Interesting article follows (Rather sickening to concert fans who are taken for a ride more often than not.
Ticketmaster and Scalpers and Frontline… hand in hand in hand)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Secret Deal Between Irving Azoff, Ticketmaster & Ticket Scalpers Revealed
Irving Azoff and Ticketmaster were reportedly involved in a plan to combine major secondary ticketing services along with other entertainment industry assets-- just months before Azoff was damning the ticket scalpling in the press and distancing himself from the practice.
According to a Wall Street Journal article, the deal codenamed Project Showtime only fell apart because of distrust between the participants. But that was not before the secondary ticket outfits were given hundreds of premium tickets in a backroom deal to scalp for Azoff client Van Halen's reunion tour that reportedly netted the band an additonal $1 million.
The proposed alliance with secondary ticketers was hatched at a meeting led by Azoff in the summer of 2007. "I always knew we'd end up in a room together," he reportedly told the Hollywood gathering. "I just thought it would be a courtroom." Present were senior executives of AEG Live, Ticketmaster and

Cablevision Systems Corp.'s MSG Entertainment and the owners of Boston-based Ace Ticket; LA's Barry's Tickets Service Floridas' Total Tickets, Chicago's Gold Coast, New York City's Elite Ticket, and Alliance Tickets, which operates in Denver, Las Vegas and Seattle.
Both moves run contradictory to Azoff's more recent public pronouncements… as the now-head of Ticketmaster… working towards regulatory approval of a merger with concert company Live Nation.
They also offer a glimpse into just how powerful the combined entity could be.
Azoff was not yet the head of Ticketmaster at the time of the secondary ticket and Van Halen wheeling and dealing, but his Front Line Management firm was already partially owned by the ticket giant.


Part of the WSJ.com article…
Big Ticket Seller Tried Deal With Scalpers
BY ETHAN SMITH
AUGUST 28, 2009

…Spearheaded by Irving Azoff, Ticketmaster's current chief executive, the effort sought to combine several of the nation's biggest ticket scalpers with Ticketmaster and other major concert-industry players. At the time, Mr. Azoff was the CEO of Front Line Management, which handles dozens of top musical acts and was partly owned by Ticketmaster.
The goal of the initiative, codenamed "Project Showtime," was ...