Re: Fans Angry Over Soaring Ticket Prices

["L. Bird" <pkeets@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From ABCNews.com:
>
> http://abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/Entertainment/2020_concertgreed030314.html
A little discussion has developed about this on another list.  It's kind of 
a perennial topic, but I thought this list might have some opinions, too.  
Here's mine:

> > I'm going to have to agree with Greg on one point.  The Who are guilty 
> of greed, especially on this last tour, when some tickets were in the 
> multiple hundreds of dollars in places such as Las Vegas.
I haven't commented on ticket prices, but I guess I should, as there's an 
attempt at a discussion here.  Here's the economist's view: It's demand that 
drives the price up.  The article may be right to a point; older artists 
haven't reaped the benefits that they should have from their music, but for 
more than one reason.  The classic rock acts have generated billions of 
dollars for the music industry with relatively little input from corporate 
dollars.  Many of them were ripped off by managers, record companies, fans, 
whoever, and now that there's a certain demand for their music again, they 
have a last chance to make some money for retirement, or maybe to pass along 
to their children.  The Who has always been a solid cash cow for MCA, but 
you may recall that John Entwistle was rumored to be in dire financial 
straits before the 2000 tour.  It's true that his standard of living may 
have been excessive, but still he wanted to keep his house.

Because demand has gone up, there's also a need to fairly distribute the 
front seats. The Who was a stadium act not that long ago.  When you cut down 
the size of the venue and the demand is anywhere near what it was, then 
competition for the tickets rises.  At a low price, there will be a huge 
shortage of front tickets, and there has to be some system to get them out 
to fans.  Many folks would be (and still are) paying scalpers way above the 
advertized prices to get in.  It's unfair to ask the band to charge $35 for 
a front seat when the going price is obviously $2500.  The Who management 
has set a price that's well below the going rate on the aftermarket, and 
prices in the back are generally much lower than what's in front.  I think 
"greed" might be more along the line of actually charging market price for 
these front seats, as Madonna, Cher and Barbra Streisand have done in the 
recent past.

As I recall, the box on The Who's tour and on Dave Matthew's tour was fairly 
similar.  The Who is running a multi-tier price system to let the market 
price reduce the competition for front seats.  I don't know much about Dave 
Matthew's system for distribution, but he's playing larger venues and 
selling more tickets to make up the price difference.  Pearl Jam is keeping 
the prices artificially low, but they're running a fairly complex "preferred 
member" fan club system that holds the front tickets and distributes them 
according to "senority."

At $150-$350 for the front section seats, I think The Who is being very 
reasonable.  They're allowing themselves a decent profit, and charging a 
price that allows them to sell the seats to fans, rather than scalpers or 
corporate buyers.  I made several shows on the last tour, and I noticed that 
competition was still very stiff for the front seats, even at these prices.  
I was generally frozen out at Ticketmaster, but did manage to come up with 
good seats on some occasions by means of strategy.  I didn't feel the need 
to resort to a scalper on this tour, which makes the whole thing seem 
reasonably fair.

I notice Pearl Jam has altered their plan once or twice when they saw
it wasn't working well. If you have any creative ideas on how to
deal with this distribution problem, I'm sure many bands would be
happy to hear from you.


keets

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