Paidcontent is saying that Ticketmaster and Live Nation are about to merge, creating Live Nation Entertainment.  Ticketmaster specializes in ticket sales, Live Nation specializes in concert promotion, and they both specialize in charging 50% of the ticket price itself in “convenience” charges.

Let’s hope that their merger will reduce these crazy charges that gives less money back to the bands.  My guess that it won’t, so we’ll have to continue buying tickets at the venues themselves, as well as through some smaller ticket distributors.

For instance, just got tickets to see the Presets at the Mezzanine, via ticketweb, and convenience charges were only $3 per ticket.

Not bad, compared to the $15 ticketmaster charges.