Azoff, Rapino Talk Futures

The business model for the music industry is changing rapidly, and Ticketmaster has plans to lead the charge with the introduction of dynamic ticketing in the near future.

In a relaxed presentation during the 2009 Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media, Communications and Entertainment Conference Sept. 9, Ticketmaster Entertainment CEO Irving Azoff and Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino discussed their companies’ pending merger and what sort of entity could emerge following the proceedings.

“The music business is a distribution business,” Rapino said. “The middle of that distribution is now around the live business.”

By capitalizing on TM and LN’s current standings within the live business, Rapino envisioned their company of the future as a sort of Amazon.com that could unite a fragmented industry, bundling tickets, albums and merch under the same umbrella.

While there will always be a secondary ticket market, Azoff and Rapino said the introduction of dynamic ticketing and interactive seat mapping, increased paperless ticketing and marketing through initiatives like LN’s no service fee Wednesdays offering could help keep grosses up for artists and the industry as a whole.

Paperless ticketing, which has apparently won TM some new fans in former critics like Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, was touted by Azoff as a success. Likewise, Rapino said LN’s no service fee experiments this summer won 80 to 90 percent approval ratings in exit surveys with fans.

On the concert front, Azoff spilled the beans about a 2010 Van Halen tour, and hinted that Axl Rose and Guns N’ Roses could head out in December, while Rapino listed AC/DC and Jonas Brothers as big draws in LN’s Q4. U2’s tour was touted as the biggest in history.

The principals remained fairly mum about the pending merger deal, but both expressed hope they’ll see its closure by the end of the year.