Stealing Back the Scalpers’ Playbook with Randy Nichols
- Eric Doades
- Jul 17
- 25 min read
Today we have a fascinating conversation with Randy Nichols, artist manager and CEO of Force Media Management. Randy’s been at the forefront of attempting to figure out the ticketing strategy math, especially the scalper side of the equation. We hear about his dive into the cold hard data, scalper chat rooms, and that time he sent someone undercover to the Ticket Scalpers Convention. We also talk about the allure of the “super fan” and why that is… baloney. Also we get into merch, and the general state of live music today.
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Episode Transcript
Machine transcribed
Dmitri: [00:00:00] Randy Nichols is an artist manager at Fly South Music Group and founder of Force Media Management. He's known for building and managing the careers of globally recognized artists, including Underoath, Say Anything and Bayside. These are clients that have earned gold records, Grammy nominations, and generated tens of millions in merchandise sales. I've wanted to talk to Randy because of his innovative work in direct to fan engagement, ticketing and digital strategy, bridging artist advocacy with scalable infrastructure. Randy also serves on the board of the National Independent Talent Organization, where he leads national advocacy efforts to combat the ticket scalping industry.
And Randy's advised and invested in leading music tech companies such as Bands in Town and at Venue, which recently achieved a 200 million plus dollar exit to Sixth Street. So totally relevant to the music tectonics audience. Not only that, he has a portfolio of advisory clients, including Immensity an AI powered music Data Studio Propeller, a digital [00:01:00] platform driving social impact through culture and quant, a stealth mode AI data.
Product for live events. Lots to talk about here. Welcome to the show, Randy.
Randy: Hey, thanks for having me. always fun chatting with you and excited to do this with some others listening.
Dmitri: Nice. Awesome. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. I've definitely been following along not only with your career, but also kind of the work you do around advocacy in the industry and that's one of the big reasons I wanted to talk to you. Hey, let's dive in. How would you describe the state of live music today in terms of its health, its cultural impact, and the live music economy?
Randy: You know, it's, that's a really big question, because culture and economy don't necessarily always align. But
Dmitri: True, true.
Randy: And as far as health of the industry is also interesting because you have the behemoths of the industry, be it Live Nation, AEG, or the budding behemoth that not many people talk about in the States [00:02:00] currently CTS Eventim, who's a massive promoter and ticketing company in Europe, you have these giant entities who are doing great. And you know, you have the indies who are struggling a little bit more. So, and on, on the artist side you have the same thing. You have the superstars who for the most part are doing great.
Every year you're gonna see an article about one or two major headliners that aren't selling tickets. Maybe had to cancel a tour, downgrade a tour, and everyone will say the sky is falling. But you know, it's kind of the same thing every year. There's a couple of people struggling, but overall the health of the industry feels good, but there's more that can be done to protect both independence and just the up and coming.
People within the industry as well.
Dmitri: Hey, that's interesting to think about, the disaggregation of it's not all the same for all the players. It is what you're saying about the independence. [00:03:00] Different from in the past. I mean, were independents kind of left on their own. They could develop within a small market, not being touched by some bigger players.
or are there more independents out there now that are just giving it a go?
Randy: You know when you talk about independent promoters, if you go back, the beginning of my career 20, 25 years ago, all the promoters were independents and each promoter in their own city. I. Kind of had a monopoly over their city to some degree, although there was one or two other promoters.
you know, if you looked at Chicago was Jam Presents San Francisco, it was Bill Graham presents New York. It was. Ner Slater and could go on and on and everywhere in the country. And then they all formed under one roof as SFX was rolled up like 20 plus years ago, which became Live Nation.
And one of the problems with that concept for. Other promoters is the economies [00:04:00] of scale that these huge companies can earn makes it a lot more difficult for an independent promoter to compete. And I'll, I'll give you an example. The biggest thing is the independent promoters make most of their money the way all promoters always made their money as a promoter, selling tickets, maybe parking, food, and beverage at the venue.
