Ticketmaster ups presence in direct-to-fan arena

By Ray Waddell

NASHVILLE (Billboard) - Ticketmaster's purchase of a majority stake in echomusic, a Nashville-based Web entertainment marketing company, gives the ticketing giant an important new presence in the critical direct-to-fan space.

The move, announced last week, is the latest tremor in what could be a seismic shift in the concert industry as Ticketmaster's contract with concert promoter Live Nation expires at the end of this year. Live Nation last year purchased MusicToday, far and away the industry leader in the direct-to-fan realm.

Now Ticketmaster has upped the ante in what is clearly becoming a more fan-centric concert and ticketing business. "The holy grail of any business is really customization, personalization and scale," Ticketmaster CEO Sean Moriarty says. "And echo and Ticketmaster is just that."

The fan club ticketing business seems to be the key component in the deal. Historically fiercely protective of its clients' inventory and how many tickets are sold through fan clubs, Ticketmaster now has a significantly higher stake in this market. This should provide flexibility in what has been a hard and fast "10% or less per show" rule regarding tickets allotted for fan clubs and excluded from public sale. With a vested interest in this allotment, Ticketmaster and its clients would likely be more open to superserving this segment when appropriate.

The 10% rule for fan clubs has become somewhat of an industry standard. And it's a standard that echomusic -- whose clients include Kelly Clarkson, Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts, Casting Crowns, the Academy of Country Music and the Gospel Music Channel -- has worked within.

"Previously, we built our own ticketing engine and took advantage of the current business model, which is basically 10% of the house can be sold direct," echomusic partner Mark Montgomery says. "As we've gotten further into that world we understood that scale is really important, so part of the attraction for this relationship (with Ticketmaster) is their ticketing platform."

Asked if the 10% standard would be a more flexible number now within the echomusic relationship, Moriarty says, "No percentage rule is going to work for any and all," and adds that most fan clubs utilize less than 10% of the house. "The fact of the matter is over the past several years more fan club tickets have been going through Ticketmaster distribution because people recognize it's more effective, efficient and better for the consumer," he says.

The opportunity here is to provide fans with a less cluttered ticket marketplace, Moriarty says. "In my mind, it is too hard and too confusing for fans today to buy tickets because there are too many different programs," he says.