(Writer: Frankie Cavone)

According to Billboard, a Live Nation executive had a phone converstation with one of the promoters Metallica works with about secretly releasing a large number of concert tickets to secondary markets back in 2017. Bob Roux, president of Live Nation stated that “either a Live Nation employee or a venue box office would basically take these and sell them into a singular account(secondary market),” which accounts for about 4,600 tickets. This means that fans wouldn’t have a proper opportunity to first gain tickets through primary markets.

Billboard states:

Such arrangements may be legal but are rarely discussed openly, given concerns about how fans will perceive them. …

According to Live Nation, DiCioccio realized how much money could be made on the resale market after the band’s 2016 concert for the opening of U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, where over 10,000 tickets were sold “on the secondary market without the band’s participation,” in part because the group initially priced the tickets too low — management was nervous that high-priced tickets would anger fans, according to one of the concert’s promoters.

“After seeing the volume of secondary transactions for that show and the benefit being captured by brokers,” Live Nation said in its statement, “the independent consultant [DiCioccio] worked with Live Nation on a unique distribution strategy that used the secondary market as a sales distribution channel for select high-end tickets.

Read more about Billboard’s findings by clicking here.