But with Live Nation, they're selling advertising. They're doing deals with Coca-Cola to sell Coca-Cola across their venues. They own, one of the biggest ticketing companies in the world where you know that revenue is all used to support the company, which basically means they can make lower margins on the concerts where there's a lot of competition.
Higher margins in other areas like advertising where there isn't competition. And I'm, I'm not one to speak to, you know, the Justice departments obviously [00:05:00] investigating all this, and honestly, I'm not a monopoly expert or an antitrust expert. I don't know what the answers are, and I'm not one to start taking shots and say that they're definitely evil or what they're doing is illegal.
But what I can tell you is. That structure makes it harder for some competing promoters. But what I'll also say is that system can be really good for the artists though too, because you have a company that's making money from other areas that now doesn't need to worry about the margin as much on the event, which means the artist can walk out with more money.
So there's just, there's so many sides to the argument, which is why I very much wanted to add that caveat that I, I'm not simply attacking the huge companies that have these economies of scale because there, there's just a lot of questions and you look at AEG who has built economies of scale and as I said, CTS Eventim in [00:06:00] Europe.
it's tough for the Indies, but it's not just one company that's crushing them.
Dmitri: Randy, that's really interesting context, both in terms of the history that you told about how everybody started out as an independent, but then,amalgamating into this like larger entities and then that kind of shifts the dynamics of those relationships and the opportunities for the independence and.
Certain income offsetting could have a negative impact, it could have a positive impact as well. so that, that's really valuable. and I think you just crystallized it so well, it's exactly why we want, wanted to have you on the podcast to sort of help us get there quickly in terms of like what's actually happening in terms of this economy and the impact of these kind of relationships and shifts.
Maybe this is part of the answer, but what do you see as the biggest challenges in live music today?
Randy: I think one of the biggest challenges is ticket price, and there's a lot of factors that come into it, from super high fees that upset fans. To scalpers, hoovering up tickets and reselling them later to then [00:07:00] artists trying to figure out what to do because somebody else is taking a large portion of the gross from their shows and pocketing it.
So then they start raising the prices to remove the margins for the scalpers, which in theory makes sense, but the fan is the one who loses in all these things. So that, I think just pricing in general just becomes a really big problem across the board, just in, in so many facets.
Dmitri: Yeah. I wanna get into ticket scalping, but first let me just understand a little bit about what you're saying. pricing doesn't just include scalping. You're really saying there's just so many players involved. It's hard for both fans and artists to even understand how much they should be paying or at what point they should be paying, or how much they're paying.
Randy: I'll give a good example here and like to go back what you asked about the health of the industry. This kind of dives into that too, is nobody really wants to [00:08:00] talk about the truth. Everybody wants to talk up their side of the argument versus
Dmitri: Hmm.
Randy: drilling down to what the problem is. How to find solutions.
And one of the issues that I'm working hard on right now, and you know, ticket scalping is hard. This one's probably 10 times harder. And that is, we've had over the past 30 years, artists, we're constantly looking to get more money for our apps, be it one, we deserve it, we work hard. They're the ones on stage that bring the people in, but also they're making less money from record sales in other areas.
So they, they need the revenue. So they have leverage with promoters and they fought to get more and more of the guarantee, more and more of the gross as their guarantee. So what's happened over the years is as artists get a larger share of the gross promoters need to protect their downside, and they invented the ticket fee.
The ticket [00:09:00] fee started about 30 years ago when a gentleman named Fred Rosen ran Ticketmaster. That could be, five hour interview in itself about that, but we'll just say he invented the ticket fee. And the ticket fee. Ultimately, it goes to the promoter, it goes to the venue. in some rare instances could end up in the artist's pocket as well.
But these fees are not something that's just going back into Ticketmaster's coffers. You know, they, they do get their share. Don't get me wrong. I'm not here to defend them. But this fee was invented to protect the promoter's downside. And because of that then the artist side is fighting for even more money.
And again, this is where the fan loses. Because you buy a ticket now for $50 and there's $30 in fees. In reality, most of that, let's say 20 something dollars of that is really the ticket price just worked in as fees. And then you know, a [00:10:00] couple of those dollars of only to the ticketing company to cover their fees for running a ticketing company.
