Bruce Springsteen defends selling his tickets via Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing model
"Why shouldn’t that money go to the guys that are going to be up there sweating three hours a night for it?" Bruce Springsteen says
Aux News Tickets
While it’s the sale of tickets to Taylor Swift’s newly announced tour that currently has consumers up in arms with Ticketmaster, Swifties aren’t the only music fans who have been burned by the ticket retailer this year. When Bruce Springsteen tickets went on sale earlier this year, some buyers saw the prices soar to $5000 thanks to the implementation of Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing model. Now, The Boss has spoken up about the outrage over the ticket-buying process, and it goes along the lines of, “Let them eat cake.”
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Springsteen breaks down what happened behind the scenes:
“What I do is a very simple thing. I tell my guys, ‘Go out and see what everybody else is doing. Let’s charge a little less.’ That’s generally the directions. They go out and set it it out. For the past 49 years or however long we’ve been playing, we’ve pretty much been out there under market value. I’ve enjoyed that. It’s been great for the fans.
This time I told them, ‘Hey, we’re 73 years old. The guys are there. I want to do what everybody else is doing, my peers.’ So that’s what happened. That’s what they did.
But ticket buying has gotten very confusing, not just for the fans, but for the artists also. And the bottom line is that most of our tickets are totally affordable. They’re in that affordable range. We have those tickets that are going to go for that [higher] price somewhere anyway. The ticket broker or someone is going to be taking that money. I’m going, ‘Hey, why shouldn’t that money go to the guys that are going to be up there sweating three hours a night for it?’
It created an opportunity for that to occur. And so at that point, we went for it. I know it was unpopular with some fans. But if there’s any complaints on the way out, you can have your money back.”
While some encountered sky-high sale prices for tickets to see Bruce and the E Street Band, Ticketmaster says the average cost of a ticket for their world tour was $262. Nonetheless, it’s a system that ultimately only serves Ticketmaster, as consumers get hit with mysterious processing fees and fluctuating prices, and artists take on continuous flack for the sales process. With little competition, musicians lack options when it comes to selling tickets to their events.
However, any criticism Springsteen’s received does not seem to bother him too much. (And why would it? The process has made him rich.)
“I’m old. I take a lot of things in stride,” Springsteen says. “You don’t like to be criticized. You certainly don’t like to be the poster boy for high ticket prices. It’s the last thing you prefer to be.”
“But that’s how it went,” he continues. “You have to own the decisions you have made and go out and just continue to do your best. And that was my take on it. I think if folks come to the show, they’re going to have a good time.”
78 Comments
I mean, I get that, if someone is going to get rich off of this it may as well be the artists not the opportunistic scalpers, but:1) ticketmaster is getting the most rich2) this somewhat flies in the face of their songs3) scalping is still happening, even with this system4) $500 for two people isn’t really “affordable” to most Americans5) the solution that makes you the most money but costs fans the same isn’t really a solution
I do take his point that this is industry fuckery at its core and not just a Springsteen problem. However, Ticketmaster partially exists to provide cover for venues and artists to charge higher fees without it being clear where they’re originating, so “don’t get made at me; blame Ticketmaster” is not so much a deflection as it is their business model.
The real problem is the Ticketmaster/Livenation merger gave them a functional monopoly and should be undone to the extent possible. Barring that, forcing the artist to own some of their decisions might be all the average fan can do.
I don’t get this dumb take, your #1 and the article’s “Nonetheless, it’s a system that ultimately only serves Ticketmaster”.No, the vast majority of fluctuating-ticket price value (if not all of it) is going the artists amd their teams. Ticketmaster is just carrying out their will.And Bruce said it above — these tickets are going to sell for these prices, whether that’s at original sale or resale. He’d prefer that cash go in his pocket, not than a scalper’s. And yes, that means there are no cheap tickets for anybody (as long as demand is there), but Bruce is cool with that.Ticketmaster sucks, but not because of this.
I wonder what other things Bruce is cool with.
