CEO & Co-Founder, SeatGeek
SeatGeek CEO on Concert Demand, Sky-High Ticket Prices, and Ticketmaster's Lawsuit
Jack Groetzinger, CEO of SeatGeek, breaks down the most popular concerts of 2024 from Taylor Swift to Morgan Wallen.
About Jack Groetzinger
Jack Groetzinger, co-founder and CEO of SeatGeek, has been a vocal critic of Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation, arguing that the company maintains a monopoly in the live event ticketing industry. In a December 2024 appearance on CNBC's "Squawk Box," Groetzinger said that the Department of Justice's lawsuit against Live Nation was warranted, stating that SeatGeek has had "a front row seat to the illegal behavior." He claimed that Ticketmaster controls roughly 80% of the market and that Live Nation uses its control over concert promotion to pressure venues into using Ticketmaster, saying "venues fear losing Live Nation concerts if they don't use Ticketmaster." Groetzinger has called for structural remedies, specifically the dissolution of the common ownership of Ticketmaster and Live Nation, arguing that "behavioral remedies cannot solve the problems inherent in an anti-competitive merger." Groetzinger has also advocated for greater price transparency in the ticketing industry. In December 2023, he participated in a White House announcement where ticketing companies committed to showing all-in pricing upfront, saying "we are major believers in transparency and knowing what you will pay." He has described SeatGeek as a technology company focused on improving the fan experience, noting that the company has signed dozens of major venues as clients by building better technology. Regarding ticket prices, Groetzinger has said that high prices are driven by supply and demand, noting that for events like Taylor Swift concerts, "there's probably 10x or 20x more people who would want to see her perform live versus can actually go." He has also expressed skepticism about using blockchain for ticketing, arguing that live events are inherently centralized because venues ultimately control access.
Transcript (38 segments)
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Nora Ali0:03
Hello everyone, welcome to Public. I'm Nora Ali, and pleased to be joined by the CEO of SeatGeek, Jack Groetzinger. Jack, great to have you with us today.
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Jack Groetzinger0:13
Thanks for having me, good to be here.
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Nora Ali0:15
A lot of exciting things to get to, a fun topic: concerts, events, the push towards live experiences. So this year, obviously a really incredible lineup of performances from Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, Chappell Roan, Taylor Swift, a lot of powerful popular female artists, which is very exciting. So what are some of the most notable demand trends you've seen unfold for SeatGeek specifically?
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Jack Groetzinger0:43
You mentioned one, which is really strong growth among female artists. And what's interesting is we actually saw something similar with women's sports, specifically in the WNBA with Caitlin Clark. We had a huge increase in the prices we saw for WNBA games. And then when you look at the top performances of this year, it was Taylor Swift, Adele, Rodrigo, Carpenter, a lot of incredible female acts. And in general, we saw this year overall as more of a return to normal growth pre-COVID, whereas the past few years have been this whiplash back of incredible growth since COVID. But that said, expect next year, based on what's already being announced and what the industry expects to be announced, to be a huge year, and in some ways back to that COVID whiplash growth that we saw over the last few years.
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Nora Ali1:36
Is there a hypothesis as to why we're going to see even more of that growth? Are people really leaning into live experiences several years after the pandemic? What is the intuition there?
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Jack Groetzinger1:47
Yeah, some of it was just the physical constraints on the entertainment industry's ability to put on events, and that was really taxed for several years coming out of COVID. Inflation increasing the prices of all sorts of constituent parts that go into putting on a live event. Some of it's also just the randomness of when a major artist books a tour, and that is a bit unpredictable. If you had Taylor Swift and Beyoncé last year, that led to a ton of growth, then Taylor goes to Europe and we see less sales from her this year. But there should be a number of huge acts touring next year.
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Nora Ali2:23
What were some of the more surprising trends that you saw in live events over the past year?
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Jack Groetzinger2:30
One big one has just been people buying more last-minute. And that has increased over time. We saw new record levels this year. We saw about 40% for when it comes to concert tickets — about 40% bought within the week prior to an event, and around 20%, I think it's 18%, bought the day of. So increasingly fans waiting until the last minute. We see that in particular in major cities where there's a lot more last-minute buying, versus in less dense areas it's a little bit more spread out rather than being right before the event. Another trend is the sort of bifurcation of price, where on one hand there is a big focus on premium experiences and these once-in-a-lifetime moments where people are willing to spend really whatever it takes to go see Taylor Swift or their favorite artist. So you see sort of a stretching at the high end of the price range, but also a stretching at the low end where if you want to go for under $100 or under $50, it's more possible than ever to do that. And there are a ton of prices that in some cases are selling below face value and can be really affordable for fans.
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Nora Ali3:34
You mentioned female artists and women's sports as well as a theme. What has been one of the most popular genres of music for ticket sales this past year?
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Jack Groetzinger3:41
Rock and pop tend to dominate, and this year was no exception.
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Nora Ali3:49
Nothing different then? Yeah, no shockers there.