And what I'd love to see happen, and this is a huge challenge. But all the fees disappear. And rather than, they're not gonna just go away. That's what the fan wants to see. But it's not reality. But they just need to all be factored into the ticket price. So if an artist was making 85% of the gross, they probably should make 75% of the gross.
And that money that were fees. Should now be factored into the actual ticket price, and it just makes a more enjoyable experience for a fan. Nothing makes us more angry when we go to buy a ticket and see that the majority of the cost is in a fee. And we need to actually do something about it. And recently the Biden administration had passed this fee transparency, where now you see the fee broken out when you buy your ticket at the end, rather than at the [00:11:00] front in this drip pricing model.
But at the end of the day, we're all staring at a fee. And I think we need to remove this concept of fees and move into these more transparent deals and live music. Nobody's hiding revenue, and it's all on the table and it's all appropriately shared.
Dmitri: So you're saying the fee is really obfuscating a negotiation process,somebody pushed for one, a little more percentage here, or maybe a lot more percentage here, and then the fee got added on and grew specifically to offset the negotiation. That happened in the original deal.
Randy: Pretty much that's the story. The best way to explain this is most deals for artists are structured as what we'll call a sellout deal, and most shows don't actually sell out. So three or $4 of every ticket is going directly into the promoter's pocket outside of this deal that's negotiated with [00:12:00] the artist, and it's just their downside protection.
And to go a step further, the way that this system was created 30 years ago by Fred Rosen is ticketing previously was designed as a way where it was an expense for promoters. Fred Rosen and Ticketmaster 30 years ago turned it into a revenue stream for promoters, and they said, instead of paying us a dollar 50 a ticket to sell your ticket, we'll pay you $3 to sell your ticket.
And I'll take a buck 50 from it and everybody wins. But in reality, the fan paid for it. And then as. Artists guarantees grew as venue expenses grew. These fees just increased and increased. And what the ticketing companies do, and this isn't just Ticketmaster like, to be clear again, it's every major ticketing company, they pay advances to venues for the right to sell their [00:13:00] tickets.
And then that advance is paid back, on a couple of dollars per ticket. So ticketing companies are really giant banks loaning venues money to keep the lights on at, very extreme interest rates.
Dmitri: Wow, man. You're just breaking it down so clearly, and we've already put off the ticket scalping conversation, but we gotta talk about it. How did you get involved in the fight against ticket scalping and tell us more about the nuance of what's happening in that area.
Randy: So I'll start at the very, very beginning, but I'll fast forward quickly. When I was in high school and even junior high school, I would camp out to buy concert tickets overnight at my local Ticketmaster on Long Island. And you know what would happen is I'd be the first or second in line I'd walk inside.
The Ticketmaster printer is just printing nonstop, and if I was lucky, I might get one pair of tickets. I was just like, how the hell is this possible? He's got a stack of tickets on his desk in here. [00:14:00] Nobody's picking them up and they're telling me it's sold out. And that just pissed me off then. And I was like, this company's just a front for organized crime or some kind of criminals just ripping people off.
And that started my frustration many years ago, and as years went on, I've been working in the industry and I've always knew it was a problem, but over the last couple of years, I really wanted to understand it better. And what I've seen previously is everybody screams and yells and says, the ticket scalpers are assholes.
They're ripping us off, but nobody's really trying to learn and understand what they're doing. And I did a couple of things. I started befriending scalpers. I started getting into groups that scalpers hang out in online. And I really wanted to understand them. And there's the old saying, there's no honor in thieves.
And in talking to a lot of these ticket scalpers, they will [00:15:00] all trash talk the people who are doing things that are worse than what they're doing. So I learned a ton. And then last year I've been so vocal against scalpers. I realized I couldn't be the person to do this, but last year we sent someone from the National Independent Talent Organization.
