Latest / The Unsexy Businessmen / Why Everyone Loves Ticketmaster
Transcript
- Aaron Skinner: Welcome to the Unsexy Businessmen podcast where we talk about everything business related and unsexy topics. I am Aaron Skinner. I usually don't do the intros. I'm Aaron Skinner. As always, I'm with my brother, Alex Skinner, and we're going to be talking about something extremely topical right now. We are going to be talking about how much everyone hates Ticketmaster. And in fact, not just Ticketmaster, Live Nation, which also owns Ticketmaster. And then really all the different types of ⁓ secondary market things. mean, I think the other one, StubHub SeatGeek, but to be completely honest, I do have a story about, I think it is StubHub actually, ⁓ but that's a, we'll get to that later. There's so, but the main culprit, which is being sued right now by the DOJ, Alex Skinner: Yeah, all of them. Aaron Skinner: for being a monopoly ⁓ is Ticketmaster. So that's what I wanted to talk about mostly. So first of all, Alex, ⁓ let me tell you about my recent experience. I wanted to buy some tickets for the Metallica concert that is happening at the Sphere. I'm not like the biggest Metallica fan, but I do like Metallica and the Sphere is a really cool venue to see a concert like that. I think this is like the first like genuine rock band. that'll be at the Sphere. So it's really cool. ⁓ I've seen a few other events there and it's a really cool experience. So I did my due diligence. I got my pre-sale code. I got into the lobby before the sale even began. I was only about 10 minutes early, but I thought that was, foolishly thought that was plenty of time. And then I got to the actual queue. my spot in the queue was 165,000, 165,000. And I probably need to go relook this up. Did you look at this Alex with the sphere holds? I believe the sphere holds around 18 or 20,000 people. should have, I should have, I wasn't sure if you're looking up before. And so it's okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, so like the floor seating, you can add, you can add some more or floor standing, I guess. So when I saw that, I saw like the 18,000 roughly. Alex Skinner: You 17,600 with a total of 20,000 if you're lucky. Aaron Skinner: I was like, okay, well, I'm not gonna get a ticket. And so that kind of screwed it up. But luckily they announced more shows. So I was gonna be smart. I was gonna get into the pre-lobby an hour before and I tried to do that and that didn't work. I finally got into the queue. I mean, the lobby thing didn't work at all. I had to keep getting back and forth, back and forth. And when I got in, was at 190. thousandth person waiting to buy one. Now, unless they significantly grew the sphere, I also knew that was, so I wasn't gonna wait around. So yeah, that was my experience recently with Ticketmaster. Have you ever had any issues with Ticketmaster? Alex Skinner: Thank Just like all the common ones, man. I think everyone should have a goal of getting, because here's the thing that pisses me off about this. So yes, ⁓ Guns N' Roses is like 2007, 2008. Before they all got back together, I think they still had Buckethead as their lead guitarist with Axl Rose and canceled, no refund. And I can't remember. Thankfully, my brother Matt purchased those tickets. Thanks, Matt. ⁓ Aaron Skinner: Yeah, yeah. Alex Skinner: And so he's the one that really got screwed on that one. And so just overall, like bad customer service and similar, very similar thing has happened. Like this is not a an uncommon story. Like so what you're dealing with is just trying to buy the tickets. And then essentially what's going to happen is these normal, normal people aren't getting tickets. Yeah, aren't getting it. And then people who are purchasing just to resale at astronomically high levels. Aaron Skinner: Actual fans, actual fans. Alex Skinner: And at the end of the day, Ticketmaster doesn't care because they got their money. They're like, OK, cool. We sold out. Wait, you got some. And. The goal should be to eventually be sued by the DOJ, because essentially that means that you've made billions of dollars off the backs of hardworking Americans, not to get too political here. Like literally, people just want some escapism. That's what concerts are for. And now they're astronomically priced. All the fees that are added into it. Aaron Skinner: No, no, keep going, keep going, keep going. Alex Skinner: The convenience of what I just bought this online. What convenience have you like offered me by me sitting here? You didn't have to hire anybody for me to go purchase the ticket. That might've made sense. I don't know, back in the seventies and nothing happens. Like, yes, no, they're getting sued, but you know what's really gonna happen? Like they're still gonna keep making their money. Maybe there's some sort of thing where like they break them apart. Like, oh, you're a monopoly. So have to like give this part away, but they're still gonna make their money. Aaron Skinner: Yes. Kinda. Alex Skinner: And they don't care about you. And that's been a very common thing with a lot of things that we've been talking about lately where it's. There are these big machines that use you and your money. And they don't care about screwing you over. Like I was talking to my barber who's going through the exact same thing Aaron described for the Metallica concert at the sphere. And then we started talking about the show that got canceled in Utah a year ago due to weather and everyone wanted to see Post Malone and then Post Malone show. Aaron Skinner: ⁓ yeah. Alex Skinner: part of the show got canceled. Her person had an $80 ⁓ show insurance that they purchased, but because three of the performers performed that night, only Post Malone didn't, the insurance was not going to refund them their ticket. And then like you have this like, ⁓ all right, everyone on Saturday who had a ticket can come to the Sunday one. And then you just have this huge cluster of like, ⁓ so double the capacity that's even possible for this place you're gonna try. And so anyways, It is a tale as