“The Case of the $5,000 Springsteen Tickets – Triumphant fans showed up in Ticketmaster’s queue with special codes, only to encounter its ‘dynamic pricing’ system. Was the Boss OK with that?”: https://nyti.ms/3bc5FBB

This is why people hate the mainstream media. This was FRIDAY’S story, and today is TUESDAY!

If you’re interested in breaking news, go on Twitter. Maybe, and I mean MAYBE if someone famous gets shot, or if it’s a national disaster, the TV stations and maybe even the newspapers will cover it and be up to date. But they only seem to glom on to a story after it’s made a ton of noise online.

This is a broken system.

And who is this article for?

Certainly not for the fans. How many of them actually read the “New York Times”? As far as being forwarded, forgetting issues of the soft paywall, most people have made up their mind about Springsteen tickets, they’re on to new subjects. So who are you going to trust?

The traditional outlets are the most trustworthy, despite what people say, if for no other reason that they have more at risk, make a mistake and you risk getting sued, although the bar is very high in America, at least for now, the right and the Supreme Court would like to lower it.

But we live in a fast-paced society. Four days later is TOO LATE!

And who is going to read this in the “New York Times”? PEOPLE WHO DON’T CARE! This is not where this story needs to be placed, but on Reddit, in Bruce forums, where the people who buy tickets to the show go.

So what we’ve got is hearsay for days, based on some facts and a lot of opinions, and then the Grand Poobah weighs in when nobody cares and misinformation reigns.

Want to know what is going on?

Start with Twitter, then go to Reddit. They are the best places to find things out, especially Twitter, and Reddit is a great place to take the temperature, measure and evaluate the reaction. You’d think that some traditional news outlet would figure out how to marry these elements, put all the news in one place, a la WeChat in China, but the antique newspaper people don’t stop decrying the loss of newspapers when it’s a poor business model and papers are never coming back. People need NEWS, they don’t need newspapers.

As for Jon Landau’s comment:

“‘Regardless of the commentary about a modest number of tickets costing $1,000 or more, our true average ticket price has been in the mid-$200 range,’ he continued. ‘I believe that in today’s environment, that is a fair price to see someone universally regarded as among the very greatest artists of his generation.'”

You don’t defend the indefensible.

This is not computer code, zeros and ones. This is not facts, this is emotion, this is FEEL! Don’t tell people how to feel, that’s a losing game. If you want to respond you have to have sympathy, you’ve got to make them feel warm, you’ve got to make them feel understood.

As for all those tickets that were sold for a low price, most customers complaining DIDN’T GET THEM! Never mind it’s a tiny minority that is most vocal. You’ve got to ignore these people, you can never win.

Also, everybody lies in entertainment, and they’re almost never caught. If Landau wanted to talk about the ticket prices, he should have said that Bruce was upset about the situation, he had no idea tickets would appear so expensive. He loves his fans, he has a bond with them, he would never do anything to screw them over. WHERE IS THAT?

Of course, Jon may have told the reporter all this and the writer didn’t include it. Which is why when you want to make a public statement, YOU PUBLISH IT YOURSELF! More people will see what you say on your own Instagram/Facebook/Twitter/TikTok account than they will in the “New York Times.” In an era when you can go directly to the people, why bother to go through an intermediary, that’s positively old school. Young acts, athletes, seemingly every one of today’s celebrities makes their statement on social media, not the NEWSPAPER!

And the truth does not matter. Not whatsoever. So why are you trying to convince people to think one way when their heart says something else.

And you never want to do cleanup, you want to get AHEAD of the story!

If the Boss was going to talk, he should have fallen on his sword, this was a mistake. Something akin to an apology.

But the real story is this kerfuffle was passé, in the rearview mirror. Why talk to the “New York Times” at all? You don’t talk, there’s no story. The press is there to be manipulated, to be used, not to satiate. Reporters are the worst, they’ll bleed you dry and disappear. It’s a game, feed them gossip and information that doesn’t hurt you such that when you need a favor you have some cards to play. To keep a story out of the news. Sans Landau’s comments here, this “New York Times” story has essentially nothing new, there’s no news there! It’s not worth publishing without Landau’s comments.

