Ticketmaster Global President ‘Categorically Rejects That Venues Don’t Have Choices’ for Ticketers

Ticketmaster’s new global president Saumil Mehta — who joined the Live Nation-owned ticketer last November after nearly a decade at business platform Square — disagrees with the narrative that music venues and sporting facilities lack choices when it comes to which ticketing companies they can work with.

“At a headline level, I would categorically reject that venues don’t have choices,” he told Trapital founder Dan Runcie at the tech and music conference Trapital Summit in Los Angeles on Tuesday (Sept.

15).

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“Every renewal we go up on, whether it’s sports teams or clubs or theaters or amphitheaters…there are competitors bidding for those venues.

Those rights to be in those buildings are getting more expensive.

There is no question about it.” Mehta added that retaining or signing new ticketing contracts comes with a lot of scrutiny from venues that are comparing Ticketmaster with its competitors, with the financials, product and services all being considered.

He went on to explain that the live entertainment industry in the U.S. runs on an exclusivity model, where venues can sign exclusive contracts with ticketing companies — meaning that any artist or team that performs at that venue will be subject to using the exclusive ticketer.

Ticketmaster’s exclusive contracts with venues were a major topic of the recent antitrust trial against Live Nation.

Ultimately, a jury found that Live Nation does indeed operate an illegal monopoly by threatening to withhold concerts from venues that do not sign exclusive contracts with Ticketmaster.

Live Nation denies those claims.

The ticketing model differs in other countries, including the U.K., where large venues use multiple ticketing companies for the same event and allocate a certain amount of inventory to each entity.

Mehta added that if the U.S. were to move to the allocation model, Ticketmaster is “perfectly willing and able to respond,” adding that Live Nation and Ticketmaster have been doing business “successfully” in the U.K. for a long time.

“I have empirical evidence that we’ve done it in the U.K., so it’s fine,” he said.