Ticketmaster

Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc. is an American ticket sales and distribution company based in West Hollywood, California, USA, with operations in many countries around the world. In 2010 it merged with Live Nation to become Live Nation Entertainment. As a primary ticket outlet, most US ticket sales for US venues are fulfilled at Ticketmaster's two main fulfillment centers located in Charleston, West Virginia, and Pharr, Texas. Typically, Ticketmaster's clients (promoters) control their events, and Ticketmaster acts as an agent, selling the tickets that the clients make available to them.

On 10 January 2008, Ticketmaster completed the acquisition of Paciolan Inc. after the deal was subject to months of litigation over the potential breach of antitrust laws. Paciolan is a developer of ticketing system applications and hosted ticketing systems. Ticketmaster sold Paciolan to Comcast-Spectator in 2010. In January 2009, Ticketmaster acquired a UK ticket exchange site, Getmein.com. Getmein is a ticket exchange site that allows sellers to list the tickets at whatever price they choose. It claims to have over 500,000 tickets listed at any one time.

Privacy

The company's use of personal information is more aggressive than most: a term that users wishing to purchase from their website must agree to is to receive Ticketmaster marketing:
"By completing this registration form you indicate that you consent to Ticketmaster sharing your email address and other information with those who provide the event, and that you consent to those who provide the event using your information to contact you by email or other means to send you marketing or other messages or using or disclosing your information in other ways. By completing this registration form, you also indicate that you consent to Ticketmaster contacting you by email or other means to send you marketing or other messages and using and disclosing the information you submit, as described in the Ticketmaster Privacy."

Error messages

Proxy Servers
Some online service providers, such as AOL or Prodigy, use a device called a proxy server. Proxy servers save copies of sites on their server rather than connecting users to the Internet or the specific site requested. In most cases this works fine.
Using a proxy server might prevent you from purchasing tickets because you need to access our ticketing system directly. If you do not know if you are accessing the Internet through using a proxy server, contact your Internet service provider. Access Ticketmaster.com through a direct Internet connection and not through any service using proxy servers.

Transaction No Longer Active

This error is caused by an interruption to the transaction process. During the ticket buying process, our computer or your computer lost access to our ticketing systems. Receiving this error means that your request did not make it to the ticketing system.

This error is caused when the ticketing system releases your seats because the transaction took too long. You only have five minutes to purchase tickets after Ticketmaster.com shows you what seats are available to you.
A slow Internet connection may cause this error. You might try disconnecting and then reconnecting to your Internet provider to improve the speed.

Too Much Time Has Elapsed Before We Received Your Information

Issues and hearings regarding anti-competitive practices

The grunge band Pearl Jam petitioned the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice, complaining that Ticketmaster adopted monopolistic practices and refused to lower service fees for the band's tickets Pearl Jam wanted to keep ticket prices under $20.00, with service charges no greater than $1.80.
Fred Rosen of Ticketmaster refused and because Ticketmaster had exclusive contracts with many of the large venues in the United States they threatened to take legal action if those contracts were broken. Pearl Jam was forced to create from scratch its own outdoor stadiums in rural areas to perform. Pearl Jams efforts to organize a tour without the ticket giant collapsed which Pearl Jam said was further evidence of Ticketmasters monopoly.

An analysis of Philips' investigative series in well known legal monograph concluded that it was hard to imagine a legitimate reason for their exclusive contracts with venues and contracts which covered such a lengthy period of time. The authors said, The pervasiveness of Ticketmaster's exclusive agreements, coupled with their excessive duration and the manner in which they are procured, supported a finding that Ticketmaster had engaged in anticompetitive conduct under section 2 of the Sherman Act. Members of Pearl Jam testified on Capitol Hill on June 30 of 1994. Pearl Jam alleged that Ticketmaster used anti-competitive and monopolistic practices to gouge fans. Congressman Dingell after Pearl Jams testimony before congress wrote a bill requiring full disclosure to prevent Ticketmaster from burying escalating service fees. Pearl Jams manager said he was gratified that Congress saw the problem as a national issue

Later in the year the Justice Department opened an investigation into anti-competitive practices in the ticket industry. It continued for close to a year until July 6 of 1995 when the Justice Department abruptly closed its antitrust probe in a two-sentence press release The announcement came shortly after the Arena Auditorium and Coliseum Coalition organized by Fred Rosen, then head of Ticketmaster, hired the Phoenix law firm of Brown and Bain. Investigative reporter Chuck Philips notes that the firm's partners then occupied top posts in the anti-trust division, including the head of the anti-trust division Assistant Attorney General Anne K. Bingaman.

Brown and Bain denied any collusion and the Justice Department concluded that there was competition among music ticketing agencies in the industry. A spokesman for Pearl Jam told the LA Times Chuck Philips, Unfortunately, those who will be most hurt by the Justice Departments cave-in are the consumers of live entertainmentThe consumers are the ones who ultimately pay for the lack of choice in the marketplace.

Prominent lawsuits

On April 28, 1997, Ticketmaster sued Microsoft over its Sidewalk service for allegedly deep linking into Ticketmaster's site. The suit was settled after a two-year legal battle in which Ticketmaster claimed that linking to specific pages on an Internet site without permission was an unfair practice.
In 2003, the jam band The String Cheese Incident and its associated booking group, SCI Ticketing, sued Ticketmaster arguing that Ticketmaster's exclusive use contracts at most US venues was a breach of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. This lawsuit was settled in 2004 with no publicity of the settlement terms

In 2009, Ticketmaster faced several lawsuits across North America, claiming they conspired to divert tickets to popular events to its ticket brokering website TicketsNow, in which the same tickets were sold at premium prices. This also raised the ire of musician Bruce Springsteen, who said he was 'furious' at Ticketmaster,[38] and "...the one thing that would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan than it is now would be Ticketmaster and Live Nation coming up with a single system, thereby returning us to a near monopoly situation in music ticketing"

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