To the National Ticket Scalpers Convention, and that's called like the National Association of Ticket Brokers Conference, and we sent someone there to report back what was going on. And through that I began to really understand the products that people use. The high quality data products they have. And what I really started doing was, rather than just complaining that these tools exist, I started using them, started understanding how much money they're making, how they're distributing their tickets, how they use data to better price tickets, [00:16:00] and realize, you know, for one thing, they're significantly. more advanced than the primary side and the legitimate players in the industry are. But what was great that I started doing is finding their data reports and then pulling reports and then sharing them with legislators and, the district attorneys and the Department of Justice and saying, here's their data.
This is how they're operating their business. This is what's available to their clients, This is what needs to be dealt with. And it changed the narrative significantly to these legislators when it went from somebody coming in and saying, these people are bad, and their side coming in and saying they're good to us, using their own data against them.
Dmitri: What? So what did the data show?
Randy: for instance, one of the things that they actually do is they go in and tell legislators that they're saving customers money, that they're actually there to help people get [00:17:00] into events for cheaper, and there is some truth to what they're saying. And what I'll share, as part of their argument is take a baseball team that's not playing very well, which is every year, statistically half of them are, bad teams, if not more.
And they each play 162 games a year. A lot of those tickets don't sell. So those tickets ended up distributed on the scalper platforms and they sell significantly below face value. So they aggregate all of that data and then show, look how much money we've saved the consumer. When they pull those reports, they leave out the Beyonce and the Taylor Swift tours and they just show their failing sports events to show how they're saving people so much money.
And I was able to go in and get access to these tools from multiple companies. There's, you know at least a dozen different data companies out there that you can access this [00:18:00] data through and show them real numbers from real events of what was actually happening. for instance, the Cure, when they played New York City, the scalpers were grossing around 500,000 per show on their shows at Madison Square Garden.
And band was playing on low ticket prices. The scalpers as a whole probably made a larger profit than the Cure, made certainly more money than any individual band member made.
Dmitri: Wow. so where should things be going in terms of, addressing the issue of ticket scalping as well as the larger issue of pricing you were talking about earlier?
Randy: So on the pricing side, what artists have done is they're the scalpers argued for many years. We're a legitimate business. Artists don't know how to price, and there's inaccuracies in the marketplace, and we are fixing those, Pricing inaccuracies by buying up the tickets and selling them at a at [00:19:00] market rate.
So what artists are doing now is they're listing their tickets more often at market rate, which makes it harder for scalpers to make a profit, but it means that the fan is paying more. What really needs to happen, in addition to that, is laws that begin to block scalpers from making huge profits. We need to allow fans to be able to resell a ticket.
Like I understand you buy a ticket, you can't go to an event, but there are these multi-billion dollar private equity backed industries who are using high tech tools to get the tickets before the fans, and then creating a marketplace. And they're, the only way you could describe it is they're unregulated equities because these, you know, these huge companies, they're shorting shows, they're selling tickets at a high price, and then they're [00:20:00] waiting for the price to drop closer to the show date and fulfilling those orders.
So it's literally the equivalent of shorting a stock. And that type of activities need to change. And you know what a lot of people have been saying and I've heard, even like guys like Kid Rock who are in the White House with Trump, he said, I'm a Republican, but we need regulation in this area.
I. You're like, I actually disagree and say, we actually need deregulation around ticketing because artists and event holders don't have the right to make decisions about their own product because the scalpers have created these laws to protect them, that allow these marketplaces to exist. What we really need is a law that says if you're an artist and you're throwing an event. They're your ticket. They're the artist's property, and they issue a license to the fan to allow them to come to the event. And if our events were operated like that, you wouldn't have these [00:21:00] massive secondary markets.
Dmitri: Wow, that's amazing. It's so wild to get into the detail. 'cause once you get to the point where you've actually gone to the Ticket Scalpers convention and you've grabbed the data, you actually have some understanding that the entire industry or the legislators didn't have before. So this is absolutely fascinating and I'm sure groundbreaking information for our listeners, Randy.