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Jack Groetzinger3:51
More of the same, yeah.
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Nora Ali3:53
Makes sense. So in the world of sports, you mentioned WNBA. What has really changed the most in terms of the demand for sports overall? What are the themes you're seeing there?
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Jack Groetzinger4:02
Sports tends to be more predictable than concerts, for sort of obvious reasons. Every sports league is going to play its season and have the same number of games. In baseball this year, we saw a ton of demand for the playoffs, which I think were particularly exciting and had this dream matchup of the Yankees and the Dodgers. That same premium trend I was talking about with music very much applies to sports, where you see more and more teams creating an elevated experience where obviously seeing the game is part of it, but so is the food, the entertainment, everything sort of surrounding going to a game, and people paying up to do that.
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Nora Ali4:40
Makes sense. So on the topic of ticket pricing, going back to Taylor Swift, one of her tour stops soon is Vancouver. Ticket prices there start at $2,100 for her December 6 show. Concert prices jumped by 23% in 2023 and 19% from 2019 to 2022. You mentioned some of the changes in demand, but what do you think is really contributing to this jump in ticket prices?
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Jack Groetzinger5:10
One thing I note to start off: we actually saw a bit of decline this year, so prices are down about 8%. To your point, I think that's a little bit of normalization, just because they were up so much last year that there's a bit of mean reversion there. It's kind of interesting when you think about a live event. I don't know if you've been to a Taylor Swift concert — I went to one in Miami, fortunately. It's, you know, calling it a concert sort of does it a disservice. It is as produced and well-orchestrated as any Broadway play I've seen. And the AV associated with that, the number of performers. If you think about it as a product, you're literally getting a product that is worth more, has much more investment into it, and as a result people are willing to pay more. Versus, imagine Pearl Jam plugging some guitars into amps and playing — and that's great too, and I love shows like that — but when you think about why people are willing to pay more, I think part of it is the actual experience itself. It's unlike anything that existed 20, 30 years ago. And also, coming out of COVID, many people, myself included, really realized how important being with other people and experiencing things that are unique are worth spending money on. That's a durable trend. We've seen particularly among younger buyers a preference for spending on experiences over goods. Concerts and games are an amazing way to do that.
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Nora Ali6:30
How does social media play into it? Because I have not been to a Taylor Swift concert, but I've seen plenty of clips on TikTok and Sabrina Carpenter concert clips, and I feel a desire to go to concerts more than ever because I'm exposed to it in this relatively new way. How has social media played into that demand?
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Jack Groetzinger6:51
I think it absolutely contributes. It's in some ways a nice way where you can get a better understanding of what you're buying and not be surprised, and it obviously serves as a free form of advertising for artists as well. I think it has this nice incentive feedback loop where people who have a great time are going to post about that on social media and express that, and then those concerts are going to get even more traction.
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Nora Ali7:15
Definitely. Going back to prices a little bit more: scalpers or ticket resellers, whatever the terminology you want to use, have been a bit of a burden on ticket prices. For example, Taylor Swift tickets sold at their highest range of $449 for US shows last year — that's regular tickets — but the average scalper ticket sold for nearly $4,000, and that's according to Vox. And SeatGeek allows users to sell tickets on its marketplace platform. Are there steps being taken to ensure that consumers aren't getting taken advantage of, or what is your overall viewpoint on these super high prices from ticket resellers?
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Jack Groetzinger7:55
Yeah, I think we see the prices increasing substantially in the primary market as well, and that's reflected in the secondary market. And I think in both cases, it's the market establishing a market-clearing price for the reasons we were talking about earlier. There's a ton of demand to see an artist like Taylor Swift, and prices are high as a result, particularly because supply is constrained. No matter that she's played an incredible number of shows and the venues are large, there's still probably 10x, 20x or more people who would want to see Taylor perform live versus can actually go, and that naturally drives the price up. But I think in a way, it makes it ultimately more accessible for fans everywhere who otherwise would be subjected to the randomness of who happens to grab a ticket at the on-sale versus not, and determining if they could go.
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Nora Ali8:47
Yeah. There's also the notion of dynamic pricing. Coldplay had recently received some heat over this for utilizing dynamic pricing for their concert tickets. What is dynamic pricing, first of all, in the context of concert tickets?
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Jack Groetzinger9:00
Yeah, dynamic pricing is something that we as consumers are all very used to in many contexts. In the same way that an airline does not publish a price for a route for the whole year and just keep it at that price, they move it based on demand and the weather and who knows what else. It is artists doing the same thing. And in some ways, it is the live entertainment industry catching up with what most other industries have already been doing. Importantly, and I think this gets lost often, it is not just about moving prices up. In many cases, it's actually moving prices down. An artist wants a full venue; they want to play to a ton of fans who are really excited. They don't want to have the upper rafters empty because prices were too high. So in some cases, if there's excess demand, it moves pricing up. In some cases, if it's a large venue and demand is lower than expected, it might be moving pricing down. We see that on both ends.
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Nora Ali9:49
Do you think this is a net good thing?
