When CEO Michael Rapino joined Live Nation a few years ago, he promised to improve the concert
customer experience. Lately fans have been giving the concert giant failing grades over of high ticket prices, rising ticketing fees and insider deals for the best seats that could get worse if a merger with Ticketmaster goes through.
Now fans can add higher concession and merchandise fees to the their list of complaints. Last week as Live Nation reported that ticket sales were down 22.6% in the previous quarter, the company also promised to boost revenue on the backs of its existing customers.
"With the reduced attendance expected throughout the year in North America we knew driving more dollars from each fan was a key strategy. We believe we'll achieve this in two ways; first through higher margins on food and beverage...
that will be an outcome of our new concession deal with SMG Airmark which will increase profits by 10%," said CEO Michael Rapino during the earnings call.
"The second way we expect to drive per head is through a host of new onsite initiatives including reducing the items sold and focusing on the most popular, profitable increasing points of sale, portable hawking to sell food and beverages directly to the patrons in their seats, and finally increasing products and adding new products like souvenirs photos, early access passes and bundling to create incremental revenue," Rapino continued.