Randy: something that I, I'd encourage people to go and look for these companies. People could reach out to me or do your research because there's a lot we can all learn to better operate our own businesses, because at the end of the day, it's the reason that you and I have connected too is like, I'm a data geek.
I'm a music tech guy more than the ticket scalper guy, and I've just. Discover the data and it's exciting. There's so much that we can do to empower talent with that data.
Dmitri: Speaking of which, there's a lot more you and I can talk about, but we have to take a quick break. When we come back, I want to talk to you about the whole idea of fandom direct to fan relationships, merch, because you're not just a ticket guy. [00:22:00] We'll be right back. All right, we're back. Randy, as a manager, I'm sure you're very involved with the evolving conversations around fandom and direct to fan relationships, including around the financial relationship there.
First, let's talk about merch. How important is merch in artist careers, and what are the emerging trends and innovations in that space?
Randy: So merch, you know, from my acts, is probably the most important piece of their business. I've made more money over my career from merchandise than any other area of the industry. And you know, one, one thing I want to touch on, and you didn't say the buzzword that everybody says, so I'm just gonna say it anyway, and everybody talks about the super fan now.
And in my opinion, the super fan is the biggest bullshit saying out there because to any developing artist or just real artist who's out there hustling at any level from when they get started through to, a-list super stardom, [00:23:00] the that core fan who loves the artist was always there. This isn't a new concept.
What's happened over the last couple of years is the major labels have really discovered the value of the artist's biggest fan, and now they're trying to build an ecosystem to monetize those fans and the successful artists you look at, you know, the Grateful Dead is a great example of the super fan.
They've been monetizing their fans in a respectful fashion for, over 50 years. Nowadays you have these labels coming in to try to do the same thing, but worrying about investors' bottom line, and you're just, you're never gonna get it right when you're viewing it like that.
Dmitri: Yeah. I, I guess the other question is, are there any other emerging trends in innovations. you're saying this concept of a super fan, you've got some problems with that phrase or, or how it's being used now.
And I'm just curious to hear more about any other emerging trends or innovations that you think [00:24:00] are, actually having an impact around, both merch and fandom. I.
Randy: I wouldn't even call them emergent trends so much as just getting better at running these businesses. Like I feel like most artists are now using Shopify to run our online stores. There's an entire Shopify ecosystem of apps that a lot of people haven't fully discovered. That you can use to better run your stores.
And then, like one platform, and again, this isn't cutting edge technology because it's another publicly traded company, but the company Klaviyo, who builds communication tools with customers for your stores, like tools like that are so essential. Like for my artists, we build flows in Klaviyo where fans do certain actions in the Shopify store.
They will see certain results and it allows us to better communicate with our fans. I'll give a great example. A couple of [00:25:00] years ago during COVID, we did live streams for my artist Underoath to help, keep the lights on during COVID. And we did vinyl reissues of a bunch of records, mercury issues, and then live streams for core records of the band's catalog. What I used Klaviyo for in that moment was we put a bunch of these records up for sale fans immediately bought the records 'cause they were highly in demand at a print for a long time, but didn't buy the live streams. So I immediately was able to pull a query in Klaviyo to show me how many people bought the live stream but didn't buy the vinyl.
And that was, Not a great number. Then I was able to do the opposite and say how many bought the vinyl but not the live stream. And it was massive. And we were doing three different live streams over three weeks. So I did something where if you bought the vinyl that showed, you were obviously a big fan, you gave us a chunk of money.
I offered them an extreme discount [00:26:00] to watch the first live stream because I knew that we were offering an amazing product for all three events. So anyone who already spent money with us, I was able to with the click of one button. Pull a list of those customers and then offer them a special deal. And what we did then, after the show, we knew the show was a huge success.
two days later we sent an offer that said if you buy the next two shows, we'll you know, lower the price a little bit because you already bought the first one. And it was just a way to engage fans, but, and there's so many different things that you could use with Klaviyo. It's just using tools like this are just so important to understanding who your customer is and then rewarding them and also not bothering them with marketing as well, to remove them from marketing is almost, more important than, rewarding at times.