old as time everyone has experienced this and nobody does a GD thing about it because when there's money be made they really don't care like we already got our money talk to you later Aaron Skinner: And let me, let me, so I did a little bit of a deep dive into this. Let me just read something to you about how much Ticketmaster doesn't give a shit about the actual consumer. They were in cahoots with all of these scalpers. So in 2018, an undercover journalist from CBS News and the Toronto Star posed as a scalper at a ticket industry conference in Las Vegas. They found out Ticketmaster reps only or reps openly pitching a secret tool called Trade Desk, software designed specifically for professional scalpers to manage massive ticket inventories. When the undercover reporter asked a Ticketmaster rep if they'd police people using multiple fake accounts, the rep said, no, I have a gentleman who's got over 200 Ticketmaster.com accounts. Like on camera, a ⁓ rep from the company said this to them. ⁓ And it's so crazy to me because there are ways that they can, ⁓ that prevent this from happening. Like the scalping and stuff. Like I think in the UK, it's illegal to sell tickets for more than the face value of the ticket. So it is possible because they still, Ticketmaster functions in the UK. And so the UK is like, Oh, the ticket master like, Oh, we love this. Yeah, this is great. We should, we should have this, we should have this in the United States. And yet they are actively lobbying to not make that a law. So they say one thing and it's, it's, it's what we, again, what we always talk about corporations don't care about you. They just want to make as much money as possible. And the thing that's, that's crazy. The reason that ticket master wants scalpers to be able to do this because they make money selling to the scalpers. They make money when the scalpers sell it to someone else. And then if someone else, regular fan decides to sell it and they make money. they're triple dipping into, they're making so much money off of one ticket just from all these different transactions because all the transaction fees that they get. And it's, cause I've sold tickets on Ticketmaster before you, so I get charged for selling it. And then the person buying it gets charged for sell or for buying it. So it's, it's, it's so crazy that I mean, I, you're right, Alex, it's never going to change because the most popular band in the world in, think it was like 1992 or 94, something like that. Pearl Jam made it like their personal mission to like take out Ticketmaster and they were unsuccessful trying to do that as well. So it leaves me little hope that that's going to actually, that anything's going to actually change. And so this is probably just a giant, our giant rant about how, how terrible Ticketmaster is. But that's the thing that makes me the most mad. What'd you say? Yeah, yeah. They have to, they have to. Well, you know why they have to use it? Because they own, think it's like 40%. I'm gonna make sure I got these. Alex Skinner: Pearl Jam uses Ticketmaster now too. And Pearl Jam uses Ticketmaster now. Like it was like, ⁓ we're so mad. It was like, ⁓ you know what? This is so simple. Let's do it this way. It's a perfect name, master, you know. Aaron Skinner: They really do. So Live Nation controls 60 % of concert promotion and controls 75 % of ticket sales through exclusive revenue contracts or exclusive venue contracts. So if you are an artist and you want to perform at wherever, let's say, I don't know if Ticketmaster or ⁓ Live Nation owns it, but let's say the Staples Center. You want to perform there? You have to go through Ticketmaster. And this is like, Alex Skinner: controls at all. Aaron Skinner: Like I said, what was it? 60 % of all, all promotions. Yes. So, Oh, it's at 70 % of venue contracts. So if you are an artist, an up and coming artist, and you start doing really, really well, like there's no choice. Like a lot of people were getting mad at like Taylor Swift or whatever. Like I wasn't mad at Metallica cause this happened. I wasn't like, I can't believe they're screwed over their fans. Like the artists have can't do anything like that's out of their hands. If they want to perform at these venues, they have to go through Ticketmaster. And so because of that, that is, mean, they literally have a monopoly. I'll be curious to see what actually happens with this lawsuit and see how it gets broken up or whatever. But even other things, other platforms suck too. Like I'll give you an example. We went to the Oasis concert. their reunion concert this past whatever it was, September, our last September. And ⁓ my brother, Monty, our, I guess our brother, Monty ⁓ purchased tickets through StubHub because I think that's, I can't remember if that was the, the, who owns that venue or not, but he bought it through StubHub. So he bought it like weeks in advance. And so what normally happens is you'll buy the ticket and sometimes you don't get your ticket until a few days before. the event is going to happen. He never got his tickets ever. So he was sitting like we're waiting in line to show our tickets to get in and he never got his tickets. had to, he was on the phone freaking out because of course he was like, he was going to left outside when we go into the concert. Yeah. And so he had to scramble and luckily he was able to find last, literally last second, another ticket he could buy and get immediately. Alex Skinner: I had an expectation. Aaron Skinner: But ⁓ StubHub, mean, to StubHub's credit, he eventually got refunded, but it wasn't an immediate thing. He didn't like immediately get his refund. was like, he was on the phone trying to figure stuff out. And as we know, calling into any sort of big corporation is absolutely horrible. And I'm sure lots of people call in constantly, so they weren't able to handle that traffic. But like, that's another thing. What's the deal? What's the deal with like, if you buy a ticket, you don't get it immediately. Like, what is that? Why is that a thing? It should be, if you're buying a ticket