{"id":1666,"date":"2009-02-08T15:51:45","date_gmt":"2009-02-08T23:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=1666"},"modified":"2009-02-08T17:59:07","modified_gmt":"2009-02-09T01:59:07","slug":"concert-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2009\/02\/08\/concert-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Concert Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"
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"’Money was flowing, easy money.\u00c2\u00a0 Anybody could qualify–I mean anybody.’\u00c2\u00a0 He knew a bank teller with an annual salary of twenty-three thousand dollars who had received a two-hundred-and-sixteen-thousand-dollar mortgage, with no money down and no income verification\u00e2\u20ac\u009d not even a phone call from a lender."<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I don’t own my own home.\u00c2\u00a0 I haven’t even got any children.\u00c2\u00a0 Primarily because I don’t want to pay for them.\u00c2\u00a0 I was married once, reluctantly, but I resisted going further down the domestic path.\u00c2\u00a0 I was wary of losing sight of my dreams, becoming locked in an endless cycle of work and obligations, unable to pursue my passions.<\/p>\n

Little did I know that you could have your cake and eat it too.<\/p>\n

I thought I knew what was going on in America.\u00c2\u00a0 That lenders stretched the limits and borrowers overreached. Just a little.\u00c2\u00a0 But that was not what was going on at all.\u00c2\u00a0 In acts of pure greed, banking institutions lent money for the fees, not worrying about tomorrow, just like the ignorant people they gave the money to.<\/p>\n

I’m not ignorant.\u00c2\u00a0 I have not only a college degree, but a graduate degree.\u00c2\u00a0 But oftentimes the borrowers of these gargantuan sums were high school dropouts, working blue collar jobs.\u00c2\u00a0 And now that those jobs, so often in the construction trades, have disappeared, they’re lining up with their brethren for minimum wage work that they can’t get, because the line is so long.<\/p>\n

I’ve sacrificed.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that I’m proud of it.\u00c2\u00a0 It was just a necessity.\u00c2\u00a0 I saw limited funds coming in, so limited funds had to go out.\u00c2\u00a0 I believe in the American Dream, I wouldn’t have sacrificed this long if I didn’t believe in the potential for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but now I find out those making the rules don’t sacrifice at all.\u00c2\u00a0 I declare all my income.\u00c2\u00a0 I pay my taxes.\u00c2\u00a0 But those making the rules don’t?\u00c2\u00a0 How can this be?<\/p>\n

When I grew up, anybody could do anything.\u00c2\u00a0 You just had to save.\u00c2\u00a0 A middle class citizen could stay at the best hotels.\u00c2\u00a0 Not every night, but if that was his desire, he could save up and splurge.\u00c2\u00a0 Now there are exclusive resorts with such prohibitive costs that you have to be making millions a year, tens of millions a year, in order to afford them.<\/p>\n

We can’t park close, can’t get a seat in a good restaurant because someone who worked on Wall Street got there first, and owns that territory.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re regular customers.\u00c2\u00a0 We haven’t been happy about this, but now we know that so many of these Masters of the Universe were no different from card players in Vegas, and they not only lost all their money, actually, their clients’ money, but flew in on private jets to beg for more, which they instantly rewarded themselves with in the form of bonuses.<\/p>\n

Actually, I have no problem with private jets.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re paying the CEO that handsomely, and he has to go to an out of the way location, it’s plain stupid to fly commercial.\u00c2\u00a0 Wasting that much time is a terrible use of resources, in this case, brainpower.\u00c2\u00a0 But this is what sticks in the public’s craw.\u00c2\u00a0 Primarily because the general public is stuck in the airport, paying for its luggage to be stowed in the plane and being insulted in the process.<\/p>\n

I don’t know the answer to our economic problems.\u00c2\u00a0 But lowering taxes is not it.\u00c2\u00a0 That can’t be the sole solution, otherwise the Bush economic policies would have been triumphant.\u00c2\u00a0 But Washington can’t handle change.\u00c2\u00a0 But Tom Daschle lost his job because he was out of touch, he didn’t realize that the average person doesn’t get a full-time car and driver, never mind not pay the taxes on it.<\/p>\n

We live in scary times.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, we might wonder how that inane Southern California woman is going to feed fourteen mouths, but what about the family whose breadwinners lost their jobs, and now have not only no money to pay the mortgage, but feed their kids?<\/p>\n

No one seems to care about those people.\u00c2\u00a0 Everyone’s too selfish.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got mine, fuck you.\u00c2\u00a0 But what if you suddenly don’t have yours anymore?<\/p>\n

