Last month, a party was held in Nashville where over 1,200 people attended the annual World Ticket Conference. The conference, which has been held annually for over a decade, is organized by attorney Gary Adler, a longtime adviser to the National Association for Ticket Brokers. NATB is a trade organization whose members have transformed ticket trading from a market where you were out of luck if you didn’t know to buy tickets the day they went on sale to one where there is a nearly continuous supply, often at a discount from face value.

The ticketing ecosystem is vast and not yet well explored. There are multi-billion dollar silos where executives compete for audiences and sales. In simple terms, these silos are the large and small ticket companies such as AEG, Ticketmaster or Vivenu, secondary market ticket resellers such as Vivid Seats, TickPick or StubHub, and major sports leagues that control their own ticket distribution. In addition, theater tickets have their own distribution channels.

At the World Ticket Conference, representatives from all corners of the industry gather with friends and competitors and learn how market forces and technological changes may impact the year ahead. The emerging trends for 2024 seem to herald a shift toward higher demand and less price sensitivity for a select few acts, and a much faster decline in ticket prices for almost everything else except the playoffs in major sports leagues like basketball, football, tennis, baseball and hockey.

In a controversial year for the ticketing industry, the World Ticket Conference tackled important issues and brought a new perspective to its members and guests. There is a steady demand for live entertainment of all kinds, but the economy is forcing those with limited liquidity to make difficult decisions.

The industry’s ongoing battle is over control. Artists and sports leagues want sole control over prices so tickets to events with below-average demand don’t compete with discounted tickets. In other industries, this would be viewed as a form of price control and frowned upon. Ticket companies don’t want competition from those who buy tickets and hold on to them for later sale. When ticket prices rise later, consumers benefit when those who bought earlier can sell tickets to consumers at a discounted price. Conversely, when demand is below-average, ticket companies must compete with secondary market sellers who drive prices down to market value. A study last year shows that of more than 80,000 live events that were put on sale, about 55% of events sold tickets below face value through secondary market outlets. In this industry, primary ticket sellers don’t want discounts, but fans do. They saved more than $440 million by buying tickets at below face value at the box office.

There is a fundamental misunderstanding about how primary and secondary markets affect each other and consumers. Primary markets offer tickets for sale and expect them to sell out within days of the initial release. Typically, this is a presale based on an extremely limited number of tickets and relies on a code or a paid partner like Spotify for access. The next day, tickets are further distributed through a credit card partner like American Express, Citibank, or Capital One. To purchase tickets from this release, the designated sponsor credit card must be used. On the third day of presale, a code issued by the artist or venue can be used to access the purchasing portal. And finally, on the fourth day, any remaining tickets are offered to the public.

Ticket resellers are usually well informed about how and when these various tickets will be available. They risk their own money by buying tickets in the hope that prices will rise, even though data now confirms that more than half of the tickets for sale lose value. The ability for consumers to buy tickets at a discounted price is almost entirely the result of a free and competitive secondary market and the losses suffered by ticket resellers who hold tickets with declining values.

Sending artists on tour is expensive. If they don’t sell enough tickets when tickets go on sale, the shows themselves risk being canceled, as we’ve seen this year with artists like Jennifer Lopez and The Black Keys and many others. Ticket resellers risk hundreds of millions of dollars by buying inventory when tickets go on sale. These purchases help secure financing for a tour and allow fans to make their purchasing decision the day of the show rather than months before. For many fans, buying tickets for a show that’s nine months away or tying up their own money for that period is too risky. Often, these purchases are charged to consumers’ credit cards at painfully high interest rates. Fans don’t save money by buying a ticket the day the show first goes on sale and paying 24.9% interest for more than half a year until the show date, when they could likely buy the same ticket at face value or less on the day of the show. In fact, a savvy consumer might decide to only buy tickets to events that are heavily discounted. Such options are plentiful.

The secondary market also makes it possible to find out about a show that’s happening tomorrow and still get tickets. And when fans are unexpectedly out of town, there are numerous opportunities for them to buy a last-minute ticket, often at a discounted price, and then travel to an event.

A common refrain heard at the World Ticket Conference is the simple common sense that ticket sales are too complicated for fans. Rather than complications in purchasing tickets, delays in delivery, and the threat that tickets purchased in one market might be invalid when sold in another, fans would likely buy more tickets if the process was simplified. The more annoyance fans feel, the less inclined they are to buy tickets for anything other than the few megastar or playoff events. The entire ecosystem needs to thrive for the future megastars to exist. In a world where Amazon delivers almost everything to homes within four hours with a click of a button, it’s foolish for a company to annoy its customers so much that they march on Washington. Right now, the entire distribution process is facing upheaval. But that’s probably not going to be caused by government intervention. It’s going to come from fans deciding they’ll only buy tickets on the day of the event. Should that happen, the ticketing ecosystem has no one to blame but itself.

Organizing a conference with fierce competitors isn’t easy in a year when governments in more than half of the states and at the federal level are considering whether and what legislative changes should be implemented. Regardless of the competition, events take place and tickets ultimately move from the primary exhibitor, through the secondary market, which may have resold the ticket, into the hands of the fan who gets the ticket scanned at the event entrance to get in. Millions of tickets are traded each year, almost all without incident. Technology continues to improve the way tickets move through the market, as was clearly evident at the World Ticket Conference. If there had been a problem, it would have been discussed. Like the dog that famously didn’t bark, the lack of conversation about tickets not arriving at the entrance was not an issue. The ongoing turf wars between markets, promoters and teams are likely costing more potential revenue than they are protecting. This could very well be a real case study in moving beyond dollars to get dimes.

Interestingly, in a free market economy, ticket company stocks rise and fall based on supply and demand. While these stock prices fluctuate based on investors’ belief in the underlying potential revenue of these companies, state and federal governments work to put in place rules related to price, transferability, and who actually owns the rights to a ticket purchased. These are topics that are debated endlessly, as major sellers on behalf of their artists or teams want to maximize prices when they have a “hot” selling event, but don’t want consumers to benefit from falling prices when an event doesn’t do well. The equivalent in the stock market would be to let prices rise but prevent them from falling. Imagine that.

People who work in live entertainment tend to be social and fans of performances. Bring them all to a city like Nashville and watch them congregate. It’s not rocket science. It’s selling access to fun. Gary Adler and his team host numerous dinners and cocktail parties, panels with industry leaders, and open discussions about issues facing the industry. There was even a keynote speech by Dr. J about his past in the National Basketball Association. After hours, there were events where everyone came together to socialize and network, which is key to building a stable community of competitors.

The World Ticket Conference addresses the issues facing all sectors of ticketing. It attracts the most experienced people in the industry and they have the opportunity to talk face-to-face about how things are and how things might go. This is all valuable context in an ever-evolving industry that continues to expand globally. Tickets for next year’s World Ticket Conference 2025 are already on sale. The dates are July 22nd^and until July 24, 2025 at the Omni Hotel in Nashville.