through a, through a company, you should immediately have access to that ticket. Like it's crazy to me that that's even a thing where, and it's happened to me before where it's, it's, I'm sorry, my phone was ringing. Where I've had to wait. ⁓ dude, it was for a Sphere concert. I got my wife tickets to the Backstreet Boys and I bought them and it was like, I bought them way in advance. and I didn't get the actual tickets until like three days before she was going to the concert, which stressed me out huge because they had the plane ticket, they had their hotel all set up, that everything's set up minus the ticket. So yes, like I don't know what that's about. Like what is that? Why am I waiting to get this ticket? What is taking so long? It should be as soon as you get it. And I get like, they're like, well, what happens is Alex Skinner: the thing they're going for. Aaron Skinner: someone has a ticket from like a, ticket master, they have to transfer it to stub hub and then stub hub has to transfer you like, okay, then don't let this don't, well, no, no, no, no, no, then don't let the ticket be available until you have that ticket stub hub. Like that's how it has to work. I don't, I don't get it. Yeah. And that's what the fees are for all this protection and all these guarantees and stuff like that, that mean nothing. ⁓ because when, when there's any sort of pushback, Alex Skinner: Why does that take a long time? That's what the fees are for! Aaron Skinner: It's very rare that you, it's in your favor. It's almost always in the favor of the company because what are you gonna do? Try and sue Ticketmaster? mean, it takes the US government to sue Ticketmaster. You're not gonna be able to sue them. But yeah, that just, it just drives me crazy, man. Alex Skinner: And you can go and review bomb them and do whatever you want, but inevitably, since it's a systematic thing that is already set up, like you mentioned, where it's 60%, there's very little that any random individual can do. And this goes back to a lot of ⁓ just... general public thing. I'm just thinking about like our Bad Bunny podcast that we did that got a lot of people talking about it and then ⁓ comments coming in for people who hated ⁓ Puerto Ricans. ⁓ Don't understand that. then like super pissed off at the NFL. And I was just like, interesting. The NFL still, it's like we said on the podcast, the NFL is still going to operate. Aaron Skinner: That was really weird. Alex Skinner: No matter what and like what's crazy to me what's crazy me is what we're talking about with ticketmaster Actually impacts people The the the Super Bowl halftime show does not matter at all or impact your life people with the ticketmaster thing are losing money and essentially they'll just go like do the complaint thing and there's not enough people who go and do like the boycott just like all right cool we're not we're not going to do this it would take someone like Taylor Swift to be like But once again, it's like you mentioned, it's the venue, not the artist themself. It would have to take some, and that's why you said the US government coming in and getting involved, which is why I wanna remind everybody, we're no longer a republic. A republic is a bunch of states that operate on their own. The federal government has way too much power for us to be considered a republic anymore. I'm sure someone's like, well, technically, we're still a republic because there's states and stuff like that. But the amount of state power, like, You think the state of Utah could be like, all right, we're to get rid of Ticketmaster. No, they couldn't. And so I don't know where I'm like trying to get with this. It's almost like we are just like ranting about it like over and over. But it makes me really sad to see all of this money like being taken away from people that they they end up losing. And like, I mean, I don't anticipate you being able to like to solve this problem, Aaron. But like, like what? Aaron Skinner: Nothing's gonna change. Alex Skinner: What changes in behavior are there? Like, what do you do? What do you like? You're like, well, I still have to buy shit. I still want to go to think, you know what I mean? Aaron Skinner: Yes, that's the thing. Yes, that's like, it changes. I mean, I won't go to that. know, if the resale for those tickets, I mean, right now they're like crazy high, which makes sense. I don't know if they'll come down. I don't know. I saw one for, it was $13,000 for a ticket. like, listen, I like Metallica. don't like Metallica $13,000. It's essentially we've become accustomed to I'll custom all this. Like all we do is like, damn ticket master. Huh? I guess I gotta pay it. Like it's just like taxes. Like that's the new thing should be ⁓ death taxes and ticket master. It should be the new quote. Yes. Service fees. It's like there's, there's, okay. So the only way that this could be really solved is won't ever happen because it would make zero financial sense to do this. You would have to have someone like Taylor Swift is like, I'm going to build my own stadium. Alex Skinner: service fees. Aaron Skinner: and I'm gonna sell my tickets through my own software or whatever. And that's how we're gonna sell it. And we're gonna circumnavigate Ticketmaster. know, unless a, no, like unless they were able to get, and like, don't know I'm put this on the artist anyways, because that'd be a giant financial burden. And like, that's just whatever. But I mean, if there was like, there was some sort of conglomerate of giant artists that got together and like, we're building our own. Alex Skinner: is not convenient for her. Aaron Skinner: our own venues and that's, people can do it, but just it's no, it's easier. Just being like, ticket master sucks. I don't want to have to use them. They're making us use them. So, you know, and I've, again, I'm not going to say she should do that, but that would be the only way to really be able to get around using ticket master. Alex Skinner: I'm sorry. But the conglomerate ideas is an interesting one where it would be like this League of Nations, this