I worked at a company that was acquired by Ticketmaster, and I have a change to talk to one of the executives in casual way. They are not as bad as the may seem, but the business model is definitely intriguing. They go to a venue that hosts, say U2 for a concert. Say a U2 wants to sell a certain ticket for $100. Ticketmaster says: Look, If I get exclusive rights to sell your tickets, you will get not 95%, nor 100%, but you get 105% of the price of ticket, because I can charge whatever fees I want. So when you complain about Ticketmaster's high fees, hate then just slightly less, and hate U2 a bit more because they are ripping you off by pretending that Ticketmaster is the only bad guy.

Yep.

Ticketing is actually fairly complicated, both technically & as a business.

I hate them so much I almost downvoted you.

Just as long as you pay me the $3 downvote fee.

Well, you could put LiveNation on your resume to hide the fact ;)

Worked for them before the merger.

You monster.