China Ticketmaster Bites the Dust & Dylan Still Unconfirmed

China Music Radar has reported that the online ticketing service China Ticketmaster was “officially shelved last week.” Although Ticketmaster’s website is still live, the online booking service is offline and their phone hotline is now a recorded message directing callers to piao.com for tickets to the children’s play Qiao Hu – no other tickets seem to be available through the service.

CMR describe Ticketmaster’s attempt to crack the China market as “one of the most entertaining corporate soap operas that we’ve ever been lucky enough to witness.” In May 2007 they entered they mainland by purchasing local operation Emma Entertainment, founded by American Jonathan Krane. According to CMR, Ticketmaster may not have analyzed the operation they were purchasing closely enough in their eagerness to jump into the China market.

A string of high profile disasters followed Ticketmaster's purchase, including: “the infamous Bjork incident… safety issues during an extensive Avril Lavigne tour…[and the] cancellations of both Oasis and the Celine Dion Beijing show.”

With the demise of Ticketmaster, the problems many international acts face getting performance permits for the mainland, and the difficulties of mounting a profitable large-scale tour in China, things are looking grim for punters hoping to see big stars gracing the stage in China.

Speaking of big stars, a while back it was announced Bob Dylan would be playing Beijing in April. So far none of the China dates have been confirmed on Dylan’s official site. A fan site claims the Shanghai show will be at the 10,000 seat Shanghai Gymnasium (does Dylan really have that kind of pulling power in Shanghai?), but the Beijing show on April 4 is still listed as “Unconfirmed and possibly postponed.” We were unable to contact the promoter this morning for further comment – stay tuned for updates.