LiveNation must have some insurance execs in marketing

Live Nation is a  nationwide mega-promoter which bought up many of the country’s largest music venus last year in a roll-up that didn’t seem to make sense to me then and still doesn’t make much sense now.  All show promotion is local, and while you can leverage ticketing agreements and perhaps logistics when it comes to promoting  nationally-touring acts, the idea that bigger is better never really won me over.  Now they’re touting the “Club Passport”, an all-you-can-eat “all-in” pass that mimics the value proposition of fests like Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo, but includes any LiveNation-owned club* in your area.

Live Nation's literally incredible offer

Note that asterisk there, it signifies a little caveat that really shows why “too good to be true” really is.  Of course, you expect that this will be a “participating venues only” exception, and certain major sold-out shows will be exempted, which already lowers the value, but take a look at the fine print, circled here in red at the bottom of the email ad I received today (the third time I’ve been notified about this in the last week, through various channels). That’s right, “does not guarantee entry“. So, um, because it also doesn’t include parking, you could show up, pay for parking (which, for example at Chicago’s House of Blues can set you back $25 to $30), and be told, oh, sorry, this show is sold out — they are essentially selling you excess capacity, which means you can pay and get in to any show that they’ve failed to promote well or any show by an artist that no one wants to see.

If they don’t abuse the exceptions, this could be a way for music fans in a tough economy to get to see more shows, and it’s obviously a ploy for an ill-timed roll-up to try an increase traffic during a slow economy, which hasn’t impacted the huge venues, but has had a devastating impact on mid-size to small venues. Nonetheless, my spider sense says that it’s going to be tough to use this as anything but a “something to do” pass, because especially in a tough economy, no venue is going to honor a no-revenue admission if they have people willing to pay to get in. Nice try at innovation, LiveNation, but it seems to be the kind of “innovation” we’ve experienced in the health-insurance industry, where denying service has become the business model, or the airline industry, where selling seats that don’t exist is now the norm. (Anyone been bumped from an oversold flight on Southwest lately?)

Try again, guys, and this time, put all the restrictions up front, in LARGE PRINT, instead of selling what amounts to music-industry vaporware.