And in today’s world it’s all about virality. If it’s a rehash of what’s already known, “Variety” got Ticketmaster’s view two days ago, a story is dead on arrival.

Of course the author could have done some real reporting, researched dynamic pricing with other acts. But that would have been too hard, too much effort on a story he didn’t really care about anyway.

And today’s story is not Springsteen anyway, it’s Adele in Vegas.

I saw a tweet saying tickets were priced at $40,000. I did a modicum of research, saw some bad seats going for four figures, like in the very last row, all resale, but it really doesn’t matter, the truth is irrelevant in a case like this. People don’t care enough to research, so the 40k number sticks. THAT’S the story.

And is there a ton of bitching?

Is there bitching about any other act using dynamic pricing?

NO! At least not anywhere near the intensity regarding Springsteen.

There is no way in hell you can convince me this wasn’t screwed up. I got an email today saying tickets were capped at a new Springsteen on sale at $2500. True? I don’t care! But they should be. Because as Landau said in this article, almost no one was paying those insane prices.

And I keep getting e-mail from people saying they paid reasonable prices. Why pour gasoline on the fire of high prices, why not wait for all the hard core fans to get tickets and ultimately be satisfied.

If you’re willing to wait…

A few hours, a few days, right before the show… Odds are pretty good you can score.

But with all this verified fan nonsense, people’s expectations were high, and what they got was in most cases…NOTHING!

They wasted their time. This was worse than showing up at ten a.m. without being verified!

Maybe you should have a lottery. If you’re really interested in being fair. But people will still complain, everybody wants an edge.

I’ll go even further than this… In today’s money-oriented society, NO ONE CARES ABOUT SPRINGSTEEN TICKETS EXCEPT HIS FANS!

Come on, even lousy baseball tickets are expensive. All NFL seats are expensive. Concert tickets have been expensive since hell froze over and the Eagles reunited in 1994. And then Napster and the internet caused them to go nuclear. You mean there are people bitching about high ticket prices still today? Do they still use flip-phones? Are they still on dialup?

And we all know concerts are not a commodity. And everybody knows you pay more for a unique service.

But you can’t convince the squeaky wheel.

This is my favorite e-mail I got in response to all this:

“Many years ago, my record store was a Ticketmaster outlet. You have no idea how many ticket customers, when we’d show them the venue layout and what seats were available, would look us in the face and say, dead serious, ‘You don’t have any in the front row?'”

Galen”

As for the fees… THE ACTS ARE TO BLAME! But you can explain the economics over and over and the public refuses to acknowledge this. You’d think that Ticketmaster is run by the Mafia and the acts are beholden to them when just the reverse is true. As for promoter loyalty, the act will go with whoever pays them the most. And if Live Nation and AEG aren’t interested, there’s always someone who will step up for a sell-out act. And then there are the casinos that OVERPAY for acts just to bring people to the premises to gamble.

As for a monopoly…

This is where it gets dangerous, where the blowback gets severe, but the truth is Ticketmaster gets all these events BECAUSE IT CAN HANDLE THE TRAFFIC, IT DOESN’T BREAK DOWN! All these people e-mail me about their services, how they can solve all the problems. And true, they have features Ticketmaster does not, but can they handle millions of ticket requests simultaneously?

And to hammer Ticketmaster’s advantages even more… If you’re not on the service you’re immediately selling tickets with one arm behind your back. That’s where people go to buy tickets first, Ticketmaster. They see what is available there, it’s one stop shopping. Whereas if another service is employed…most people never even go there! Online, there’s one entity that dominates every sphere, Google in search, Amazon in commerce… And to dethrone them entails more than being better. It can be done, but it’s very difficult. AND TICKETMASTER IS AN E-COMMERCE COMPANY! Yes, you buy all those tickets through the INTERNET!

I’ve got no sympathy for everybody bitching about Springsteen ticket prices, grow up.

