Live Nation are the music company who manage Madonna and Jay-Z with 360 degree deals, own sheds and contracts with sheds and other arenas, stadiums, own Ticketmaster, and in effect want to take you on a musical experience from representing the artist to the record company, tee-shirts and other memorabilia, booking tours, selling, tickets, and managing tours. They are not doing very well.
Groupn are the discount coupon come of age. Essentially, if enough people decide to buy a product at a discounted rate, the discounted rate goes into effect.
http://www.groupon.com/ch/live or grouponlive.com is the company they have formed to offer discounted prices to the public for live events.
At the face, it looks like a pretty good idea but take a closer look and it begs the question as to why the Livenation can't price their tickets for market standards to begin with. Why are they throwing darts and finding out where the price should be. For instance, as of Thursday morning May 12th? Metallica still hasn't sold out Yankee Stadium. You can still buy the maximum amount together of 6 tickets.
In the end, they should discount count tickets the moment they go on sale to get a groundswell of intesrest. They should then raise them after the first day. And finally, go to grouponlive to sell off what is left.
Also, in New York they should cut a deal with TKTS and sell day off concert tix the day of at half price, the way they do with theatre tickets.
As for Grouplive? I signed up and if it is good enough, guess what? I am gonna wait and see if the price is discounted and if I end up screwed I'll just go to a broker.