League of Artists that come together and just like, sorry, like we're not doing this anymore. We're gonna like, we're all the United Artists maybe, maybe call it that if that doesn't already exist, which it does. great. So they'll say, hey, we're United Artists and then they do it, but this is an interesting thing. You'd wanna know why that hasn't happened? Because they don't care about you. None of these artists care about you either. Like they could do that. Like it's interesting. Aaron Skinner: Yeah, I think it went out of business so they could take that name. Yeah. Alex Skinner: I do think it's crazy for like an individual artist like you said, I think that's completely like out of control, but like I see the things that they care about and I see the things that they talk about and how often they don't do anything for their fans. Like, and maybe like they're like, our contract with our fans is we put on a show for you, you pay to come see it. That's what our contract is and that's fine. But just a reminder to everybody, like that is the relationship and the contract that we enter with all of these artists. maybe we stop calling them artists because they're not. They are business people. They are business people who are trying to make us, and I'm not, this isn't me like mad at the artists. Like I love, I don't know if I love capitalism, like capitalism allows for people to make their own way in life and to be able to make a substantial amount of difference financially in their lives and in the lives of people that they care about. it's not an anti-capitalism thing. It's just, I think the only band that is true like would be like rage against the machine and that's why they probably don't talk. They're always like dealing. No, not even them. They're super anti capitalistic people. Aaron Skinner: I'm gonna just, I'll tell you, dude. So Rage Against the Machine had a concert that got put on, dude, was like two, like 2022. It was like pretty soon after the whole COVID thing. And their tickets, I think they tried to do it. I think they tried their hardest in order to make it fair for their fans, but their tickets ended up costing like $900 because this dude, What we have to, yes. No, that was because of scalpers. And so they tried their hardest to prevent that from happening and they still couldn't make it happen. And I can't remember if they ended up doing the show or not, but there was so much backlash because exactly like you were thinking, Alex, that was like their whole point is like, hey, know, fuck the band, fuck government. Like we're gonna do a show for the people and they couldn't even. Alex Skinner: Because of the resale market or just was that retail? Resale. Aaron Skinner: Like I said, I was like, rage is gonna come. like, oh, how much are those tickets? And it was like, I think the ones I looked at, it was like 650. I was like, I already saw them a couple of times. I'm not spending that much money. When I saw them, it was like $60. So I don't wanna spend 10 times that much to go see them again. But yeah, so not even the most, I mean, it would have to be smaller artists and small venues is honestly what it'd be and have to be venues that aren't owned by Ticketmaster or any of these other. I knew these other companies, but you know, why would artists like, sweet, I'm going to go to this bar and, and play in front of 200 and make way less money. makes no sense. But I just want everyone to remember that whenever their favorite artist or celebrity says, I wouldn't be able to do this if it weren't for the fans. They don't actually mean that. Well, I guess they do because the fans still have to pay those price. What they should say is like, I wouldn't be able to do all this if it wasn't for my fans. Alex Skinner: make way less money. Aaron Skinner: paying the outrageous fees that Ticketmaster charges in order to come see me. That's what they really should be saying, because that's what it really is. It's the, I'm so glad I have such dedicated fans that they will take out loans to come see me play live. That's how much people love me. I mean, that's great. But again, not mad about it. That's just, that's the reality of it. That's what it is. Alex Skinner: Can you think of any artist that's been boycotted? I don't know if I'm in the entertainment world enough to think of that, where it's just like, this person did something so we're... Essentially, the cancellation of a major band or anything like that. Aaron Skinner: of an actual artist? No, mean, Dave Grohl cheated on his wife and got another chick pregnant. We're still gonna go to his concert. ⁓ It would have to be, unless they went to prison, there was the, and then they can't perform. Like that's really the only way. But I think especially with the, artists, people just, they like their art. Maybe they don't like the person, but they like the art. If we really got into, Alex Skinner: Yeah. Right. and then they can't perform? Aaron Skinner: ⁓ all of our favorite bands, I'm sure they're not great people. Yes, yeah, it just in general. ⁓ Alex Skinner: There's a problem with all of them. It's more along the lines of like, going back to the only way and just like, when did the unsexy Bismuth turn into a revolutionary podcast? it takes massive amounts of people to make any type of real change. And when I say massive, I'm not talking like millions, I'm talking like tens of millions of people, like at the United States level and then potentially hundreds of millions of people at like a global scale. And I just don't... Aaron Skinner: Yeah Alex Skinner: Like it's one of those frustrating things where it's I hate that there are so many things in the world where it's like, all right, you just kind of have to deal with that. there's no like, ⁓ it's like, okay, cool. I guess I don't go to any more concerts. I don't go to any more of these specific venues. Like, yeah, go support local. Like, yeah, you want to know, no offense. You want to know why they're local? It's because they suck. It's because they're not as good. sorry, suck is probably too harsh of a