Black jeans…
I was going to suggest some sort of halfway approach where they use dynamic pricing for the floor / bottom bowl and then cap upper level prices, but with all purchases now happening online I’d be curious how many of the lower-priced tickets would end up in the hands of fans versus scalpers (especially more sophisticated ones using automated strawman buyers to snatch them all up). If an artist was genuinely concerned about helping their fans access tickets then it might be worth it to at least give them a shot, but there would clearly be money left on the table.
In the day, we sweat it out on the streetsOf a runaway American dreamJust sayin’.
Bruce Springsteen: Yoda of rock ‘n roll.
That makes TM Senator Palpatine, right? Yoda lookin at him all the time not knowing anything was amiss.
I’m not sure I love the “other people are going to scalp our tickets, so let’s be our own scalpers” reasoning.And Pearl Jam was right!
Pearl Jam paid a different price, not being able to perform in venues that were convenient for fans and smaller than where they could have been due to LiveNation’s controlling contracts with venues. Didn’t mind driving the extra to see them but others might not have had that luxury.
If I’m an entertainer, and I filled a 50,000 seat venue with fans, who paid an average of $X per ticket — I want as much of $X as possible.Oh, but you want to charge your fans a “fair” price? Well, have fun with that, because the fans are still going to pay $X even if you only charged $Y. Scalpers and middlemen will claim the delta between $X and $Y.
Guy who’s been touring in huge arenas for 30+ years now really shouldn’t be weighing in on this.
He’s responding to criticism leveled at him directly, so not sure who else should weigh in. I can get not liking his answer, totally reasonable take. But telling him just to keep his mouth shut?
Keep your mouth shut and sing!!
I have no mouth and I must rock.
Did you forget the /s?
“It works for me because I’m not as popular as Taylor Swift”
– Some gravely voiced old guy who sung nationalistic songs.
So you just never listened to any of his songs. Got it.
If you think “Born in the USA” is a “nationalistic song” then you are missing the point of it. But then again lots of people do.
Gravelly voiced old guy? Yes. Nationalistic songs? Not at all.
What nationalistic songs has Springsteen sung?
Regretfully- All I know is Born in the USA? There’s probably more.
It’s 2022 and there are still people who think Born in the USA is a patriotic song
Right up there with Fortunate Son among songs politicians shouldn’t be playing at their campaign events.
I put a question mark, correct? Wasn’t sure as I don’t remember that crap except the chorus. I didn’t want to look it up as I don’t care for his music. Also, JFC you responded fast.
Maybe don’t comment if you don’t know what you’re talking about?
But how else would we know how pathetic and idiotic Ebola (or Ebola’s parents for making Ebola) is??
Maybe because you never do the same?
Don’t at me, bro. I said it with a question mark.
You sound pretty upset
Not at all but, thanks for assumption, scout.
I didn’t know saying “I didn’t care for it” was such a trigger for thinking someone is upset. I can’t only imagine how you get if someone cusses or yells at you. Hahaahha!!
Jesus dude
Who? Never met that person. Sensitive Sue. I hope you find your safe space today.
Interesting use of a misogynist meme
Awww, I think women could use it as well. Stop being sexist.
You specifically used it to imply that women are too sensitive
Please read the lyrics!
Eh, I was a kid when all that came out. I didn’t care for it then nor now. Haha!
Name one.
I’ve bought some tickets for winter shows over the past couple days: Looking for Billy Strings tickets, most of the ones available through TM were marked as being sold by a reseller, so TM is directly facilitating reselling for higher prices.
Pretty sure the processing fee is now over $15/ticket, more than 25% of the cost of a $50 ticket. Didn’t they lose a lawsuit about that a while back? Oh yeah, we got a bunch of free ticket offers for shows hundreds of miles away and vouchers for $2.50 off shows, one voucher per ticket only though!Fuck Ticketmaster!
