Garth Brooks did his best to keep his Blame It All On My Roots Tour tickets the same price and out of the hands of ticket scalpers. With his first run of shows coming up this weekend, it’s clear that the pricing strategy did not go off without a hitch. But… was it doomed from the start?
The country music star is currently gearing up to go back out on the road. After teasing a new album and new music earlier this year, the “Friends In Low Places” singer finally made the announcement official in early July. Through a release on his website, and in a couple of different social media posts, the country superstar told everyone that the “wait is over,” and happily shared that his Blame It All On My Roots Tour was on its way.
His first set of shows is August 20 through the 23rd in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Brooks hasn’t been on the road in quite some time, so it’s exciting for fans to get a chance to see the country music icon. And the “If Tomorrow Never Comes” singer was praised for the ticket pricing strategy that he decided to roll out for this retro arena tour that’s about to get kicked off.
Basically, Garth chose to make every single ticket that’s for sale – regardless of where it is in the arena – $155.25. When you break that down, it’s $140 for the ticket, and then $15.25 added on top of it in facility fees and service charges (plus taxes). In other words, whether it’s the front row or the nosebleeds, every single seat costs the same.
That’s at least how it was going to go down in theory, but right off the jump, does it even make sense? I mean, why would anyone want to pay the same amount as a front row ticket as they do for a nosebleed? Your budget is your budget, but the average person understands the premise of paying more money to sit closer… it’s the same in concerts, sporting events, theater. Tiered pricing structure was never really the issue here. The issue is that people use bots and other nefarious means to acquire a bunch of tickets and then try to sell them on a secondary ticket market like StubHub at a premium (because they sell out instantly). It’s simple supply and demand, really… but that premium price doesn’t go to the artist, it goes to the scalper and StubHub fees.
Imagine you’re a season ticket holder for an NFL team… you get first crack at playoff tickets, so you buy them at face value and then you sell them to diehard fans who are willing to pay 5x the price to see their team in the playoffs. It’s basically the same thing at a much larger and sophisticated scale. Perhaps an unfair one since many of these scalpers use bots to buy up tickets. By the way, the BOTS Act of 2016 makes it illegal for anyone to use automated tech to purchase tickets for resale.
In Garth’s case, tickets were only supposed to be sold through Ticketmaster, and if you are to go to any of the links through that ticket provider for his tour (he currently has shows scheduled for Indianapolis, Indiana; Denver, Colorado; Chicago, Illinois and Washington D.C.), it’s slim pickings.
However, hop over to a ticket reseller like StubHub and you’ll see that tickets are going for as low as $30 in the upper level for some of the dates. That’s not a bad thing, right? Well, on the flip side, the tickets that are in the lower levels and closer to the stage are going for prices as high as $600. That’s where people get mad… some diehard fans can’t afford that and there is the perception that the best seats should go to the best fans. But again, paying 30 bucks for nosebleeds and much more for the front row doesn’t sound too crazy… that’s how most of the entertainment industry operates. And in this case, you actually save a lot of money if you’re fine sitting further back. In that case, the pricing strategy would benefit the secondary markets, right?
Garth really tried to get the word out about his concert tickets going on sale, hoping that tickets would only get into the hands of his fans, rather than bots or scalpers. He even provided some quotes through GarthBrooks.com (the No. 1 source for all things Garth) about how getting into the queue early helps battle bots:
“When you join the waiting room before the queue opens, it helps Ticketmaster block bots so real people have a fair shot at getting tickets. I really urge people to get in the waiting room before the queue opens and update all your info ahead of time.”
And the country icon previously let his strong beliefs against scalping be known. Garth believes that scalping should be illegal, and says he’s entertained the thought of walking up to the “powers that be” and telling them he only wants to tour in a world where scalping is outlawed:
“I’ve never understood why scalping is legal. I don’t think I am making it too simple by saying if we just make scalping illegal, a bunch of the problems of today’s ticketing procedures would be gone. I’ve always wanted to go to the ‘powers that be’ and tell them I would be happy to do a tour without scalping if they want to see if we all miss it or not.”
After seeing how his “every ticket is the same price” strategy has worked out, he might be even more inclined to do just that. But at the same time, what’s to stop a secondary “black market” from forming if legalized and regulated secondary markets like StubHub are barred from participating? One thing to point out is that the 2016 BOTS Act actually did make it illegal for people to use bots or automated tech to purchase large amounts of tickets or sidestep security measures. It doesn’t seem to be very well enforced, and doesn’t do anything to stop the process of scalping, but it’s technically illegal already.
For Garth however, a lot of fans that got there early in the ticket buying process did manage to grab their seats at the promised and advertised $155.25. However, from a bird’s eye view, I guess you could say that Garth fought the scalpers and the scalpers won… because tickets to his shows are popping up elsewhere, and for a different price than he initially wished. But I’m not so sure the premise ever made sense to begin with… what does making every ticket the same price do to stop people from buying them and re-selling them?
