I guess I see the entertainment industry in two tiers. There are the mega-stars like Taylor Swift, etc. that occupy one tier, and then the majority off smaller artists, up and coming artists that represent the lower, if you like, strata.
Perhaps you are describing, and perhaps the author are tackling the upper strata. For myself, I swore off big venues decades ago. If I am unable to set my beer behind the monitor speaker, I'm not going.
I wonder if the lower strata could use a kind of "artists coop" to manage ticket sales. All smaller venues (bars and the like) could participate, all smaller artists could as well.
I think more artists would handle selling their own tickets if it was easy to do. In that way the artists are served (of course) and presumably they will do what is best for their fanbase.
Connecting artists and venue owners with a web portal, allowing ticket sales to fans via the same site shouldn't be heavy lifting for a lot of the readers on HN.
> Connecting artists and venue owners with a web portal, allowing ticket sales to fans via the same site shouldn't be heavy lifting for a lot of the readers on HN.
The tricky part isn't making the website, it's persuading enough people on both sides of the equation that your business is a better option compared to alternatives.
And despite the situation with Ticketmaster it's not like they're literally the only tool available in a market waiting for a second option - there's already lots of much smaller ticket-selling options that you'd be competing with, ranging from single person PHP websites you can host yourself to companies with significant traction in their niches that are like Ticketmaster just much, much smaller.
That's not to say that an idea like yours couldn't succeed, but the fact that lots of people could do the coding doesn't make it a likely, or easy, business to make successful.
Yeah pretty much any big tech company could spin up a team to launch a ticket purchasing website in a year or so that could handle the traffic.
For example, Amazon always loves adding benefits to prime, if they thought they could break into the ticket market they would do it in a heartbeat. Same with Spotify or Apple. If these massive corps cannot break into the market then why would some startup be able to?
Perhaps you are describing, and perhaps the author are tackling the upper strata. For myself, I swore off big venues decades ago. If I am unable to set my beer behind the monitor speaker, I'm not going.
I wonder if the lower strata could use a kind of "artists coop" to manage ticket sales. All smaller venues (bars and the like) could participate, all smaller artists could as well.
I think more artists would handle selling their own tickets if it was easy to do. In that way the artists are served (of course) and presumably they will do what is best for their fanbase.
Connecting artists and venue owners with a web portal, allowing ticket sales to fans via the same site shouldn't be heavy lifting for a lot of the readers on HN.