I have always thought the only real way to eliminate scalpers is to price them out of the market. Also some interesting points, I saw Pearl Jam earlier this year and they actually allowed ticket master to sell some tickets for the dynamic/platinum pricing, but that was in exchange for a larger pool of fan club tickets being available. Also having been a fan club member for over 20 years I can say that Ticketmaster does at least provide a useful service. Because there were several tours where PJ tried to sell fan club tickets directly through their own site, and it really sucked. The site would crash almost instantly and you would basically have to spend the day hitting F5 to try and get it to refresh. For those tours I would absolutely have paid a bit extra to not waste that much time.
“This time I told them, ‘Hey, we’re 73 years old. The guys are there. I want to do what everybody else is doing, my peers.’ So that’s what happened. That’s what they did.”
Yes, now that you’re older and slower and can’t sing or play as well and the entire show is lesser than it was when you were in your 30s, 40s, 50,s or 60s, NOW is the time to start charging more, when the show is worse than it literally ever was in the history of the band.
I’m glad I’ve never entertained the notion of paying to see him.
EDIT: Never mind
oh well whatever…
“But if there’s any complaints on the way out, you can have your money back.”Is that true, though? If I go to a Springsteen show and afterwards, on the way out I say “I did not enjoy that,” do I get my money back? I feel like I don’t.
Only one way to find out, I guess.
I truly don’t enjoy Springsteen’s music so I bet I could even pass a lie detector test if one was required.But I’m not willing to gamble $5000 on it.
Pretty interesting episode of Planet Money from a while back about ticket prices.https://www.npr.org/transcripts/671583061
Come on up for the rising (prices)come on up with your credit card
Concert tickets have typically been a loss leader type deal because of the promotional value. Now that promotion works entirely differently, it’s stupid to charge less than the market will bear. This really only affects a handful of artists anyway. The Stones don’t seem to bother, not sure about Paul McCartney.
Are you sure? I’ve often heard that hardly any money is made off the album as the production and marketing eat up all the money. Used to be that the artist could expect about $.07 per dollar made per album. The vast majority of the money artists make is from touring, because they keep all the money less your expenses.If that’s the case, the artists should do this. They shouldn’t be passing the money onto scalpers and should get their true value.
Well, “Boss,”You no longer represent the “common man.” You sold out. You already were old, tons of ca$h, and can do pretty much whatever you like. Evidently screwing the fans who made you who you are was the last thing remaining to do.Kudos to legend Garth Brooks and the late, great Tom Petty. The real fans were not screwed because those stars did not become egomaniacs. They knew that, unlike them, most of us don’t find tickets for $250+ affordable. We save or charge it for an experience we love, or in B.S.’s case “used to love.” They never forgot that the regular guy should be given a chance to see the show – the ones who were there early in their careers and helped make them popular to the level they became.So Springsteen is now the music industry’s version of Donald Trump. Act like you care but make sure whatever you do benefits only you and your rich cronies. And all at the expense and experience of the little guy.Ticket Master has always sucked. And now we can add Bruce Springsteen sucks and doesn’t give a …
Here’s an idea: Ticket fees shouldn’t scale with the cost of the ticket.
Blue-collar, working-class man of the people over here
Old guy out of touch with reality. Film at 11.
Limited supply for a high demand luxury product. Prices are going to be (extremely) high. Getting rid of Ticketmaster’s not going to change that. Short of an artist playing the same venue for days on end until everybody that wants to get to see them, I’m not sure how you ‘fix’ that.
Dynamic pricing is stupid, always. It’s stupid when Uber did it, and it’s stupid now that Ticketmaster is doing it.And yes, breaking up Ticketmaster would change things. Ticketmaster has always charged ridiculous fees, like charging you to print your ticket at home with your own printer. Ticketmaster has always been a shitty company, and it’s long past the time they’re reigned in.
That’s some capitalist apologist crap. You could end scalping literally tomorrow by simply connecting each ticket to it’s owners name like an airline seat. There’s no secondary market for a plane ticket because if your name isn’t on it, you can’t go, pure and simple.