Dmitri: right. If you segment it correctly, you're hitting them with the right message for their [00:27:00] particular situation.
Randy: Yeah. Exactly.
Dmitri: what are some of the tech and innovations you keep an eye on in live music and artist fan relationships beyond some of these nuts and bolts things that, or, or maybe, it's all nuts and bolts, I don't know.
but are there other kind of innovations that are emerging in your areas of expertise that you're keeping an eye on?
Randy: I mean, I like the companies like Openstage and there's others who have their hand in different pieces. You have seated who are doing interesting things or Laylo, but as a general area, I like this idea of understanding who your fans are and being able to. Activate and reward them. And you know, with Openstage is a great example of that.
And there's a bunch of other companies that are building similar tools. To really view the artist's, fans, fandom, and make sure when you're putting a show on sale, to go back to my scalper conversation earlier, [00:28:00] to make sure that we get the tickets in the hands of the people who have taken multiple actions and Ticketmaster a few years ago, tried this with their verified fan platform.
They had varying levels of success and failure in it. And I think one of the biggest flaws of it, and it's one of those things you're not really gonna realize till after the fact, is it was rewarding people for taking action in the moment. And what's great about a lot of these tools that are coming around now is they can look back and see what have you done over the last few years as artists are building their own tech stack around their career.
You can really view how people have interacted with an artist over the years and then reward them based on their level of interaction. And that type of tool I find really interesting. I also am intrigued with AI tools that we can use to better understand, how to market to fans. for instance, I'm involved [00:29:00] with this company called Immensity.
Where they're using AI and machine learning to analyze paid ad campaigns on the social platforms. And, but what we're analyzing is actual impact on DSPs, where most people are looking at engagement from an ad campaign, and in my opinion, whether it's direct to consumer. Or streams, whatever it may be.
Engagement is pointless because if I put a picture of a hot guy or a pretty girl, you're gonna see engagement. What I want to measure is action. And what I love about what a amenity is doing is they can track that you ran an ad campaign and your streams increased. X number and then can tell you which platform it was responding on and how to realign your ad campaign.
And a great example I use is Underoath, who is an older rock band. We don't really have a [00:30:00] strong TikTok fan base, as you'd imagine for rock band, where their fans are in their thirties and forties. So we ran ad campaigns on Facebook, meta, Twitter, Google, TikTok. We saw the best return on investment on TikTok, which we never would've expected, but TikTok was significantly driving more streams to the DSPs.
So we flip flopped our ED campaign to heavily weight a platform that we weren't gonna spend barely anything on because our fans just aren't there and aren't reacting. But we found that it was an unbelievable place to surface new fans. And using technology to find things like that, I find really exciting.
Dmitri: Well, it's interesting as you talk about the different innovations you're keeping an eye on, a lot of it seems related to, feeling less like you're broadcasting either to old fans or to a broad audience to try to convert. But really to understand the nuances of those [00:31:00] segments, which to me feels like a trend that we're seeing.
In society that's broader is towards personalization. People talk about there's gonna be more and more personalization. in a way, could you say that the segmentation and the data you get to give you the ability to segmentation is on the path to personalization for marketing.
Randy: Yeah, it definitely is personalization and part of that goal is. when you're working with an artist who's been around for a long time, the goal is to surface new music to old fans. Quite often we don't want to hear the new record, like fans' least favorite thing to hear at a show is, and now listen to one of our new songs and you see everyone's back and they go to the bathroom.
So the idea is how can you use this data? Of all these different segments and figure out how to introduce new music to these different groups of people. And some fans want to engage one way, while others, another way. And it's trying to figure out and understand that base to find the best way to get them to engage with something that they [00:32:00] would appreciate if they gave it the time of day.
Dmitri: Nice. this is so cool to hear your perspective as somebody who works directly with artists as a manager, and I know you get. Pitched on and try out a lot of different platforms and music tech startups. I'm curious, can you share what are some of the pitfalls that music tech startups get wrong from your perspective as this band manager and someone who's involved in live music?
