String Cheese/Ticketmaster
Methinks the plethora of people e-mailing me this story didn’t get past the headline.
This is a false fight. This is not about Ticketmaster fees so much as allowing the band to sell more tickets by itself, surcharge free.
Do you understand that?
Let me explain… Bands have fan clubs. They want fans to get good seats. They want to sell these seats themselves. They don’t want fees on these seats. Ticketmaster will allow 8% of tickets to be sold this way. But no more.
Because the buildings need the profit.
As do the promoters.
You can’t say anything negative about the acts. Concert promotion is now akin to politics. Did you know Obama was a Muslim? And that he cheated his way into Harvard and never graduated?
The fee problem belongs to the acts. Because they get almost all of the ticketing revenue before surcharges. That’s what the "New York Times" article says, if you read it to the end.
If String Cheese were really concerned about fees, it would go to all-in pricing. Bury the fees in the total price, then everybody wins.
But that’s not the battle they’re really fighting.
So String Cheese is just muddying the waters. Spreading disinformation into the equation. Making Ticketmaster the big bad enemy once again.
I hate fees.
But there are no concerts without profits.
Let me ask you, if a band takes 90+% of the gate, how is the promoter supposed to make a profit?
Maybe you failed high school math. Maybe you believe the man is always wrong.
You want to know the truth?
The only profit in concert promotion is in the ticketing. That’s why AEG went into the business itself. If there were no profits in fees, they’d just continue to use Ticketmaster, ever think about that?
Do you expect Ticketmaster to budge, to take a loss just for its image?
That would be like Philip Morris ceasing to sell cigarettes.
That’s Ticketmaster’s business. The fees. A great percentage of which are kicked back to the buildings, the promoters, even the acts, if they’re powerful enough.
You think the acts are your friends.
But oftentimes they’re not.
Speaking of friends, everybody in the String Cheese camp is one of mine. But truth trumps loyalty. I’m calling b.s. on this one.
