There is going to be a revolt in the concert industry worse than the one the recording industry is seeing now. In the last decade tickets have gone from semi-reasonable to downright out of reach for 90% of the population. Then comes this article from the Wall Street Journal telling us that it is the artists selling all of those seats on Ticketsnow and other secondary scalping sites.Bob Lefsetz blew the door open last week in a blog post at this link where he says:
Let me explain this to you. A certain number of tickets are pulled from the manifest and ultimately sold on TicketsNow. Ticketmaster guarantees a certain gross payment to the act for these tickets, far in excess of the usual payment per ticket. If the tickets don’t sell at the predicted high prices? Too bad for Ticketmaster.
Blame the acts for this. Ticketmaster Is taking the heat.
The question arises...how long until the public revolt? Not too long ago, it wasn't about where your seat was, but whether or not you could get in. Can you experience the religious nature of the show? It's now become all about how close you can be. In recent weeks I have had numerous people tell me that they would only go to show "x,y,z" if the seats were good. Why? Well, to start with, cheap tickets and lawn seats aren't so cheap after service fee's. More importantly, there is the feeling that there should be some fairness in obtaining the seats. Fifteen years ago, you were OK with being the last row in the balcony because you felt that the people up front were there merely because their luck was better than yours. It's not true anymore.
I've witnessed a number of shows in recent years where the first twenty-rows of the floor have killed the mood of the show. There are people who sit in the front row. The front row! These aren't fans, but merely people willing to overpay for what they deem as a privilege, to be near a superstar. I've seen shows in the last year from the front row and the last row. It is an experience to be up close, but why do the acts reserve these seats for those who have the most money? What's next? Milk and bread at the grocery store?
Now that the cat is out of the bag that artists do indeed scalp their own tickets, the question arises; How long until the fans revolt? If they have no chance of getting good seats, then will fans continue to go?
Lastly, one piece of the WSJ article just slayed me:
According to several managers of top artists and Ticketmaster executives, the company routinely offers to list hundreds of the best tickets per concert on one of its two resale Web sites -- and divides the extra revenue, which can amount to more than $2 million on a major tour, with artists and promoters.
This is interesting, because what it is basically saying is that the artists will sell out their most fervent and loyal fans for $2-million. Is that a lot of money? Hell yes, but when you are Madonna and Neil Diamond and you are earning in the range of $80-$100 million per tour, do you really need the extra $2-million? Is it really worth it to alienate your most important asset as a touring artist, the fan, for a mere $2-million? Couldn't that extra $2 million be made up by adding two shows to the itinerary? It's the equivalent of risking your job that pays you $75,000 all because you want to steal an ink jet cartridge at work. Why risk it?
The link to the full article WSJ can be found here.
