ConferencesIndustryTop Story July 8, 2021 Dave Clark 0

In 2018, Ticketmaster came under significant fire over reports detailing the company’s deep relationships with large-scale ticket resale operators. Its so-called “secret scalper program” brought scrutiny from public officials, condemnation from members of the public, and a number of lawsuits alleging that the largest ticketing operation in the world was rigging the game against consumers and playing both sides of the fence.

It doesn’t appear that the feedback has led to any changes in behavior from the Live Nation Entertainment-owned ticketing behemoth, which is preparing to market its services to ticket resale operations at this week’s World Ticket Conference in Las Vegas.

“Join us as we detail how we are welcoming back fans, supporting content, and enabling buyers and sellers for an epic event season,” reads the event teaser for Ticketmaster Resale’s panel at WTC, which is put on by the National Association of Ticket Brokers.

“For over a year, we were missing live events. Today, we are experiencing an amazing resurgence. With accelerating fan demand, concerts and festivals are selling out in record time. Twice as many artists are lined up to tour. Sports teams are selling tickets for full capacity for events. The magic of live is returning and Ticketmaster Resale is ready.”

The panel features Ticketmaster Marketplace Executive VP and Global General Manager Larry Plawsky, along with VP and General Manager of Ticketmaster Resale Casey Klein, and VP of Product Management for Ticketmaster Resale Phil Volini. Ticketmaster Resale is also one of four “Diamond” sponsors of the conference as a whole.

Plawsky has been integral to the growth of the Ticketmaster Resale brand and its set of tools for professional ticket resellers including Trade Desk, which allows professional sellers to almost immediately post purchase tickets for resale across Ticketmaster platforms, while other company products such as SafeTix actively discourage the use of competing marketplaces for events held at Live Nation/Ticketmaster venues.

Ticketmaster has long been involved in the ticket resale business, despite its numerous actions taken to make it harder for consumers and professionals alike to sell tickets on platforms that they do not directly control or profit from. They have not kept that fact a secret, in fact, indicated by the notation that this will be Plawsky’s sixth time appearing at World Ticket Conference as a speaker.

However, the disclosure of the reporting from the Ticket Summit conference in 2018 shed a far harsher light on how the company operates in the resale world, and the enormous conflicts of interest inherent to that fact.

“We don’t spend any time looking at your ticketmaster.com account. I don’t care what you buy. It doesn’t matter to me,” a Ticketmaster Resale sales agent told reporters posing as ticket resellers from Ontario considering the Trade Desk system for their own resale operations in 2018. “There’s a total separation between Ticketmaster and our division. It’s church and state… We don’t monitor that at all.”

What the sales agent was referring to was ticket purchase limits put in place by the company’s primary marketplace side – limits that purportedly help consumers get tickets over professional resellers. He was admitting that the company’s resale operation turned a blind eye to those who violated those limits, as long as they were using the company’s resale platform to move that inventory. Ticketmaster, of course, was quick to condemn the remarks and deny that any program to assist “scalping” existed, but the damage was largely done.

In the wake of the bombshell story, U.S. Senators Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn) composed a letter to Live Nation Entertainment CEO Michael Rapino demanding answers.

“CBC News reported that Ticketmaster . . . recruits and employs professional ticket scalpers to circumvent the ticket purchasing limits on its own primary ticket sales platform in an effort to expand its ticket resale division,” the senators wrote. “According to the article, Ticketmaster utilizes a professional reseller program called TradeDesk, which provides a web-based inventory for scalpers to effectively purchase large quantities of tickets from Ticketmaster’s primary ticket sales website and resell these tickets for higher prices on its own resale platform.”

“Citing examples of TradeDesk users moving up to several million tickets per year, the allegations of the harms to consumers made in this piece are serious and deserve immediate attention,” the senators continued.

Several lawsuits were filed alleging malfeasance on the part of Ticketmaster and Live Nation Entertainment, while the Federal Trade Commission convened a workshop to examine the entire ticketing ecosystem, which was followed in short order by a renewed push for the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) legislation.