But I must say, these on sales have been mishandled from the get-go.

As for the truth…

PEOPLE DON’T CARE! 

Tune in today, July 26th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

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He was a stalwart of the counterculture.

Earlier today I read an article about Haley Kiyoko. It was in the “New York Times”: https://nyti.ms/3zray37 I realized instantly it was hype, that it only existed because a publicist had pitched a story related to Kiyoko’s new record, but it was brief and I wanted to catch up on a woman that I was not sure I’d seen live or not. Halfway through the article, I realized I was confusing Kiyoko with another “artist,” but just before I was about to stop reading I read about Haley’s perfume. It said she had her own fragrance, “Hue.” I stupidly thought that “Hue” was a commercial product that she loved, because how could a woman with so little career traction have her own perfume? I mean this album coming out on Friday is only her second! Although she’s been releasing singles since 2013, but only one charted, 2018’s “Curious,” which made it all the way to #40 on the U.S. Pop chart, but it went to #37 on the U.S. Dance chart!

Yes, Ms. Kiyoko has her own perfume. That used to be a victory lap, the perfume, the clothing line. Now it’s a feature right from the get-go.

As for Ms. Kiyoko’s life… She loves to watch “Friends,” three episodes a night. And she loves Adobe’s Premiere Pro, because she uses it to create her clips for social media. COULD SHE BE ANY EMPTIER?

Haley Kiyoko is 31. When Bob Rafelson was 32 he created the Monkees, along with Bert Schneider.

Seen as somewhat of a rip-off of the music scene, “The Monkees” was a breakthrough because it brought the younger generation to TV, in a relatively uncompromised form. Never mind that the band had hits which survive to this day, Micky Dolenz’s breathy “ahh” in “I’m a Believer,” and his pregnant vocal in the theme to the television show are magic. And Davy Jones had a good voice and Michael Nesmith actually had cred and…

This was not New Kids on the Block.

But Bob Rafelson’s death wouldn’t have hit me so hard if he was only responsible for “The Monkees.”

Ultimately, Rafelson directed the Monkees’ movie, “Head,” which you have to be stoned to watch, it was not an auspicious debut.

But “Head” was in ’68. in ’69 Rafelson and Schneider produced “Easy Rider.” Made on a tiny budget, “Easy Rider” captured both the excitement of the sixties and the ultimate ennui of the seventies. We were all searching, we were all looking, no one is testing limits in movies today. Marvel movies are the standard, and their fans bitch when they don’t win Oscars! Well, none of them are in the league of 1974’s “Hearts and Minds,” co-produced by Rafelson. I still remember when it won the Oscar. It was a surprise, it was a counterculture breakthrough, it was an acknowledgement that we got it wrong in Vietnam.

But what lasts is “Five Easy Pieces.”

That’s the movie that made Jack Nicholson a star. And Karen Black too. You couldn’t be an adult, a late teenager, without seeing this 1970 film. It was about alienation, rejection of one’s past…

Today kids don’t reject their parents’ careers, they want IN! Yes, use your connections to get me into a good college, get me a gig at the bank, I’m all about the bucks, I don’t want to risk my lifestyle.

Whereas it used to be about coming to Hollywood and making it on your wiles and your wits. A degree didn’t mean much, although Rafelson did go to Dartmouth. And it wasn’t about money so much as about thinking.

When did it all start?

Most people say “The Graduate” and “Bonnie and Clyde” in 1967.

But as great as those sixties films were, it was the seventies that are revered as the best decade for films since the thirties.

And what did the seventies start with, what got the ball rolling? “The Last Picture Show.” You left the theatre feeling…empty and numb. Take that those of you who need someone to root for, who need a happy ending. And “The Last Picture Show” was produced by BBS, the production company run by Rafelson, Schneider and Stephen Blauner.

You might say Rafelson is Zelig, but in addition to being everywhere, he took action, he was responsible, he was known, HE WAS AT THE CRUX of the counterculture in film.