Randy: Yeah, it's funny, I always describe these, wide-eyed tech entrepreneurs that come into music is you regularly. Are people coming in the room fixing problems that aren't problems. And what's great though, is a large portion of these people, they're really smart men and women, and they listen and they learn, and they pivot their products to fit what we actually need.
But you know, one of the big pitfalls though, is you have some people with ego who just come in and believe that their idea is right. [00:33:00] And they don't wanna listen to anyone, and they bring a product to market that no one's interested in. And one of the biggest areas that I've seen fail time and time again for over 20 years now, is a platform to help undiscovered artists get discovered.
I've just found that those platforms, no fan is actively going out and searching for their new favorite band. They're excited when they discover their new favorite band, but they're not going to a community to discover that. They may go to their existing communities and discover that, and they're excited by it, but they're not going to a new platform that is only about that.
And what you end up with is these massive repositories of artists who are trying to build a career. That are listening to other artists who are trying to build a career, and it [00:34:00] becomes, just a service to take a couple of bucks a month from an artist who wants to be discovered. And that's a huge pitfall.
I feel like I will continue for another 20 years to have people pitch me some version of that idea.
Dmitri: All right. I've got one last question for you, Randy. This is, I feel like we've covered a lot of topics here, but I just wanna give you, another chance as you look through emerging. Music innovations. Are there any things that you could see yourself, diving into more in the future or that you'd like to see emerge more on the music innovation front?
Randy: one area that I've been really over the last, honestly, it's like less 72 hours. It's very new for me, but I'll share it with you, is I've learned so much from these ticket scalping platforms, as I was saying, and I've learned that they've built these unbelievable distribution networks.
To sell tickets once a scalper acquires a ticket where, you know, like StubHub spends $850 million a [00:35:00] year on marketing way more than any of the legitimate promoters can. And what I'm excited about is there's a handful of tools where people are trying to do things in this, and I think I may need to build my own startup doing this.
It's allowing artists to tap into this multi-billion dollar distribution network built by the secondary market and surface our tickets and our products in general in this huge marketplace that are looking to better engage with artists and are paying significantly more money to do it. Than a core fan is.
So I've been racking my brain on how can we get into this market? And to give you an idea, the legitimate ticket market is about $18 billion a year. The secondary ticket markets between nine and 10 billion a year. So that shows you there is a [00:36:00] significant opportunity to utilize those distribution channels.
And I'm trying to figure out, and I'm, I'm being a little cagey 'cause I don't want to give all my ideas out 'cause I may go build something, but I want to engage with that. Like we've, I don't like a lot of the players in that world, but there are honest brokers, like ticket scalpers call themselves brokers.
But there are honest brokers in that world and it's how can I connect with those honest people who are there with the right intentions? And provide something better for both artists and fans.
Dmitri: Wow, you're gonna co-opt those who co-opted the, arbitrage of ticket pricing.
Randy: Yeah, exactly. that's sort of what I, what I think needs to happen is arbitrage the arbitrages, you know, like figure out how to remove their margins and take their distribution network from 'em.
Dmitri: They're probably not [00:37:00] listening to this podcast. Hopefully they're not.
Randy: But you know what, this is the thing that's so interesting is when I talk to a lot of these people, they want to have the conversation we're having right now. They're not, afraid of it. They see it as opportunity there. There's a lot of interesting people in that world who want to do more. They're not all criminals.
And as I said, I've gotten to know some of these people. There's a lot of people who aren't bad people. So like I'm not afraid for them to hear what I'm saying. Right now. My only fear is for them to build it first and to not be included and have some, some of the more honest people create better products.
Dmitri: Yeah. Amazing. Randy, this has been so informative, so helpful. I really appreciate you taking the time to join us and share all this information with the Music Tectonics audience. Thanks so much, Randy.
Randy: Thanks for having me. This was fun.
Let us know what you think! Tweet @MusicTectonics, find us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, or connect with podcast host Dmitri Vietze on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Weekly episodes include interviews with music tech movers & shakers, deep dives into seismic shifts, and more.
