Battle Heats Up Between TicketMaster and Live Nation
Concert producer and promoter Live Nation has signed a three year deal with Blockbuster to use their stores as sites for Live Nation ticket sales. The deal will give Live Nation an instant retail presence using 500 Blockbuster locations.
If you haven’t been keeping up with the battle for your concert dollars, it’s been non-stop in the entertainment world. Concert promoters have been morphing into an entertainment serve-all; doing everything from promoting the concerts and owning the venues to having their own record labels. The idea is they can handle every aspect of a band or entertainers career. Live Nation refers to this as “maximizing the live concert experience.”
Live Nation had been working through ticket sales monolith TicketMaster, but their agreement will end in January of 2009 and Live Nation will then take over their own ticket sales. This new deal makes Blockbuster the “exclusive physical resale ticket outlet” for Live Nation and will begin in January right as the Live Nation/TicketMaster agreement ends.
On the Blockbuster side of the deal, hopes are that having ticket sites in the stores will increase traffic and send customers to their stores that aren’t usually there as DVD rentals slow. The 500 Blockbuster stores will be in cities where Live Nation venues are located; such as The House of Blues and numerous theaters and stadiums.
According to the Live Nation press release, “the selected stores will offer exclusive blocks of tickets available only at Blockbuster during the first four hours of ticket sales, as well as general ticketing as long as supplies last.”
The TicketMaster/Live Nation battle won’t be cooling down anytime soon. This fall TicketMaster agreed to acquire a controlling stake in Front Line Management Inc, a very influential management firm in the music business. If you think that will put TicketMaster and Live Nation head-to–head out on the street again, you would be correct.
Possibly the easiest way for Live Nation to win this one might be to start by not charging the obnoxious service charges that TicketMaster has become known for over the years.
More Info:
Reuters here
Dallas Morning News here
Live Nation Press Release
Blockbuster Press Release
Are You Ready For Some 3D Football?
The NFL’s broadcast of this Thursday’s game between the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders will be the first ever broadcast in 3D-HD. This broadcast will take place in theaters in three cities; Boston, New York and LA as an invite only event.
Seeing a football game in HD on the big screen is one thing, but the added 3D experience is said to make the viewer feel as if they are actually on the playing field.
The NBA was the first sports league to give the 3D-HD a try with their presentation of the 2007 NBA All-Star game. 3ality Digital of Burbank California will produce and transmit the NFL’s December 4th game. 3ality Digital may be best known to the public for their work on the concert film “U2 3D” and for making NBC’s “Chuck” first scripted television show shot entirely in live digital 3D.
Guests to this screening will be the NFL’s broadcast and consumer electronics partners. The venues will also have 3-D televisions on hand to show what the home experience could be like in the future.
At the IBC trade show this summer, I was positioned across from a live 3-D demonstration. The 3-D camera was just pointed at the booth and passing crowd, letting people see the live feed on a 3-D HD monitor - once they put on the special glasses. The crowd continued to line up for three days to get their look.
At the theater this week the game will be a sight to see, with the biggest stumbling block still being that the audiences has to wear those glasses.
More Info:
Broadcast & Cable here
CNET here
WSJ here