term. Like, Hail Center Theater has some great performances, but it's like, Aaron Skinner: Yeah, yeah. Alex Skinner: $80 a ticket. It's like, have you been to Hail Center? It was like, I don't know if this performance was $80 a ticket worth, but I'm happy that I came this one time, but I'm not gonna make this a regular occurring thing. Aaron Skinner: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. A regular thing. Yeah. Their Beauty and the Beast thing was worth $80. It was really good. And the girls liked it. Like the performance and all the stuff that they had. I think it was like 60 bucks. I'm sure there's some performances that are more than that. But like just the venues in general. Like when we went and saw Collective Soul, like I'm old. I like to sit down between sets. Alex Skinner: Is it $80? I honestly haven't been in a long time. Is that high? Yeah, that might be high. You Aaron Skinner: Um, or, or between, or if there's a new song that they want to play that I have zero interest in, uh, sometimes I just want to rest the old feet. And when we went to go see collective soul, yeah, it didn't get to sit. It was just standing. It was essentially just like this big open room. Would you go to go stand? Which I would have loved. And I did love when I was younger, cause you just get up close and kind of rock out. I'm not into the whole, just rocking out the entire time anymore. Like I'll stand for songs and have a good time and sing. But just at my age, I'm just more like, like to, I just like to vibe, I like to vibe to it. And I don't mind that people do. mean, don't let me start on people when they get mad at someone for standing up in front of them during a concert, like they're having a good time. Who fucking cares? Why are you pissed off? I had a, get mad at my wife. She's at a country concert and her and her friends were standing up and dancing. And the people behind them like, you should have got floor seats if you wanted to stand the whole time. was like, there weren't any floor seats. And. Alex Skinner: Like sitting down. Aaron Skinner: We're not standing the whole, we're standing for some of these songs. Like, you know, fuck people. People suck. Alex Skinner: But you want to know why those people behind you are pissed off? It's because they're spending so much money on a ticket, they think they're entitled to the exact experience that the price of that ticket was. Not to say one is wrong or right, but that's where that... They probably suck in real life too, but that's probably where a lot of it's kind of like, spent... How much was it? Every single GD concert I go to is like $200 no matter what particular... Aaron Skinner: Yeah. Yeah. Dude, yes. think luckily, I think her, it was like a hundred bucks. It wasn't super crazy. But no, you're right. Like just look at like the average, which will blend perfectly into our top 10 list today. But like if you go to any concert, I mean, what was the Foo Fighters one? Was it like, I should know, I bought them. 200, and that was the face value one. Alex Skinner: I feel like there's like 200 like every concert I've gone to in the last however long it's like at least $200. Aaron Skinner: Like that I bought those pre-sale. maybe that's when I was getting, oh, that might've been the one I was pissed off about because the ticket master was screwing things up, but I was able to secure them finally. But yeah, I think those are like 200 and something bucks. Yeah, it's just, but the fees, man, the fees are what drive me crazy too. It's like you buy a hundred dollar ticket, you buy two tickets for $200 and it costs you 300. Like. The markup that they put on this is so crazy. I think about it every time I buy a ticket, I'm like, oh my gosh, Ticketmaster has so much money. The amount of money they can use to lobby the government and lobby to be able to not get in trouble. What will happen? All right, let me give you my prediction with what happens with, my first prediction is nothing. Nothing happens with the Ticketmaster. It just goes into, you know, this is gonna be drawn out for years. Or if it does come back where they get split up, they will eventually figure out a way to control everything again. That's just how it is. Because didn't Microsoft get broken up at some point and then, you know what? I'm still using Microsoft, yeah. Alex Skinner: Yeah, right. We're going to do this now. Well, it's because there's new and emerging technologies that come up where it's like, all right, now we're going to enter this thing that just came up, which is going to be huge for us to take advantage of. Aaron Skinner: Yes, exactly. Exactly. It just, it never ends. That's, we're all hopeless. We're all slaves to this. And that's all it's going to be. Like it's, it's fun to kind of vent about this. And I'd love to hear people's horror stories of dealing with Ticketmaster because there are tens of thousands, if not millions of, of horror stories that people have had to deal with with that. But yeah, it's just, I hope something happens. I don't know what it would be like. Literally my only idea was all these artists have to come together and build their own venues, which would eventually get bought out by Ticketmaster. That's what would happen. Alex Skinner: Yeah, because they're a multi-billion dollar company. They're still worth more than all of those artists combined. I was wondering if they could go down the England route, but I imagine if the dealer's like, all right, cool, now you have to start selling them at face value, they just start jacking up their fees. All right, cool, transfer fees are now double the price or whatever. Aaron Skinner: Yes. Dude. ⁓ Can I tell you how the scalpers circumnavigated that whole thing? What they did was they made, so they would make just, so it's like, you have to have one account, one Ticketmaster account, and that Ticketmaster account, you have to sell that, if you sell your ticket, has to be at face value. What the scalpers did was made 500 Ticketmaster accounts. Alex Skinner: No, I mean, yes you can. Aaron Skinner: bought those tickets and