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Other factors contributed to Springsteen ticket prices rocketing

By | Published on Tuesday 16 June 2009

Remember how Ticketmaster’s ownership and promotion of secondary ticketing website TicketsNow became big news earlier this year when Bruce Springsteen got word that his fans were being forced to buy tickets for a gig in his home state of New Jersey at hiked up prices via the resale site, which his primary ticket seller, Ticketmaster, were promoting?

Springsteen’s public criticism of Ticketmaster’s secondary ticketing operation led to allegations that the ticketing giant was letting primary tickets slip into the hands of touts because they had a commercial interest to do so – that way they’d earn twice off the same tickets, once when the original ticket is sold to the tout, and again by taking a commission when the tout resells the ticket via TicketsNow.

Well, now some in the US media are turning against the Boss following a report that one of the reasons why tickets for the gig at New Jersey’s Izod Center were in such high demand was because 2262 tickets, included over a 1000 for the best seats in the house, were never put on sale to start with, them being held back for friends and family of Springsteen, his label and agent, and the venue’s owners. That fact, some are now arguing, was what led to the touts dominating ticket sales for the concert, and as a result the highly inflated prices that touted tickets were being sold for.

While the reserving of some tickets for an artist’s friends, and his label’s associates, is normal practice, and such insider allocation is always going to be higher when an artist is playing in his home territory, the story is more fun because of New Jersey’s strict ticketing rules. Some reports suggest that state laws there say only 5% of tickets for public concerts can be held back from public sale, while, according to the Newark Star-Ledger, 12% of tickets were held back for this particular show.

While consumer groups in both the US and especially Canada were already raising objections to Ticketmaster’s promotion of its secondary service via its primary website, it was Springsteen’s outburst that captured the headlines and forced the ticketing giant to change its official policy on the issue – from “we’re just providing consumers with more options” to “we need to be more careful here”. Aided by the coverage of Ticketmaster’s attempts to merge with Live Nation, the whole story has since gained so much momentum that the ticketing firm is reportedly now trying to sell off TicketsNow, willing to write off its move into the secondary market as a mistake.

What that would mean for Get Me In, Ticketmaster’s UK secondary ticketing website – which has never been integrated with the main Ticketmaster UK website, though that was presumably the original intent – isn’t clear.



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