Rafelson also specialized in alienation. That was a feature of the sixties and seventies, feeling alone, like you don’t fit in, and you don’t want to fit in. Today, everybody is eager to sell out, they want to buy in, to be an outsider is to be discounted and forgotten, whereas the alienated were our heroes fifty years ago. They were the leaders. They were the musicians. Their perspective was skewed, and their art told us they were on the right path and we needed to get on it.

“The King of Marvin Gardens” was not as successful as “Five Easy Pieces,” either commercially or artistically, but if you were a film buff, and we all were, you had to see it. We were fans of the creators. We appreciated their singular vision.

And when money became paramount in the film business, Rafelson did a remake of “The Postman Always Rings Twice” that was so vivid, so edgy, so SEXY, that despite being unlike the pablum it competed with, it still made it into profits.

Not that Rafelson was a warm guy. He got canned at Universal for clearing Lew Wasserman’s desk. He stood his ground. Corporate executives compromise, politicians compromise, but not artists.

Like Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs was an alienated college dropout who had a vision, and it had to be executed on his terms. Many didn’t like this, he got canned from his own company, but when he came back everyone realized he was the secret sauce, he was the heart of Apple, he was our leader, who pushed the entire world into the future. Focus groups? Why would he listen to the people, they don’t know what they want until you give it to them!

Jobs was informed by Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the movies of the sixties and seventies, they carved him into who he was. If you’re being carved by today’s records and movies I have pity for you.

Rafelson was an original. Far from warm and fuzzy.

And now he’s dead.

Nobody lives forever, he was 89, that’s a pretty good ride. He smoked, he died of lung cancer. You can almost say he beat the odds.

But with Bob and his brethren go the ethos of what once was, the leaders of what once was. That’s what John Lennon represented, not Paul McCartney, and Lennon is gone too.

The artists of yore tested limits, pushed the art form further, and it was clear who were the amateurs and the professionals.

But today it’s all about getting rich. You want to be a “brand.” A conglomerate, someone like the empty Kim Kardashian. If she’s your hero…I’m laughing. At you. She has done well in business, but I’m not listening to a single word she says, she’s uneducated, not very intelligent, not very articulate, and furthermore, her look is the product of plastic surgery. Otherwise, she was just an average girl in your math class. And really, I give kudos to Kim and the Kardashians, they blazed a trail. But it’s got nothing to do with art, it’s got nothing to do with the mind.

The mind… That was everything back in the sixties and seventies. Could you parse truth, could you analyze? Talking about movies was a thing, you sat around for hours discussing films. Today’s movies you can’t even talk about for MINUTES!

And why even be a director, the dream of the boomers? The boomers wanted to forge art, not create cookie cutter dreck.

Rafelson is why we wanted to come to Hollywood, why we wanted to create, why we wanted to hang, why we wanted to be involved! We wanted the power to do the same thing. And then the positively pedestrian Stephen Spielberg came along and changed the entire paradigm. That’s why they never gave him an Oscar before “Schindler’s List,” he had craft, he could put the pieces together, but he couldn’t touch our souls, couldn’t create art, still can’t, IT’S NOT IN HIM!

But the renegades…

Jack Nicholson, a Rafelson crony, was an unknown outsider, and through sheer grit and sheer talent, he broke through and became our hero. Jack was cool, he was different, he knew something we didn’t, and we wanted to hang with him, hoping some of that fairy dust would rub off on us.

Talk about being born that way…

Lady Gaga is a poor imitation of Madonna. Oh, maybe she’s a bit better than that, but where is her string of hit records? You’d think she’s Barbra Streisand, and she’s not, AND STREISAND WAS NEVER COOL! Barbra had a great voice, could act pretty well, but if you were looking for someone who channeled the zeitgeist, you didn’t look to her.

There is no counterculture anymore. It used to be a badge of honor to be on the outside looking in, joking about those who drank the kool-aid, knowing you could topple them with your mind. A mind is still more important than bucks. One person can make all the difference, but in truth everybody’s depressed, they don’t see opportunity.

I could go on, but let me just say that I saw Bob Rafelson died and I not only thought of his creative output, I was struck that an era was gone, and its progenitors are passing.

