Going After Ticketmaster

A crowd of online cometitors threatens Ticketmaster's domination of concert and sports tickets sales

Dave Anderson for TIME

The ticket booth at Shea Stadium in Queens, New York circa April, 2007.

When Peter Shapiro owned the wetlands, a New York City concert hall where Dave Matthews and Pearl Jam played in the 1990s, there was one sure path to a sellout: team up with Ticketmaster. Fans would line up outside record stores for tickets processed by Ticketmaster or call one of Ticketmaster's phone banks to score seats. No other distributor had the worldwide labyrinth of retail partnerships and phone outlets to move millions of tickets in minutes. And they charged for it--as much as $15 on a $50 ticket. But the music industry, if you hadn't noticed, isn't quite what it used...

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