Despite all the noise, Ticketmaster largely escaped the hubbub from the reporting unscathed, though it did see its consent decree with the Department of Justice extended after numerous allegations of anti-competitive behavior from other ticketing entities. That said, it is somewhat surprising to see the company once again taking such a public role in a conference run by and for the benefit of the professional ticket resale community.

An email sent to Live Nation Entertainment’s media relation department regarding the company’s participating at World Ticket Conference has not received a response as of Thursday morning.

While there does appear to be light at the end of the tunnel Digital Transactions will continue to use all media channels to keep you informed about changing events in our industry.

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Thank you for your time. I hope you and your family have come through this crisis well.

Cheers,

Bob Jenisch
Publisher

Researching The Blood of Christ I found the below passages that I feel really explain Salvation.

1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

Ephesians 1:7
In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;

With all the hysteria over President Trump pulling out of the Paris Accord how about God’s timing for this daily devotional?
After the Flood, Noah stepped out of the ark into a forbidding
environment. Underneath Noah’s feet were thousands of feet of
mud and sand in which the animals and plants from the pre-flood
world were buried. The unstable Earth was struggling to reestablish
new plants. Super volcanoes were belching ash and lava over vast
regions while earthquakes still rocked the land. It took centuries for
the Earth’s climate to transition from the wettest period in history to
today’s climate.
Thousands of volcanoes and rapid continental movement during the
Flood caused the oceans to warm up to 80oF (or higher), whereas the
average ocean temperature today is 39oF. These warm oceans, next
to cold continents, created violent storms. Enormous hurricanes
(called hypercanes) drew water from the oceans and dumped it onto
the land, filling depressions, causing lakes to overflow, and cutting
deep canyons through newly laid sediment layers. These intense
rains also saturated the ground, allowing groundwater to rapidly
carve enormous cave formations; these caves would take hundreds of
thousands of years to form at today’s rate.
As the oceans cooled and precipitation declined, the world’s
reforested areas started to dry out and change to grasslands.
Meanwhile, at high latitudes and mountain tops, the precipitation fell
as snow and ice. Ice built up rapidly, and the Earth’s one and only
ice age developed, lowering ocean levels up to 300 feet! Oncet he
oceans cooled to present day temperatures (many hundreds of years
after the flood ended), the air circulation changed on Earth. This
shift formed the deserts in a belt around the world, about 30 degrees
north and south of the equator.
Minor climate changes (all too commonly promoted in an effort
to gain political power) are insignificant compared to the dramatic
changes experienced upon this planet in the last 4,000 years. The
post-flood world was truly an ever-changing and dynamic place.

Our month is based on the moon, our year on the sun, but what
about a week? The seven day week is based on God’s creation
week. Atheist dictator Stalin tried to erase God from the Soviet
Union by instituting a 10 day week. People would work nine days
and then rest the tenth day. It was not successful because people’s
bodies could not stand the strain of working nine days with only
the tenth day of rest. Others have also tried to eradicate the seven
day week, but to no avail. The pattern of a seven day week is a
reminder of God creating everything in six days and resting on the
seventh day.
We also find God reminding us of this pattern in Exodus 20:8-10,
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall
labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the
Lord your God, on it you shall not do any work… For in six days
the LORD made the heavens and the Earth, the sea and all that is
in them, but he rested on the seventh day.” Here we see the pattern
for a week repeated again; work six days and rest the seventh day.
The God of all creation could have created everything in a split
second, but He did not. This all powerful God knew what we
needed; He knew what our bodies could handle. From the very
beginning of time, He set the pattern for a seven day week – for our
benefit.
Then he said unto them “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the
sabbath.” – Mark 2:27

There are two types of people-those who are currently suffering a tragedy and those who will someday be suffering a tragedy. My daughter Nina has lost her best friend, high school sweet heart and husband unexpectedly. She has 3 young children and really appreciates all of your prayers and love. Nick loved and cherished life; he was full of charisma, laughter, and wit. He was the first person to help someone who needed it. He would give you the shirt off his back.

We have all suffered the tragedy of the loss of Nick a wonderful wonderful man who was loved by all in his family, personal and business life. His passing is not just another death as he touched everyone in such a special way. His passing has changed our lives forever. He was not just a son-in-law to me he was my son. All my son-in-laws are my sons and daughter-in-laws my daughters.