then would sell access to their Ticketmaster account so people could use those tickets. Do you understand what I'm saying? So like essentially like, all right, here's the login and password. It was $200 if you want it, it's 400 bucks if you want the login and password for that Ticketmaster account. And so that's how they still get around it over there. Like, this is my thing is like scalpers will always figure, they're always ahead. They're always ahead of the game. Alex Skinner: It's gonna cost this much. Wow. find a way. Aaron Skinner: And if for some reason they get behind for a little while, they'll figure it out and find a way to just completely screw people over. Alex Skinner: And then find a way to legalize it too. Cause like, you like, this isn't actually true cause artists are getting paid, but like essentially what is Spotify? It's Napster, but with night, like some money coming in, you know what I mean? Like, like essentially every song that you could ever want to listen to is on Spotify. And I'm not like bad mouthing, like good for them. Like they found a way to legally make billions of dollars off of artists work. And then the artists just had to say like, okay, sounds good. I think that's what's interesting about Aaron Skinner: Yeah. Alex Skinner: This is like how little power artists actually have over anything that they do. And yet these are the people that we listen to, the people who are getting cucked, no offense. They're getting cucked by all of these like major corporations like, oh, you have an opinion? That means that you're smart. No, they can't even control their own IP. They have to just be like, okay, cool, Spotify. And then people like celebrate, I don't know why I just got second wind rant. Aaron Skinner: Yeah, they really don't, they have like no power. Yeah Alex Skinner: ⁓ Like the Taylor Swift thing where she like re-recorded all of her stuff herself and people like, ⁓ this is awesome. And now they're on Spotify. Like, cool, it is cool. Don't get me wrong. I think that's like pretty good like, F you that she did where it's like, all right, well, I'm gonna create, you're not gonna give me my masters. I'm gonna create my own. Here's like the new stuff. Everybody go listen to these ones. I don't know. I assume they're still making money on those other ones. She has a really loyal fan base, but I'm sure they're still making money. Not nearly as much, right? But Spotify. Aaron Skinner: Yeah, right. Alex Skinner: is still profiting off of all of that hard work that she did. And don't get me wrong, she's a billionaire now, she's like making a bunch of money, but like, even when it seems really cool and seems like they're like saying F you to the man, the man still has a grasp over all of the monies. End of rant. Aaron Skinner: Yes, I think like in all honesty, we could get, if the best thing that could come out of the whole Ticketmaster thing is if they were able to be like, hey, it's 10 % is the top that you can add on in fees or just something like that. Like no more like dynamic fee pricing. Like it's just, this is what it is. You can't go more than that. Like where we could compromise somewhere, that would be nice. And then if they could somehow go after these scalpers and just get rid of them, because like there's a way to do that. They just don't. So that would be my, guess, two things that I, if the most positive thing that could happen would be those two things. Alex Skinner: and there's nothing we can do about it. Aaron Skinner: And there's not a damn thing we can do about it. But that's fine, whatever. Like that's, guess that is our thing. That's our podcast. It'd be great if we could do something. Obviously we can't, ⁓ but as like, But. Alex Skinner: But if anyone who has some ideas, let us know. That doesn't involve murder. Ideally. Aaron Skinner: We'll leave that on the table. ⁓ right, Alex, ⁓ I got a great top 10 for that is very ⁓ relatable to what we have just been talking about. Let me pull this. Okay, ⁓ so I mean, it's gonna be interesting. ⁓ it is the top 10 most expensive ⁓ I did it for the past 10 years, but you don't have to go back that far. Alex Skinner: 10 artists of all time. Just kidding. Aaron Skinner: ⁓ So the most expensive tickets ⁓ on the secondary market. So we're pissed off about the secondary market. So we'll do that. then after that, I'll let you know what the face value of those tickets were. Alex Skinner: is that. I, okay, well I gotta start with Taylor Swift just in case. Aaron Skinner: Well, that would be number one Alex number one is Taylor Swift Alex Skinner: Okay, okay. All right. Gotta go with the safe one. I don't think I'm going to do this one. There's just so many artists. I'm gonna do like the most popular people but Billy Eilish. Aaron Skinner: Just think of like, just think of the, yes, the most popular. And it's usually like, ⁓ you wanna know what? No, not on there. I know, I know. Alex Skinner: And she's super popular that I'm telling you. ⁓ on the secondary Mumford and Sons. ⁓ my God. ⁓ my God. Aaron Skinner: No, you got way more popular than that. And you have to think of all good Alex, good Bruno Mars is number four. Alex Skinner: Bruno, Bruno Mars. ⁓ my gosh, so what? I Mumford & Sons, who's the other stupid guess I had? Aaron Skinner: I don't know, Billy Allen was a good guess. That would have guessed Billy. Alex Skinner: Billie Eilish. And then you said Bruno Mars. Aaron Skinner: Bruno Mars was number four, Taylor Swift was number one. Alex Skinner: Can I ask you, you don't have to like, were there any like surprises on this list where you're like, what? Aaron Skinner: ⁓ yeah, cause it's a con I'll give you a really good, really good hit. It's a concert I went to. Alex Skinner: Okay. ⁓ Bruno Mars, I gotta do like, dude, this is like where I suck. This is the last 10 years, super, you know, cause I'm so indie guys. Like I don't listen to. Aaron Skinner: My thing, okay, so to help you out, it's the last 10 years, but I mean, this is probably of all time, to be completely honest. Yeah, just because of like, because the tickets weren't