Over the last few years Ticketmaster's views of the secondary market have been all over the board. 

For years their stance was vehemently against the secondary market throwing accusations at the key players Ebay and Stubhub left and right.  Filing multiple lawsuits and encouraging sports teams and artists not to pair with either company (which is now one since Ebay acquired Stubhub).

But Ticketmaster did a sudden about face this year purchasing Ticketsnow the second largest secondary market ticketing site behind Stubhub, for $265 million.   Ticketmaster also bought one the largest secondary ticketing companies in the UK, ATS Ticketing who own the site GetMeIn!. 

Why the sudden about face?  Ticketmaster has been looking for years at the different ways to get involved in the massive profits secondary players were making.  They originally launched their 'ticketexchange' hoping to steal some of the secondary markets thunder and later selling premium tickets at auction on their own site.  Neither approached worked and the secondary market has continued to grow.

With Ticketmaster now heavily involved in the secondary market this raises some interesting issues.  For starter couldn't Ticketmaster now, instead of offering high demand tickets for sale on the Ticketmaster site for fair game, just put these high demand tickets directly onto its secondary site Ticketsnow for inflated prices and take the proceeds?  Does Ticketmaster have an obligation to the consumer to allow the average consumer, whether it be a fan or a ticket broker a chance to purchase these tickets at face value?

This is what Elton John fans and brokers alike are wondering in Canada right now, where Ticketmaster is being accused of witholding premium tickets and listing them for sale at inflated prices on Ticketsnow.  They even went as far as redirecting user to Ticketsnow to purchase tickets.

This situation is not new to Ticketmaster who was recently accused of scalping premium Radiohead tickets.

In this case Ticketmaster has neither confirmed nor denied these accusations and only had this to say, "The inventory belongs to the promoter and artist, and the artist determines who has what privileges in advance of the public on sale or not, like fan clubs for instance."  Although in this case it is very doubtful is actually referring to 'fan clubs'.