Convenience stores: Blockbusters to sell tickets

LiveNation has signed an only slightly bemusing deal to allow Blockbuster stores in the US to sell gig tickets alongside hiring out videos and DVDs:

"Our research definitively shows that the vast majority of music fans who prefer to buy their concert tickets at a retail location find Blockbuster to be the most convenient choice," stated Nathan Hubbard, head of ticketing for Live Nation. "Blockbuster's huge national footprint provides Live Nation with a powerful marketing partner to help drive incremental ticket sales to our events and an incredible opportunity to develop other product lines centered around music for Blockbuster customers."

Blockbuster's huge national footprint is shrinking somewhat rapidly - but it does still boast around 4,000 stores across the US. Only 500 of which are going to be capable of selling tickets. So that's an average of ten stores per state, which is a wide spread but hardly the same as being just around the corner.

And what of this research which discovers - conveniently - that "the majority of music fans" who want to buy at a shop finding Blockbuster the most convenient choice? The first question is what proportion of likely purchasers said they'd rather buy tickets face-to-face than, say online: not, I'm guessing, that many.

But let's assume its a group of people sizable enough to be significant. Did they really say they thought Blockbuster would be the most convenient outlet? Rather than, say, the 7-11, or through a gas station? If they did choose Blockbuster, was it on the understanding that they might have to visit seven branches before finding one that was selling tickets?

It's a brilliant idea; it's just an idea which someone should have had fifteen years ago. In this age of internets, it's unclear there's a market of any size seeking to buy tickets alongside the DVDs they no longer wish to rent.