You can’t get a good ticket.\u00c2\u00a0 Not unless you’re an insider or you’re willing to pay a ton of dough on the aftermarket.\u00c2\u00a0 To what degree is this hurting the music industry?<\/p>\n
There’s a fascinating analysis on ESPN’s site that claims that the luxury box, high-priced ticket stadiums in the NFL have eviscerated home field advantage. The true fans just can’t get close enough to the field to feel part of the game.\u00c2\u00a0 Those who talk about the team, who live for the team, who tailgate and keep sports talk radio alive have been if not completely frozen out, turned into second class citizens.\u00c2\u00a0 Made to park far away and sit down during the game, so as to not block the view of the wine and cheese crowd.<\/p>\n
Used to be if you were willing to camp out overnight, you could get a concert seat right down front.\u00c2\u00a0 At a reasonable price.\u00c2\u00a0 Now you go on Ticketmaster.com and find out mere seconds into the sale that your only hope of getting a good seat is to pay way more than face value at TicketsNow, where Ticketmaster scalps the act’s own tickets for them.\u00c2\u00a0 Concerts used to be a tribal rite, now they’re evidence of a have\/have not culture.\u00c2\u00a0 Doesn’t make a difference if you played the album every night for a month, doesn’t matter that you turn your friends on to your favorite, it just comes down to how much money you’ve got.<\/p>\n
Unless, of course, you’re a fan of the Dave Matthews Band.\u00c2\u00a0 Fan club members get good seats.\u00c2\u00a0 And Coldplay upgrades those in the rafters to seats right down front.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, Chris Martin is smart enough to know you want the people right down front on their feet screaming.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s much harder to scream from the rafters, you feel almost like you’re watching on TV.<\/p>\n
Concerts are not only about grosses, not only about momentary profits.\u00c2\u00a0 A concert tour should be another linchpin in your career, building you to a new height. But in the nineties, before the Net impacted the mainstream to such a degree, the arena concert was where the flavor of the moment MTV act appeared on maybe their one and only concert tour.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, they played some smaller buildings on the way up, but by time the second album came out, most people didn’t even care.\u00c2\u00a0 Can we say "Spice Girls"?\u00c2\u00a0 And the dinosaurs made you feel privileged to attend.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, they might die any moment.\u00c2\u00a0 But Keith Richards is like a cockroach, he’s going to outlive us all.\u00c2\u00a0 Why pay all that money to see him and his band ruin their old tunes and your memories?<\/p>\n
There’s a cost to high priced tickets and the inability of the regular fan to get good seats.\u00c2\u00a0 Career momentum is dashed.\u00c2\u00a0 And now that the recession has hit, people aren’t lining up to pony up the big bucks.<\/p>\n
Concerts have to return to the people.\u00c2\u00a0 Concertgoing needs to be cheaper and a regular activity.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, except for a distinct minority, a concert is a big bucks affair you attend once a year.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what Michael Rapino says, Live Nation patrons average fewer than two shows per annum.\u00c2\u00a0 How do you grow a healthy business when almost no one can partake?<\/p>\n
Greed not only decimated Wall Street, it’s hurt the concert business too.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve been crowing about grosses not noting that they’re propped up by ever-increasing ticket prices.\u00c2\u00a0 We haven’t been developing new acts.\u00c2\u00a0 And Live Nation has to report to Wall Street and AEG is perching itself at the absolute top of the market.\u00c2\u00a0 Take a look at the three rows of luxury boxes at Staples Center for illustration.\u00c2\u00a0 No, look at the rafter seats above these boxes to see how bad it is to be poor in America.<\/p>\n
But now everybody’s poor.\u00c2\u00a0 And a machine has been constructed that doesn’t comport with reality.\u00c2\u00a0 Concerts used to be just one step above movies. Reasonably priced nights out.\u00c2\u00a0 I went to the movies last Saturday, the multiplex was packed.\u00c2\u00a0 Unless it’s a superstar, the concert venue is not sold out.\u00c2\u00a0 And this is not good for our business.<\/p>\n
We need new acts.\u00c2\u00a0 We have to stop living in a winner take all world.\u00c2\u00a0 New, innovative tours, akin to Warped, have to criss-cross this nation.\u00c2\u00a0 At a fair price. With ticketing fees low and included.\u00c2\u00a0 Stars must realize that hard core fans must be able to get tickets and that a certain percentage of them must be good, up close and personal.\u00c2\u00a0 The fat cats with thick wallets only come to tell everybody else they were there.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re not interested in your career.\u00c2\u00a0 If they’ve got any cash left, they’ll spend it at the gig of the next flavor of the moment.\u00c2\u00a0 Meanwhile, you’ve alienated the fan and burned your career.<\/p>\n
Labels care about radio, acts care about capturing the secondary market and no one cares about the fan.\u00c2\u00a0 Fuck the fan.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s got nowhere else to go.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, that was true before the advent of video games and a plethora of other diversions.\u00c2\u00a0 And people used to want to come, because there were seemingly endless headliners, that’s where it was happening, at the music venue.\u00c2\u00a0 But music’s been whored out to such a degree that you’ll only go to hear your favorite.\u00c2\u00a0 Other than that, the average punter is giving the middle finger to the business.\u00c2\u00a0 Sick of being ripped off and unsatiated.<\/p>\n
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