It wouldn’t stop the pricing from being outrageous, but at least it would do what Springsteen is saying here- the money would actually be going to artists (and Ticketmaster) instead of scalpers. And it would force everyone involved to acknowledge what the actual prices are. If Springsteen or Taylor Swift don’t mind people paying $5000 for premium seats at their shows, let them own it.
..
As long as you can always get a full refund on your tickets, that’s fine. If I find out at the last minute that I can’t go, I’m now out a bunch of money, and “nonrefundable and nontransferable and fuck you” is going to just make it much less likely that I’ll buy tickets at all.
I don’t think he’s defending Ticketmaster’s pricing model. He’s just explaining why he accepted it. The guy lowered his prices for most of his entire career. One time, he allows Ticketmaster to set the prices and a virtual angry mob attacks him.
It’s long past the time for Springsteen to hang it up & retire. He
can’t even remember his own songs anymore and reads the lyrics from a telepromter.
I gotta say, I’m not impressed with him.
I have no idea how to fix this. The Garth Brooks model sounds like it would be the last tour anybody involved would ever do, and that’s just if there’s only one act touring on that model. Even as I roll my eyes at rich people always wanting more, I sympathize with the artists wanting their share if that’s what people are willing and able to pay, but we’re getting to a point where the “what people are willing and able to pay” has priced most of us out of these events. Yet it also makes sense that by 2022, a Bruce Springsteen show would be attended mostly by 60-year-old dentists.
Maybe it’s like the original pitch for Jurassic Park, where the old guy thought all the world should be able to afford to be driven eight at a time in front of the T-Rex paddock.
The solution (which I typed above and elsewhere), which no one with any power to actually enact has any incentive to put in place, is that you make concert tickets work like airplane tickets. You buy it, your name is printed on it, and you show ID when you get to the venue.
If you can’t go, you cancel your ticket for a refund, and that means the bonus is that there’s always some small amount of tickets that end up being available day of.
It even does what Springsteen is claiming he wants- keeping the money going directly to the musicians. The problem is that it would take away all the shielding from accusations of price-gouging that the artists currently enjoy. As someone else said, that’s the real function of Ticketmaster- being the asshole everyone can blame in the transaction.
To anyone who is saying Ticketmaster is the sole monster and
there is nothing the artists can do, please look into what Ed Sheeran is doing
for his Mathematics tour next year. Ticket prices are set between $49-$139, he is not using dynamic ticket
pricing, and he is using an ID system to thwart the scalpers (the person who
bought the tickets has to show up at the door). Other British artists have also signed on to FairFan Alliance (see
their website) because they care about their fans. Yes, Ticketmaster creates problems, but there’s
a lot of tools that artists with clout can do to make the fan experience
better. Bruce Springsteen doesn’t care
about his fans, so he is not interested in using those tools.
Music of the working man my ass.
fans?!??!?!?!LET THEM EAT CAKE!!!!!
You could end scalping tomorrow with one simple change- sell tickets the same way you do plane tickets: with a name attached to the ticket. I can buy a ticket for my wife, but I can’t show up and take her seat on a plane.Can’t go? Sell the ticket back to ticketmaster, get a credit or voucher or whatever for another concert later, and someone else can snag it day of.
I think the courts have pretty consistently agreed that once you buy something you are free to resell it if you wish. I figured airline tickets were an exception based on security concerns. We wouldn’t have that here. It would be nice in these kinds of situations though.
Whether right of first sale applies can be modified by law; it’s not built into the Constitution. A proper legal framework combined with venues saying that they’re not selling an item, they’re providing a service, would almost certainly work. I’m fine with the idea as long as you can always get a full refund (not just a voucher).
This is the kind of thing that would have to happen at a legislative level anyways- its not like Ticketmaster, venues or artists are voluntarily going to give up their mountains of money unless forced to. So carve out another exception legally.
It’s mighty Jersey of him. “Hey! Somebody’s gonna make bank scalping tickets, it’s gonna be me! Yo Silvio! Send that Ticket Bastard in here!”
“Love me I’m a liberal” moment
He’s looking as Neandrathal as his music. I can’t imagine who is audience even is anymore.