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Jack Groetzinger9:50
Yeah, I think there's a reason that most industries work this way. It's because it ultimately allows the marketplace to be more efficient, more people to go to more shows, versus the arbitrariness of picking a price before we have a look at demand, before the industry or the artist has a look at demand, and just living with that decision until the concert happens.
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Nora Ali10:11
Playing into more natural organic market movements.
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Jack Groetzinger10:13
Yeah, it's about creating a fair marketplace and balancing accessibility and value.
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Nora Ali10:19
Zooming out to the industry overall: Ticketmaster's parent Live Nation was sued earlier this year by the DOJ over its dominance of the concert industry. Just from your perspective, how does a suit like this impact SeatGeek, and what would more competition actually mean for consumers and for pricing overall?
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Jack Groetzinger10:39
Yeah, we at SeatGeek and myself have long said that there's a real structural problem in this industry, and that breaking up Live Nation-Ticketmaster will do a great deal to improve the industry for all the stakeholders: for fans, for artists, for venues, for teams. There were a ton of issues that faced the ecosystem, and I think many consumers are familiar with them: lack of transparency, bad technology, rough user experiences. And I think a lot of those exist because there has not been competition. It's a sort of Econ 101 argument to point out that when you get competition, you generally get more innovation and better results for consumers. So I can understand why a monopolist might not want that, but I think it's better for everyone else. And we were really happy to see the Department of Justice take that step.
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Nora Ali11:22
What are some of the user experiences that you think need the most improvement? Because just following along on social media, having to wait in queue when tickets go on sale, websites crashing, can be really strenuous. So what do you think needs the most improvement?
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Jack Groetzinger11:36
You just mentioned a few of the most important ones. The on-sale moment is a really stressful one, and it's one that I think is still stuck a little bit in the past, just because it feels random. You see a queue and oh shoot, your browser reloaded and all of a sudden you got kicked back. Transferability is another one: if I'm going to an event with some friends, or if I can't go and I sell the ticket to a friend, it is much more difficult to just literally give them the ticket than it should be. And another one is the actual experience at the event could be so much better. The app you use, the ticket that you use to get in, could allow you to buy food and beverage and unlock other experiences once you're there in a way that we really don't yet see happening across most of the industry. At SeatGeek, we have some products that try to do that. A whole part of our product called Rally is all about in-venue experience. But we are now one of the only companies out there competing to offer stuff like that, because we've been able to win some major venues in the United States, which we're really happy about. But I would welcome a lot more competition and a lot more people competing to do that as well. The issue right now is because the industry is set up in a way that is not right for competition, there's not enough of it, and hopefully that will change.
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Nora Ali12:54
And when you think about improved user experiences en masse, some that comes to mind very clearly is AI, artificial intelligence. How do you think AI is going to impact the industry, and what is SeatGeek doing to embrace that?
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Jack Groetzinger13:05
Yeah, it's a good question, because live events are inherently tethered to reality and not digital in a way that's perhaps less obvious how AI will completely change what it is like going to a live event. And I kind of hope it doesn't. I think live events are magical, incredible things, and technology should empower people to experience it more fully, versus be the experience itself. We use machine learning for all sorts of things within SeatGeek, like being better at customer service and more efficient, helping to price tickets efficiently so that more fans can go. But when you look at the actual experience from a fan's perspective of attending a live event, I don't think AI will have any kind of major reshaping effect on that. I sort of hope it doesn't.
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Nora Ali13:55
Makes sense. Lastly, let's just talk about 2025 and the years ahead. What events, music genres, trends, what are you seeing and what are you most looking forward to for the next year?
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Jack Groetzinger14:07
There's a lot. I mentioned some major tours already been announced — some of the big ones you mentioned: Coldplay, The Eagles, Aerosmith, Metallica, Shakira — those have already been announced. I think you'll continue to see a lot more announcements for arena tours specifically in December and into next year. It should be a huge year for live entertainment and for the music industry.
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Nora Ali14:32
I said lastly, but really quick: following up in terms of embracing new technologies. There was a lot of talk about leveraging the blockchain or using NFTs for ticketing. Is that something you're seeing? Is that something that SeatGeek is looking into?
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Jack Groetzinger14:48
I don't think it is an effective way to distribute tickets. And the reason for that is because part of the thesis for putting tickets on the blockchain is the decentralization of power, or not having a single point of control or a single point of failure. The reality is, for a live event there is a single point, which is the venue itself. Someone has to ultimately be there deciding if people get in or not. So I've always struggled with the notion of putting tickets on the blockchain in some sort of permissionless way, when ultimately you're still going to a venue which, for safety, security, and all sorts of reasons, is going to be the one that decides who gets in and who doesn't. It is inherently a centralized experience. It really can't be detached from that.
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Nora Ali15:29
Makes sense. All right, Jack, thank you so much again for joining us. Jack Groetzinger is the CEO of SeatGeek. We appreciate your time.
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Jack Groetzinger15:37
Thanks a lot, Nora.