In 2010, Ticketmaster found out the hard way that the
entertainment industry is not, in fact, as recession-proof as
it was once widely believed to be. Th e company, which sells
tickets for live music, sports, and cultural events, andwhich
represents a signifi cant chunk of parent company’s Live
Nation Entertainment’s business, saw a drop in ticket sales
that year of a disconcerting 15 percent. Th en there was the
mounting negative press, including artist boycotts, thevitriol
of thousands of vocal customers, and a number of major
venues refusing to do business with Ticketmaster.
Yet 2012 has been more friendly to the company—under
the leadership of former musician and Stanford MBA-
educated CEO Nathan Hubbard, who took over in 2010
when Ticketmaster merged with Live Nation, the country’s
largest concert promoter. Th ird-quarter earnings were
strong, with just under $2 billion in revenue, a 10 percent
boost from the same period last year, driven largely by Live
Nation’s ticketing and sponsorship divisions. Ticketmaster
was largely responsible as well, thanks to the sale of 36million
tickets worth $2.1 billion, generating $82.1 million inadjusted
operating income, which translates to an increase of
51 percent for the year.
Th at’s because Hubbard knows how to listen, and read the
writing on the wall, “If we don’t disrupt ourselves, someone
else will,” he said, “I’m not worried about other ticketing
companies. Th e Googles and Apples of the world are our
competition.”
Some of the steps he took to achieve this included to
the creation of LiveAnalytics, a team charged with mining
the information (and related opportunities) surrounding
200 million customers and the 26 million monthly sitevisitors,
a gold mine that he thought was being ignored. Moreover
Hubbard redirected the company from being an infamously
opaque, rigid and infl exible transaction machine for ticket
sales to a more transparent, fan-centered e-commerce
company, one that listens to the wants and needs of customers
and responds accordingly. A few of the new innovations rolled
out in recent years to achieve this include an interactivevenue
map that allows customers to choose their seats (instead of
Ticketmaster selecting the “best available”) and the abilityto
buy tickets on iTunes.
Hubbard eliminated certain highly unpopular service
fees, like the $2.50 fee for printing one’s own tickets,which
he announced in the inaugural Ticketmaster blog he created.
Much to the delight of event goers—and the simultaneous
chagrin of promoters and venue owners, who feared that the
move would deter sales—other eff orts toward transparency
included announcing fees on Ticketmaster’s fi rsttransaction-
dedicated page, instead of surprising customers with them at
the end, while consolidating others. “I had clients say,‘What
are you doing? We’ve been doing it this way for 35 years,’”
Hubbard recalled, “I told them, ‘You sound like the record
labels.’”
Social media is an integral part of listening, and of course,
“sharing.” Ticketmaster alerts on Facebook shows friends of
purchasers who is going to what show. An app is in the works
that will even show them where their concertgoing friends
will be seated. Not that it’s all roses for Ticketmaster—yet.
Growth and change always involve, well, growing pains,
and while goodwill for the company is building, it will take
some time to shed the unfortunate reputation of being the
company that “everyone loves to hate.” Ticketmaster made
embarrassing headlines in the fi rst month of 2013 after
prematurely announcing the sale of the president’s Inaugural
Ball and selling out a day early as a result, disappointing
thousands. But as the biggest online seller of tickets for
everything from golf tournaments to operas to theater to
rock concerts, and with Hubbard’s more customer-friendly
focus, Ticketmaster should have plenty of opportunity to
repent their mistakes.
Question:
1. Identify the problems that Ticketmaster was facing, usingcause and effect analysis. What were the Symptomatic Effects? Whatwere the Underlying Causes?
2. What process(es) did Nathan Hubbard use to GenerateAlternatives? What alternatives were available to Mr. Hubbard? Whattypes of Uncertainty did he experience?
