Jack Stephens

Building | Formerly @spotify, @songkick, @AWAL, artist mgmt & more | Music, tech, ticketing, culture

[Jack Stephens @iamjackstephens]

My natural reaction to this would be that it can't be true, but it's FIFA, so anything's possible...

[Ticket Talk Network @TicketTalkNet]

🚨.@FIFAWorldCup now canceling mis priced tickets. 😆😆😆

Gianni - Please step down..

[Jack Stephens @iamjackstephens]

nobody should be surprised that FIFA are happy to scalp their own tickets

[Florian Ederer @florianederer]

I believe we now have evidence of FIFA's World Cup ticketing shell game: FIFA is colluding with third-party resale platforms for its own supply management.

Look at this SeatGeek map (secondary market!) for Saudi Arabia vs Cape Verde. The circled areas are not random single resale tickets, but large, contiguous blocks of seats: entire rows and swaths in sections 101/102, 112/113, 119/120, 134–137, 139, ...

The blue circles appeared weeks ago, then the purple blocks suddenly showed up a day or two ago, and the red blocks seem to have appeared recently too.

That's not what ordinary fan or even commercial scalper resale looks like who resell pairs, fours, and scattered seats. Instead, this looks like inventory being dumped in bulk onto secondary markets, at prices below FIFA's official site.

Why doesn't FIFA just lower prices on its own site Probably because official price cuts could trigger refund demands, chargebacks, or consumer-protection headaches from fans who already bought at much higher prices.

Instead FIFA keeps official prices high, avoids openly admitting the market-clearing price is lower, and moves unsold inventory through third-party resale platforms instead.

[Jack Stephens @iamjackstephens]

wow, this is a big one. feels like the birth of a potential fourth major. will certainly be the biggest behind UMG, Sony and Warner in terms of revenue.

[Jack Stephens @iamjackstephens]

@AJH85_ @_16osman you're from luton, you wouldn't understand

[Jack Stephens @iamjackstephens]

@flwrzuncutmedia @BrianZisook @OGxTP They’re distributors, not record labels

[Jack Stephens @iamjackstephens]

Events with shared social context were once known as “gigs”

[christine @christineist]

super not into the whole "meet 5 strangers for dinner", i think most of these social clubs are all doing it wrong and i wrote about it earlier

tldr you need shared social context

https://t.co/axI1GJLHAh

[Jack Stephens @iamjackstephens]

@matthewstoller What do you expect her to say? Live Nation don't even promote her tours.

[Jack Stephens @iamjackstephens]

@JusticeATR You gave them a weak settlement deal and left it to the state AGs to get a ruling. I’m not sure you can really take a victory lap off the back of yesterday’s news.

[The Associated Press @AP]

BREAKING: A jury finds that Ticketmaster and Live Nation had an anticompetitive monopoly over big concert venues. https://t.co/s5xWrjAfYq

[Jack Stephens @iamjackstephens]

@yaneijn @thesoggyblanket top deck of a bus in south london for the true experience

[Jack Stephens @iamjackstephens]

@PSASquashTour @amina_orfi @HaniaaElHammamy The way you’re playing this up is pretty unedifying. The men’s game’s already halfway ruined with controversy, don’t encourage it in the women’s game too.

[Jack Stephens @iamjackstephens]

@SkintyalFia Classic music industry story: sacked the manager that took her from nowhere to everywhere and appointed her assistant instead. It didn't work out well for her.

[rat king 🐀 @MikeIsaac]

remember to own your masters or else ackm*n will

[Future of Music Coalition @future_of_music]

This deal has a whole ton of implications for music and not just those music creators signed to UMG. For example, Universal is aligned with artists on most of the big AI questions surrounding compensation and consent. Ackman’s investments seem to indicate that he is not.

[Jack Stephens @iamjackstephens]

american date format is insane because what do you mean 'FEB 24' means the 24th February and not February 2024

[Lisan al Gaib @scaling01]

ANTHROPIC HAD MYTHOS INTERNALLY SINCE FEB 24

[Jack Stephens @iamjackstephens]

big yikes

[HITS @HITSDD]

.@BillAckman's Pershing Square has formally submitted an offer to acquire UMG. The hedge fund announced that UMG’s board was given a proposal worth roughly $63b, valuing the company at €30 per share, nearly double its current trading price.

Ackman, who resigned from UMG’s Board of Directors last May, and his firm announced that the deal, if approved, would merge UMG with Pershing Square and list it on the New York Stock Exchange.

[Jack Stephens @iamjackstephens]

@ibaklanov @packyM You think the Metallica ticket buying audience is the same as the Daft Punk ticket buying audience?

[Jack Stephens @iamjackstephens]

Warner Music Group have announced they're acquiring @GetRevelator - one of the last remaining bits of independent music distribution infrastructure

With FUGA now part of UMG, truly independent distribution solutions are now few and far between

[Jack Stephens @iamjackstephens]

@HaroonR35707365 @AD48828231 @grok Papua New Guinea by The Future Sound of London