Live Nation Share Gains Pared On Amazon Ticket Plans

What’s a good way to deflate some heady stock gains?

Have Amazon come gunning to eat your lunch.

Seeking Alpha reported that Live Nation shares jumped 12.5 percent Thursday during the day on strong earnings, but then the advance turned into a rout of sorts, as the stock traded up 1 percent on the day and then gained a little momentum to finish the session at a 5 percent gain.

All that yo-yoing came amid reports, via Reuters, that Amazon wants partners in a quest to make inroads into event ticketing.

The partnerships would be with firms other than Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster. Amazon had been in talks with Live Nation about a deal, but the discussions fell apart on key issues, such as ownership and control of consumers’ data.

Reuters, citing four unnamed sources in its reporting, said that any deals struck with Amazon and other firms could have an impact on Ticketmaster’s “powerful grip” on its core ticketing niche. That niche is “ripe for attack,” said Reuters, as consumers are less than in love with fees, and the venues and sports teams and performers want distributors to get more momentum behind ticket and merchandise sales.

For Amazon, the desire may be to have another conduit to boost Prime membership. And the eCommerce giant has made some strides in ticketing in Britain, tied to West End theatre district shows.

To gain a wider scope in ticketing would require Amazon to, perhaps, offer sponsorships that might be quite lucrative to venues, to the tune of millions of dollars. But Amazon also wants to keep some measure of control over customers’ data, while the owners themselves want similar access.

The eCommerce giant has approached sports teams about selling tickets on secondary markets. The potential for money to be made with ticketing is great — with Ticketmaster grabbing as much as $1.6 billion in sales last year through ticketing efforts (this does not include resales).