Ticketmaster is teaming up with Walmart to offer consumers another outlet to buy tickets for concerts and other events.

Ticketmaster has installed touch-screen kiosks in the electronic departments of 42 Walmarts across North Carolina, as part of a nationwide partnership. That includes about a dozen in the Triangle.

Walmart employees will assist customers buying and printing tickets.

For the retailer, the arrangement could help increase traffic as Walmart seeks to boost its electronics business. And it allows Ticketmaster to provide consumers another choice if they don't want to buy tickets online.

Customers still pay the dreaded "convenience" fees. But they don't pay order-processing or delivery fees, said Ticketmaster spokeswoman Jacqueline Peterson.

"Live Nation to acquire Ticketmaster for $2.5 billion, plus $700 million in convenience charges."

-- Drew Curtis' fark.com (found via Lefsetz)

When 2008 ended, so did Ticketmaster's contract with Live Nation as the concert giant's exclusive ticket-vendor. For its major venues -- which includes Raleigh's city-owned Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion at Walnut Creek -- Live Nation is taking its ticketing in-house.

So when Walnut Creek starts putting its 2009 shows on-sale, you'll still be able to get tickets at the venue box office just like before. But online orders will go through LiveNation.com rather than Ticketmaster.com. And for phone orders, call 877/598-8698 (a number that covers all Live Nation venues throughout the Southeast: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North/South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee).

Also, some Blockbuster stores will be Live Nation ticket outlets. No word yet on which Triangle-area Blockbuster stores this applies to; but it should be sorted out by next week.

ADDENDUM: Here are the Blockbuster stores that will have outlets, starting sometime in the second half of February:

Raleigh -- 4112 Pleasant Valley Road
Cary -- 2030 Kildaire Farm Road
Durham -- 3438 Hillsborough Road
Durham/Chapel Hill -- 202 NC Highway 54