that expensive 10 years ago. Alex Skinner: because of inflation. ⁓ Just doing a Justin Casey on this one, Elton John. Aaron Skinner: Elton John is number eight for his farewell Yellow Brick Road tour. Alex Skinner: I would be so mad if I didn't like, cause I was like that one, like if I didn't guess it, cause I was just like, it seems like, all right, so I got three. ⁓ Who's been like winning Grammys a lot? That's why I said Billie Eilish though. Beyonce. Aaron Skinner: Yeah. Beyonce number three, Alex. Alex Skinner: Okay, okay, so I'm feeling a little better. I'm at four, I just gotta get one more. ⁓ my gosh, I should just be thinking of Super Bowl performances. Coldplay. Aaron Skinner: Coldplay, number nine! Alex Skinner: Yes! Alright, here we go. I found my second wind. Coldplay. Alright, so I was like super nervous about this. like, I have no fucking idea. Alright, who else has played the Super Bowl? ⁓ Aaron Skinner: There's. There's like, I would think like surprise, there's like some surprising, like number two is kind of very surprising. Alex Skinner: I'm gonna go, you know, since I already got it Lady Gaga. Aaron Skinner: That's a good guess, not on there. Alex Skinner: Okay, she was like one of my backup guesses. Number nine, ⁓ I do such a, I apologize to everyone. Whenever like I finally get it, I'm like, ⁓ I can just guess and then I still think about it. ⁓ Actually, I'm just gonna do this. Super Bowl performances last 10 years. Is it cheating? I don't know. Kendrick Lamar. Aaron Skinner: Yeah Alex Skinner: All right, and I got one more guess. That would surprise me greatly. I'm to go with... the weekend. Aaron Skinner: That's a good guess. No, he's not on there either. Alex Skinner: Alright, I'm out, I'm out. I did my last two guests, but I got five. Thank God. Aaron Skinner: You got your five. All right, so number one was Taylor Swift. The face value was $204, like on average. The secondary $1,500. Number two. Alex Skinner: Intrigued. And what's crazy too, that money goes to either Ticketmaster or the person selling it. Aaron Skinner: Yes, it does not go to the artists at all. As far as I know, yeah, they don't see any of that money. Number two is Bruce Springsteen for his Broadway residency. The average was around, I mean, this is an expensive concert, was around $500 for the face value. then, I don't think he had a lot of performances. So $500 for the face. Alex Skinner: ⁓ okay, okay. Are there like some artists that you just never got? Like I never got Bruce Springsteen, like why everybody loves him. Like Lady Gaga, I'm not a huge fan of, but I get why people like her, similar with like Kendrick Lamar. Anyways, Bruce Springsteen is like. Aaron Skinner: Me, me either. No. I think a lot of that is if you grew up, like your older brother was listening to him or your dad was listening to him or whatever. I think that's where, I don't know. Yeah, I don't. Alex Skinner: Okay. Not these, there's some songs I like by it. I've, born in the USA is a song. Aaron Skinner: That's not about patriotism. All right, so his was average $500. The secondary was $1,500. Beyonce, her average was $150, secondary $419. Bruno Mars, his average was $150, his was $419 as well from the secondary market. Olivia, oh, yeah, sorry. Oh, you got the, Olivia Rodrigo is number five. That's fine, I would not have guessed her. Alex Skinner: Rodrigo. Okay. I didn't I didn't guess her that's Never guess that. Aaron Skinner: ⁓ was her average was one 50 for the face value and 397 for the secondary Adele was number six for her Las Vegas residency. The average ticket was $225 for the face value, which is crazy. Cause actually looked at these and, ⁓ I guess I looked way late. The average, the average for the secondary was three 75. I'll tell you what the tickets that I was looking at was nowhere near three 75. ⁓ did not go. Number seven is Rolling Stones, the No Filter Tour. Their average ticket price was $125. The secondary was $277. Elton John was number eight. His was $100 average for face value and $275 for the secondary. Let me just say Coldplay was their, theirs was between $75 and $125. It has the average. I don't know why they couldn't figure that out. ⁓ and then the last one, Oasis, I tried to give you that, that, Oasis reunion tour. There's their average was a hundred dollars for the, this was in the nosebleeds. ⁓ okay, whatever. A hundred dollars and their secondary was two 20. So that's yeah, not, not too crazy. I don't remember what his last second ticket was. I don't remember what I paid Ryan for the tickets to be completely honest. Alex Skinner: Oh, yeah, that was stupid and bad not guessed. Do you know what Monty paid for that like random ticket? Aaron Skinner: I think it was around 200 bucks, I believe. wasn't, yeah, I wasn't too crazy. Alex Skinner: Yeah, I'll like so that's why all the concerts I'm paying for $200 just because it is all the secondary market is when I get them Aaron Skinner: But even with the one we got with Ryan, one wasn't, ⁓ that was not secondary. I think he got that in the pre-sale. But yeah, that's why I always try and do pre-sale. If I can, that's what I try to do. So that's what it is. But that's today's top 10. Alex Skinner: ⁓ okay. Switching over to some business advice. Hey, I work for Ticketmaster. Should I start a ⁓ competing company? Aaron Skinner: Anyway, we should I anyway I can raise fees and not have people get mad. Alex Skinner: Hey guys, I run a small residential landscaping company with four employees. One of my guys has been with me about two years, good worker, customers like him, and I've invested a lot training him. Last week, a client casually mentioned that he gave her a quote for a landscaping job on the side. The quote was for a job I had already looked at, but turned down because it wasn't worth the drive for my crew. Apparently my employee told her he runs his own little landscaping business on weekends. Now I'm hearing from another client that he might have given them his personal number too. I don't have any non-compute or non-solicitation agreement in place. Which know