I am so proud of my family and Nicks’ family and their friends all so strong and pulling together to help Nina my wonderful daughter!

I have not erased Nick’s name from my email, phone, etc. and never will. In the past week I have set a new record for punching things and swearing to myself. I’d punch the wall but Nick’s not here to help me fix it-I’m a lousy dry waller!

But let us rejoice today and celebrate Nick’s life and not be sad that’s what Nick would have wanted. Remember Nick is not suffering now only we are because of our losing him so young

Everybody in this room has their favorite Nick stories they could tell.

He was so funny. He would even scold me sometimes. A few years ago when we were moving into our home about half way through I got crabby and yelled at my wife for something and he nicely told me I shouldn’t do that. Those of you that know me know that even though I’m in sales and loud at times I’m basically pretty shy. When we were at family gatherings he would often say “You should go talk to so and so” and would sometimes add “they’re about your age” Yeah right-who wants to talk to old people? He could be so funny. He was crazy about Duluth Trading work pants and insisted I try them a few years ago. I thought they were too bulky so I only wore them once when I knew he was coming over. But this week I’ve been wearing them every day.

A week after we moved a few years ago Nick came over to help me with a few things. We got a good deal on our home because it needed quite a bit of fixing up and one of the things on my list was to put a drapery rod up over the kitchen sink window. An easy job but so many other things to do! My wife told Nick I didn’t put up the rod yet because I probably didn’t know how. So naturally he put it up. To this day she still says the same thing. We used to laugh about it all the time. Now we think of Nick every time we open and close the drapes.

Allow me to recite a poem my daughter Dani found by Henry Scott Holland

Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!”

So the million dollar question is Why Does God allow Bad Things to Happen? Consider Isaiah 55:8-9

⁸ For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. ⁹ For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Answers can be found in the Bible. But why should you believe The Bible? We are all given free will. God gave us free will so we could love. Robots can’t love.  So you don’t have to believe The Bible if you don’t want to. You don’t have to believe that every word is directly inspired by God. It’s your choice. But let me give you some facts to consider.

The Bible consists of 66 books (39 O.T. & 27 N.T.)- 40 “authors” and took about 1,500 years to write. It by far the all time best selling book of all time. People in persecuted countries risk death by owning or even reading a few pages of it. It never contradicts itself and tells the same story from beginning to end. There are approximately 8,000 Greek manuscripts available to verify the N.T. KJV and all but 6 verses are verified as original scripture. More things written in The Bible are being verified every month by archeologists, astronomers and scientists. The complete genealogies listed in the Old Testament from Adam to Christ are being verified more with each passing year.

All the prophecies in The Bible total about 2,500 and about 2,000 have been fulfilled. 330 Old Testament Messianic prophecies have been fulfilled. The odds for all these prophecies having been fulfilled by chance without error is less than one in 10²⁰⁰⁰ (that is 1 with 2,000 zeros written after it)! Not all prophecies in The Bible are Biblical some are secular and predicted hundreds and some over one thousand years or more before they happened. Daniel foretold the governments in order of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Cyrus is predicted to be the future King of Persia, Israel to Be Returned to Its Land A Second Time, the closing of the eastern gate of Jerusalem in 1543, Alexander the Great, The Doom of Edom in 636AD and Destruction of Jerusalem to name a few.

 

-ask yourself why does every culture all over the world no matter how old follow a 7 day week?

Read Isaiah 53-who do you think Isaiah is describing?

Micah 5:2 predicts Christ would be born in the tiny town of Bethlehem about 700 years before he was born. That would be like accurately predicting in the year 1317 the birth of a baby today.

Psalm 22 Predicts Christ’s crucifixion almost 1,000 years before it was invented as a form of brutal execution

The Dead Sea scrolls discovered in the late 1940’s have the exact same scriptures word for word as passages in the Old Testament and are dated at least 200 BC or earlier

The Gospels tell us the story of a man who had been blind his whole life who asked for sight. Christ gave him what he asked for but because he had always been blind he couldn’t process the images he was seeing so Christ touched his eyes and he then knew what he was looking at. The point is we now know that if the nerves from the retina have never been used the brain can’t process the images for several months. How did the writer know this over 2,000 years ago?