You used to sell ten million records, now you can’t even sell two.\u00c2\u00a0 Those damn pirates!\u00c2\u00a0 But those pirates are real people.\u00c2\u00a0 Who overpaid to hear one good track on a CD.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve got no sympathy for you.\u00c2\u00a0 And they may overpay to see superstars once, but not forever.\u00c2\u00a0 The Stones don’t sell out anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 Nor does Springsteen, not even Madonna.\u00c2\u00a0 The printed grosses are high, but that’s because of the inflated ticket prices.<\/p>\n

Is the concert industry headed for a fall?\u00c2\u00a0 Just like the recorded music industry?<\/p>\n

Music acquisition will be monetized.\u00c2\u00a0 But we won’t have the dominant superstars of yore, created and contained by a few conglomerates.\u00c2\u00a0 As a result, we won’t have many superstar artists playing live.\u00c2\u00a0 These new acts…\u00c2\u00a0 Will someone pay twenty five dollars for a ticket AND TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS IN FEES to see them?<\/p>\n

Blame Michael Rapino.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, Live Nation has got problems.\u00c2\u00a0 But first blame the acts and their handlers, the managers and agents, who have been so greedy as to force Live Nation to scramble for cash everywhere it can.\u00c2\u00a0 Since Live Nation can’t make money on the gig itself, it has to charge fees so it can make a profit.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, the public might be too stupid to understand this right now, but just like the housing market fell apart, the concert industry might implode and the truth might be revealed.\u00c2\u00a0 That the acts are greedy.<\/p>\n

Does Bruce Springsteen need to gross two hundred million dollars in a year?\u00c2\u00a0 Couldn’t he halve the ticket prices and gross a hundred million?\u00c2\u00a0 Wouldn’t that be enough?<\/p>\n

Used to be the huge grosses were a badge of honor.\u00c2\u00a0 Evidence that the outsiders were winning.\u00c2\u00a0 But how much of an outsider can you be when you play the Super Bowl?<\/p>\n

But we’re only piling on Bruce because we believed in him.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, the Eagles were always about the money (but at least they turned the Super Bowl down…), and Madonna is ONLY about the money.\u00c2\u00a0 Is this a fashionable trait today?\u00c2\u00a0 When the customer is hurting?<\/p>\n

If you’re a renegade and riches are rained down upon you as a result, you’re a folk hero, a millionaire winner like Jamal Malik in "Slumdog".\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re buying a fifteen hundred dollar wastebasket for your office, you’re just a scumbag.<\/p>\n

The concert business thinks it’s immune.\u00c2\u00a0 But if the labels were not, if the public gleefully stole recorded music, just imagine the pent-up anger regarding overpriced concert tickets and abuse at the gig.\u00c2\u00a0 The concert industry is just one step away from implosion.<\/p>\n

It’s time to circle the wagons.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s time for acts, managers, agents and promoters to get on the same page.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s time to get the industry’s house in order.\u00c2\u00a0 There must be a final ticket price, with no fees at all.\u00c2\u00a0 There must be reasonably priced shows.\u00c2\u00a0 The experience must improve.\u00c2\u00a0 All in the name of keeping the customer satisfied, so he’ll continue to come to the gig, so he’ll check out a new act that might ultimately develop into a superstar.<\/p>\n

If you think the public has sympathy for the stars, you’re wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 And when you can’t pay your bills, when you’re going to lose your house, you only have sympathy for yourself.\u00c2\u00a0 As for this being a youth-oriented business, who do you think gives all that money to the kids?\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t work for it, they get their concert-attending funds from their parents!<\/p>\n

The Republicans fiddled and lost control of Washington across the board.<\/p>\n

The Democrats, although in power, have no idea who their constituency truly is.<\/p>\n

It’s no different in the music business.\u00c2\u00a0 The labels think their customers are radio and retail.\u00c2\u00a0 Acts believe their customers are promoters.\u00c2\u00a0 And Live Nation and Ticketmaster think their customer is Wall Street.<\/p>\n

Ignore the little guy at your peril.\u00c2\u00a0 Because the little guy pays your bills.\u00c2\u00a0 Just ask the car companies.\u00c2\u00a0 If people stop buying, you’re screwed.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that many people NEED a new car.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that many people NEED to go to a concert.\u00c2\u00a0 Remember this.<\/p>\n

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The above quote is from George Packer’s article "The Ponzi State: Florida Foreclosed" in the February 9&16 issue of the "New Yorker".\u00c2\u00a0 Read it.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

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"’Money was flowing, easy money.\u00c2\u00a0 Anybody could qualify–I mean anybody.’\u00c2\u00a0 He knew a bank teller with an annual salary of twenty-three thousand dollars who had received a two-hundred-and-sixteen-thousand-dollar mortgage, with no money down and no income verification\u00e2\u20ac\u009d not even a phone call from a lender." I don’t own my own home.\u00c2\u00a0 I haven’t even got […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-shows","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-qS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1666"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1669,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666\/revisions\/1669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}