Bill Wyman has been reporting this story at <a href="http://hitsville.org" rel="nofollow">http://hitsville.org</a> (mostly in the context of the LN/TM merger); for instance, liveblogged from the senate hearing:<p>%< ----------------<p>(R-ME) Sherman: If there’s ten thousand seats in the area, are you selling 10,000 tickets?<p>(TM CEO) Azoff: Never. On average we might see 80 or 85 percent of the seats.<p>Sherman: Are those the good ones or the bad ones you’re not getting?<p>Azoff: The vast majority of the best seats in the house.<p>%< ----------------<p>From a later article:<p>[..]<p>Hmm .. it sems like an almost insoluble economic problem. They have inventory … it’s sitting on a shelf … and it’s highly perishable—worthless at a minute after showtime.<p>Whatever can be done?<p>The article crystalized a feeling that I had several times while watching the hearings on the merger: Why does Live Nation need to merge with Ticketmaster to deal with the alleged broken concert industry?<p>In this case, why couldn’t it just, you know, sell the farther-back seats for less money?<p>[...]<p>Indeed, I recently got an email from someone who added an additional wrinkle: Paraphrased, the point was simply that LN controls too many goddamn venues.<p>Why are the company’s bookers not putting acts in smaller rooms? <i>Because LN has to keep its own buildings in action, even if they’re too big for the artist in question.</i> [em. orig.]<p>Are these guys squirrelly or what?