Maybe you had to be there.

So what have we learned here?

1. Your image is everything. Think of your image first. Do nothing to jeopardize it. If Springsteen were on the way up as opposed to fading away, if he needed more hits, this flagging of good will would not only mean the loss of fans, but the loss of opportunities. Companies want to work with someone who is hot, not someone with a negative stink upon them.

2. Ticketmaster is the enemy. The truth doesn’t matter, this is what the public believes. I’m surprised someone hasn’t claimed that Ticketmaster stuffed ballot boxes to make sure Biden got elected, or that in reality Michael Rapino is Q.

3. Everybody has an opinion and everybody gets to express it. If this were the pre-internet era, this probably wouldn’t have even been news. Maybe a major outlet in New York or New Jersey, Boss strongholds, would have picked up on it, but this story broke and grew online.

4. You can’t be beholden to the crowd. You cannot cave to the people. The people are insatiable, you can never give them enough, you can never satisfy them. Your only option is to do what you want to. Could this have negative effects? Of course! But at least you’re in control, you can go to bed saying you screwed up, as opposed to telling yourself you were going to do something else but you were negatively influenced.

5. Concert tickets are expensive and you cannot get what you want. There are few hidden acts anymore. You’re either a legend, or big overnight, or you don’t sell out. When everybody wants to go, prices go up, it’s supply and demand, raw economics.

6. Everybody claims to be poor, but in truth they are not. If you’re truly poor, you don’t have internet access to complain, never mind the ability to travel to multiple Springsteen shows. The truly poor refrain from advertising their financial situation.

7. Music is a big business, it’s a mature business. Only the strong survive. The major labels, Spotify, never mind Apple and Amazon, even Live Nation are all public companies. And when you’re listed, money is everything. 

8. The same people complaining about Springsteen ticket prices made stock bets on Robinhood, they are doing their best to get ahead, because if you’re not in America you fall behind.

9. Ticket prices are not getting cheaper. Sure, festivals are being canceled because of low ticket sales. But if you’re a star, you do business, the only issue is what you can charge, and right now that’s over a C-note for essentially all the tickets.

Damage control has begun:

“Ticketmaster Says Most Bruce Springsteen Tickets Go for Under $200, and Only 11% are Part of Controversial ‘Dynamic Pricing’ Program”: https://bit.ly/3zsyxz4

This is what Ticketmaster is paid to do. Take the heat for the artist’s greed. Which is why you hate Ticketmaster. Your favorite artist can’t be at fault, NO WAY!

Springsteen has played this beautifully. And now he may not have culpable deniability, but something akin to that. Whereas if Bruce had said ANYTHING, he would have been deemed guilty. Anything other than everybody gets their money back and I’m gonna play for free in everybody’s living room would be considered inadequate.

Which is why you don’t see politicians responding to inane commentary, like with Obama’s birth certificate. Obama ignored the claims for years, and then when he finally produced his birth certificate it wasn’t sufficient, no, they needed the LONG FORM birth certificate. They still believe Obama was not born in the United States. If you say ANYTHING it amplifies the story.

This is what the internet has wrought. Being above the fray for eons, out of touch with the people they believe they control, politicians, celebrities, most with a profile have been caught off guard by public opinion, which used to be limited to private discussion, but is now posted online for everybody to see. And for a few years, the famous thought that everybody saw these denunciations, these pokes at them, but now, with so much sludge in the channel, the hatred doesn’t get traction unless YOU RESPOND TO IT!

You start off looking for any and all traction, and then you have to pull back. This has been the rule in celebrity publicity forever. But since celebrities can now interact personally online, and traditional PR people are unaware of the rules, cultivating relationships with major publications as opposed to trawling social media, celebrities get in scuffles on a regular basis online, and then the story becomes news!

You have no idea how many outlets thrive on these stories. They love the click-bait headlines. Celebrities create traffic. Which is how these companies make their bread. If you’re famous and you say ANYTHING outlets will pick up on it, create a story about it, even if really there’s no story at all.