is my fault. At the same time, it feels like he's using relationships he built through my company to line up his own work. Do I confront him, fire him, ignore it since it's technically his own time? I don't want to lose a good employee, but I also don't want to train my own competition. What would you do? That sucks. That sucks. Aaron Skinner: Uh, I would immediately get that contract signed. Like, Hey, we have a new thing. We need everyone to sign because then he might probably just quit. I mean, so you don't even have to fire him. You might just quit. And then you don't have to worry about, uh, unemployment or anything like that. Uh, I would have everyone signed that immediately. And then if he's, if he's not big enough yet, he might not quit, but then that protects you and your business. That's, what you have to do that. You have to give them a sign it. And then after he signs it, then you talk to him. And then if he doesn't sign it, refuses to, then he's like, hey, this is mandatory, have to sign it. You can either sign it or you can quit. And then that's really, those are really your only options. Alex Skinner: Yeah, I have nothing. Like, I think that's spot on. Like, get him to sign it. Gotta get something for that. But our condolences. That sucks. Hey Alex and Aaron, I started a commercial cleaning business about a year and a half ago. I'm still small, two employees and myself, but I landed a contract with a local gym chain that has three locations, about 60,000 of my revenue. Oh, sorry. 60 % of my revenue right now. At first it felt like hitting the jackpot, but lately it's been stressful. They constantly add the requests. Wipe down extra equipment, clean offices. Aaron Skinner: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that sucks. ⁓ it's like, wow. Alex Skinner: do day porter stuff. You know, I don't know if means. ⁓ During busy hours, none of it was in the original agreement, but it's always framed as, can you just do this quick thing? If I say no, I'm worried I'll just find another cleaner. They'll just find another cleaner and I'll lose more than half my business overnight. My employees are starting to complain because the scope keeps growing, but the pay hasn't changed. I'm also working hours myself to keep them happy. Aaron Skinner: Yeah, that just means like during the day you're doing cleaning, you'll, yeah. Alex Skinner: At what point do you push back on a client like this and how do you do it without blowing up the relationship that's basically paying your bills right now? Aaron Skinner: I would ask them if they already have a good relationship with them. ⁓ Is it just a purely business relationship or have you gotten... This is why we preach build good relationships with your clients. Because then you can have these types of conversations where it's more of like, like, hey man, you can have real conversations with them. ⁓ The best way to do this is like, hey listen, we wanna make sure that you are taken care of the best way possible. Alex Skinner: Damn it. Aaron Skinner: I still have to pay my employees when they do all this extra stuff. So what I can do is I can tell you if you want to add this stuff, that's totally fine. We can absolutely do that. But obviously I have to pay my employees. So here's how much it would cost to add these extra services. if you, if you, mean, if you don't get going like all aggro and you're just going there logically, they're should be fine. ⁓ And if not, then. Alex Skinner: with someone you didn't want to have anyways. Long term. Aaron Skinner: Yeah, which sucks, that does suck. I did have a client that would do that. There's like, hey, we wanna do this and do that. And I was just like, that's fine. I like when I was at his close, I was like, we can do whatever you want us to do, but we are gonna have to charge you to do this extra stuff because I have to pay that person to do it. So I just can't do it for free. And they were always like, oh yeah, it's funny because as soon as I mentioned that, like, yeah, of course, like why wouldn't you pay me? Alex Skinner: because Yeah, of course. Aaron Skinner: this conversation that you probably in your mind like, want it for free and they're gonna get so mad when I bring up that it actually costs money to do this. Like they're gonna be like, ⁓ yeah, just probably maybe in their mind they're like, ⁓ I was expecting to get charged more and you never charged me more. So I would go in with kind of that attitude. Alex Skinner: Yeah, because just because they're framing it, hey, can you just do this quick thing, doesn't necessarily mean that they expect it for free. Aaron Skinner: Right, exactly, exactly, yes. Alex Skinner: So you'd still need to talk with them, talk with them about it, but I think just another one where I hit it spot on where it's gotta have that conversation. And if you're coming from it from a numbers and cents standpoint, there's no way that they're gonna be like, and remember, this ⁓ sounds like a large client, potentially a large gym in your area. I imagine whoever you're dealing with is probably not the gym owner. I didn't see any mention of that, and they aren't gonna care. Be like, ⁓ okay, cool, it's another $100, sounds good. Aaron Skinner: And another thing is you, another good tactic too, is when you're explaining it very calmly, like, yeah, you know, because most gyms have like different access things or like, hey, if you want this extra premium membership to have access to the massage chairs, whatever it costs this much, like you could just bring that back and be like, it's kind of like, you know, you have your, you have your premium services and packages and then you charge more for that. Like if you want these extra extra services I'm doing, it's the exact same thing. I'm gonna have to charge a little bit more. It's the same thing that you do. Alex Skinner: package. Aaron Skinner: So you could go at that angle as well. Alex Skinner: Yeah. And then I'll please leave your questions at unsexybusinessman at gmail.com or leave them in the comments and we will ⁓ chat with y'all next week.