We’ve all been through the frustrating process of buying tickets before.
You know, your favorite country singer is coming to a town near you, and you want to do everything you can to go see them play…
But the tickets are taken up in 0.3 seconds by scalpers, and next thing you know you’re having to pay double, triple or 10 times the money you originally would be paying.
It’s incredibly frustrating, considering all of those true fans who are left without tickets because they’re in the hands of the wrong people… or just the richest.
Not to mention, scalping affects the musicians as well, because the scalpers are pocketing the money.
We saw this with Turnpike when they first announced their comeback, and resale markets had tickets over $1,000. But more recently, Bruce Springsteen’s tickets on Ticketmaster’s Dynamic Pricing system were going for upwards of $5,000 dollars.
According to them, it was only about 10% of their tickets but still…. supply and demand pricing means that only rich people get to go to concerts.
With that being said, Garth Brooks weighed in on the issue of scalping in an interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, along with dynamic ticket pricing in general.
He said:
“That’s a tough one… Bruce Springsteen is going through it right now. We’re all watching it.
Here’s the bottom line for me, and I know this is silly, but I have screamed and screamed as long as you’ve known me: just knock out scalping. That’s it. Just make it illegal.
That way, the price of the ticket is the price of the ticket. The same money is going to be exchanged when scalping tickets, it’s just now who gets the money, that’s the difference.
The thing I hate about it, the hardest it’s on is the fan, the one who allows you to live your dream.”
Although I can’t read this without hearing Garth’s creepy, skin crawling soft voice, and picture a tear forming in the corner of his eye… he makes a good point here.
Making scalping illegal wouldn’t completely put an end to it, but would be a step in the right direction.
Although, with G wrapping up his stadium tour for good (AKA playing smaller venues), it’s only going to make that problem even bigger. And he essentially admits that when talking about residencies:
“But if you go play Vegas, you do a residency, you’re going to do dynamic pricing. It’s going to be tough, so residencies are hard, but they always are because of the limited amount of seating anyway.”
Can’t pass on all that money, G.
