives told The Journal that the company "routinely offers to list hundreds of the best tickets per concert on one of its two resale Web sites -- and divides the extra revenue, which can amount to more than $2 million on a major tour, with artists and promoters."

For example, The Journal noted that tickets for the same class of seats to a Britney Spears concert later this month that sold for $39.50 to $125 on Ticketmaster.com, were being offered on the company's TicketExchange site for as much as $1,188.60.

While Ticketmaster's TicketExchange marketplace has been billed as a place where fans can buy and sell tickets they've already purchased, Joseph Freeman, Ticketmaster's senior vice president for legal affairs, told The Journal that the company's "Marketplace" pages only rarely list tickets offered by fans.

This practice, where tickets are represented as if they were priced and sold by brokers or fans, but in reality are set aside by artists and promoters, is present on "virtually every major concert tour today," The Journal reported, citing people involved in the sales.

Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff -- who also manages Neil Diamond -- told The Journal the company is working to clarify the origin of tickets on TicketExchange.

People familiar with the matter also told The Journal that Ticketmaster is looking into hiring an investment bank to sell TicketsNow, its other secondary ticket marketplace.