This is the modern world.

Also, in the modern world, you have access to data. That Twitter hater who excoriates you every day, almost always utilizing a fake name? Check them out, some of them don’t have ANY followers. It’s like fishing. They’re just trying to catch something, odds are low, but you never know.

I don’t care what is said by Ticketmaster, the variable pricing of Springsteen tickets was screwed up. But having said that, you can spin, you can lie, and you’d be stunned how many buy your explanation, especially when it comes to something as minor as entertainment.

But now, Ticketmaster, which shares the most hated title with your cable company, has pushed back a bit, because the company has nothing to lose!

So what is the truth?

It’s ALWAYS up for debate!

Expect Springsteen to stay silent.

But what does this bode for the future?

NOT MUCH!

Let’s see… Motley Crue signed IN BLOOD that they would never tour again. And not twenty or thirty years later, but soon thereafter, they reneged.

What about all those people who overpaid for the last tour?

THEY’RE THRILLED! They get to see the band again!

Yes, talk to those who paid hundreds of dollars to see the Crue on their “final” tour. Nobody is pissed, everybody is happy. The only people who are angry are those who would never go to a Crue show to begin with. As for casual fans… Do you think at this late date Motley Crue has casual fans? NO WAY! It’s their hard core keeping them alive, the looky-loos moved on long ago.

Or, as my nephew, the world class foreign car salesman tells me… The people who pay the most are the happiest. Seems counterintuitive, they got ripped off. But they got what they wanted, they’re happy. Whereas those who got a deal… Did they get the best deal? If they’d paid more would they have gotten exactly what they wanted?

Same deal with concert tickets. It’s those who buy the overpriced platinum tickets up front who are happiest, those who buy the overpriced scalper tickets. So, those who actually have tickets to Springsteen shows are never going to bitch.

As for those boxed out…

They would have complained no matter what. The tickets were inherently too expensive. They didn’t get the right seat, they didn’t get tickets to multiple shows. Are these superfans going to sit out the next tour? NO! If anything they’ll be more prepared, because they want to GO!

This is not Billy Squier, cavorting in pink on MTV. If he’d been in business for decades, had multiple hit albums, Squier would have been able to continue. But he hadn’t yet cemented his fan base. Furthermore, MTV rocketed you to space and you fell back to earth just as fast. Nothing burns you out as much as television exposure, at least when there were so few outlets. Actually, now it’s the opposite. You’re thrilled about that TV appearance, and the end result? NOTHING! Kind of like comedians still looking for sitcoms, that paradigm died years ago. You make your bones on social media and you cement your career with specials, on Netflix or HBO. That’s where fans go. You can do a sitcom, which is far from your core competence, which is writing and telling jokes, and you have to bland down your personality, work 24/7, and almost no one sees you, not even your fans. Furthermore, pay is decreased. You’re actually taking yourself OUT OF THE MARKETPLACE!

I used to be flummoxed that Bill Maher announced all his live dates at the end of “Real Time” on HBO. In fact, I thought it was cheesy. But in today’s world, HOW ELSE ARE PEOPLE GOING TO KNOW?

Think about it, a star can come through your burg and you had no idea they were there. Awareness is everything. If you’ve got people’s attention, seal the deal. As for trying to grow your audience, most effort other than your core work pays very few dividends. Want to broaden your appeal? Write better jokes, record better songs. That’s the fastest way to more acceptance, not a feature in the paper, on TV, ANYWHERE!

So I won’t say that Springsteen dodged a bullet here. But I will say that this will blow over. Even the hard core fans. They’ve got lives outside Bruce Springsteen. It’s not the seventies with limited cash and options where you’d listen to one act and one act only, never mind the plethora of other diversions commanding your time and interest.

Bruce Springsteen wants to make bank. I dare you to find one single act that doesn’t care about the money, getting paid. THAT’S WHY THEY DO IT! And you don’t own the act, the act has no responsibility to you. Just like you’ve got no responsibility to pay for a ticket. But when it all blows over…YOU WANT TO GO!