The Pressure Test

With more than $25 billion in annual revenue, record levels of activity and hundreds of millions of fans connected to its global live entertainment ecosystem, there is no credible argument that Live Nation has somehow failed at operating the traditional concert business.

That’s not the argument. The question is what happens to the money, the seats, the artists and the opportunities that the traditional model doesn’t capture.

Because a profitable system can still leave billions of dollars of potential economic value on the table.

• Every time a seat goes unsold, revenue that could have existed disappears.
• Every time an artist guarantee is committed before actual market demand is known, financial risk is assumed before the market has spoken.
• Every time a tour is routed into a market that ultimately cannot support the expected ticket volume, capital, production resources, venue commitments and artist expectations are exposed to unnecessary risk.
• And every time tickets purchased on the primary market are transferred into a secondary market at dramatically inflated prices, another problem emerges.

A scalper can purchase a $100 ticket, attempt to sell it for $1,000, fail to find a buyer, and ultimately leave the seat vacant.

The fan loses. The artist loses. The venue loses the energy of a full room. And the industry loses the economic value of the person who could have occupied that seat.

This is where the industry’s current debate over ticket scalping, secondary markets, affordability and “Blue Dot Fever” becomes much more than a ticketing argument.

It becomes an economic efficiency problem.

Live Nation has publicly pushed back against the idea that Blue Dot Fever represents a systemic collapse in concert demand. The company has pointed to strong ticket sales, growing attendance and record levels of live entertainment activity.

How much more successful could the live entertainment industry become if it could measure verified demand before committing the money?

That is the economic opportunity INthe-Q™ is pursuing. And there is another constituency with a powerful reason to care:

Artists.

Artists have spent years fighting ticket scalpers, secondary-market inflation and the disconnect between the price a fan pays and the price a reseller demands.

INthe-Q™ attacks that problem from a different direction.

• A verified fan reserves a place.
• A real person is associated with that Reservation.
• The Reservation is tied to the Member.
• The Member — not a scalper — gets the opportunity to purchase the ticket.

The system is designed around the fan who intends to attend the show. That’s the difference.

Everyone in the chain is pushing in the same direction:

• Policymakers are examining the traditional live entertainment ecosystem.
• Artists are demanding greater control.
• Fans are demanding affordability and transparency.
• Venues need economically viable rooms.
• Promoters need better demand intelligence.
• And the industry continues to invest enormous amounts of capital before it can know with certainty where the demand will ultimately land.