Radiohead: "Secondary Ticketing Is Wrong on So Many Levels..."
There are two sides to this argument: one says that if fans are willing to pay insanely high prices, they should be charged that price. The other says that fetching the highest bid is ultimately bad for bands, and corrosive to their fan relationships.
Guess which camp Radiohead is in? After getting sick of staring at an overcharged audience every night, the band has decided to do something about it. On their upcoming, UK-based tour, Radiohead is embracing a structure that prevents huge secondary price-hikes.
Let's see if it works: through a partnership with The Ticket Trust, Radiohead fans can resell their tickets at face value using the Trust exchange, with transfer charges capped at 10 percent. The Trust was formed by the UK Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) and merchandising and ecommerce company Sandbag to create a more 'ethical' post-sale exchange.
The Ticket Trust comes into play on any tickets purchased through Radiohead's w.a.s.t.e. merchandising store (waste.uk.com). Which is absolutely huge for the Ticket Trust, and could encourage buy-in from more heavyweights with seriously-dedicated audiences.
The question is whether dedicated audiences can get burnt out, especially if they're feeling ripped off every time. "Radiohead are fortunate enough to have a loyal and passionate fan base cultivated over many years," the bands' management explained. "Their live shows are well anticipated and rightly create a tangible sense of excitement through innovative staging. In recent years however, the band’s enjoyment of their own shows has been marred by the knowledge that a great many of their fans have been obliged to pay well over face value for their tickets."
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morna
Sunday, March 04, 2012it's a step in the right direction but it fails to address the key problem of scalpers buying up chunks of tickets and reselling them at a huge profit. This is great if it works cause fans are conditioned to panic when they can get a hold of tickets and a lot of us over buy and find ourselves stuck with tickets that we can't use for a plethora of reasons. It's mortifying seeing precious radiohead tickets going to waste when we know how many fans out there want them. Ironically the measures in place to try to thwart scaplers are responsible for fans being unable to sell even at a loss,and we see many empty seats at the gigs. At least this will mitigate this one aspect of the problem. The bigger issue involves money and greed and the lack of ethics in the populace and I don't see a way around it. I appreciate radioheads efforts greatly and I wish them luck in combating this nasty and disappointing reality of the music biz.
love you
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think of the children
Monday, March 05, 2012Poor consumers who are forced by bands at gunpoint to buy tickets they don't want. Poor, poor consumers.
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Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/digitalmusicnews/~3/-oMs8pu1wkk/120304radiohead
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Marcus
Secondary ticketing has been around forever and it actually about as fair as it's ever going to get right now. The marketplace keeps all players in line, and often you can get tickets far cheaper on secondary sites like stubhub and http://frontrowtickets.com for sporting and concert events as the date of the event comes closer. They also provide a valuable service if you miss the initial sale and want to go at a later date. The trend where artists and worse ticketmaster are scalping their own tickets is really scary though.
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