 The explanation for bad things starts in Genesis where we learn the Earth was a perfect place to live but because they had free will Adam and Eve sinned and brought pain, suffering and death into the world.

If you want to place the blame for pain and suffering put it on satan not God.

Pain can be a part of God’s greater plan for us as if we let it it will mold us into something stronger each time. consider the value of steel:

• A bar of steel is worth $5.

• If made into horseshoes, it is worth $10.

• If made into needles, it is worth $350.

• If made into penknife blades, it is worth $32,000.

• And if it is made into springs for watches, it is worth $250,000!

The 12 Apostles went around Europe, Asia and Africa preaching Jesus Christ’s shed blood, death, burial, and resurrection. By doing so they were imprisoned, scourged and beaten and all but one were eventually martyred most by Crucifixion. Ask yourself who would do this if it weren’t true? If they hadn’t seen it all with their own eyes?

It’s easy for folks to say Christ died on the Cross without thinking much about it but imagine the suffering He went through as He accepted the trillions of our sins passing through His body and soul. He was separated from God The Father and The Holy Spirit for the only time in eternity-imagine how lonely he must have felt. Brutally scourged with horrible sharp stones on the end of whips. The scourging was so awful in those days that about 50% of the condemned died from scourging before they were crucified. He was crowned with thorns, ridiculed and beaten. Now that’s unfair!

Nick is in Heaven today because he believed the following. Nick loved Walter Payton and Walter is in Heaven also because he believed the following.

John.3:16

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that

whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

 

Christ paid for all your sins past, present and future.

 

Eph.2:8-9

[8] For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
[9] Not of works, lest any man should boast.

You can’t work your way to Heaven as we all sin every day. Sin can’t enter heaven. But if you swallow your pride and admit that you can’t save yourself Christ will present you to The Father as white as snow!

 

 

 

John.10:28-29

 

[28]And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
[29]My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.

Once you are saved you can’t lose it.

No one will stand in Heaven and say I deserve to be here!

I do know if Nick could come back what he would tell you to do

 

Be like Nick-go to heaven.

Be like Walter Payton-go to Heaven!

 

Here is a PowerPoint of picture dedicated to my son-in-law Nick who I loved as a son. He died tragically reportedly because of cardiac arrest at the age of only 39 on February 7th on a job site

https://1drv.ms/p/s!Ai5MvSeip7NulGZIPq-2hVxVUlIH

What can be done about the destruction of forests being perpetrated by the Lake County Forest Preserve? On the west side of The Fox River in Grassy Lake Forest Preserve there were beautiful strands of trees which are being destroyed with the usual mumbo jumbo about making them “better” I guess better means cutting down almost every healthy tree in site destroying habitats and shelter for cranes, egrets and other animals. Here is what the East bank of the Fox used to look like. The debacle was supposed to finally stop last week but the “destroyer” crane was back at it today. There are promises of planting seedlings “someday” and a hilarious statement in a letter sent out to nearby residents that they will be planting oak tree seedlings which “grow fast.” “Grow fast” What planet does the LCFP live on? Shameful. Also they are using our tax dollars for the destruction of forests. Things like this needed to be presented in a public forum for property owners and taxpayers. The Forest Preserve can’t just be given a “blank check” to spend money on “keep busy” projects. Ironically this area is labeled as a conservation area. A lawsuit must be initiated against LCFP for damages.

To View picture click here creditcardchargeback2 Do you know this man! This is a warning to all merchants who accept credit cards. If you recognize this shyster, please message me or email me at bhoidas@gmail.com. This guy went into my merchant’s store and bought a lot of memorabilia and used a phony card to pay for the items. He is very clever and knows how to work a credit card terminal. He made up a story about how he always has to enter a PIN # before his debit card is swiped. He then took over the cc terminal and knew how to quickly press the proper keys to do a “forced sale” which basically means the terminal doesn’t ask for an approval because one has been manually entered so then when it is swiped it just prints out a receipt assuming the merchant has an authentic approval code. Also he apparently can make phony ID’s as the address on the driver’s license is phony as there is no 4413 on Essex in Vegas and if it was would be a different zip code. Thanks!