Who's Really to Blame for High Ticket Prices?

A majority of individuals and households have chosen to drastically cut their entertainment spending due to the economy. And with the rising cost of tickets, concertgoers have no choice but to limit the number of performances they attend. Although many blame promoters, ticket sellers and artists for the rising cost of prices, ticket brokers and resellers are often the causes of drastically rising ticket prices. While some artists are concerned about making money and raising their prices, Eric Church is looking out for his fans by offering cheaper ticket prices and special discounts for his “Church Choir” fan club members. But this strategy of offering cheaper tickets has backfired due to ticket scalpers.

In a recent article on Billboard Church said that for his latest tour they were trying to keep ticket prices for the GA pit and front row reasonable and accessible to fans. Members of the “Church Choir” were allowed to purchase 8 low priced tickets at a time. However, as ticket brokers joined the fan club and purchased large amounts of tickets under multiple accounts some fans ended up paying between $200 and $400 for those very same tickets. In addition to penalizing the fans with higher prices there are around 500 to 600 tickets (according to Billboard) outstanding in the hands of these high priced ticket brokers that very well could cause Church’s performances not to sell out.

After realizing that scalpers were purchasing a majority of the tickets, Church’s team began looking at all of the purchases and trying to pin point the resellers. They have also updated their fan club membership policy to state, “If you’re reselling tickets, it’s grounds to cancel your membership.” While this policy change might slow down the scalpers as they search for a way around the system, it won’t stop them. As Church says, “They are just some slimy sons of bitches.” 

www.ericchurch.com/tour

So for now all that Church’s team can continue to do in the fight against scalpers is review the ticket sales and fan club members. Additionally, in the future they plan to use the tools Ticketmaster offers to help stop scalpers from purchasing the tickets to help keep the prices reasonable for the true fans.

- Lisa -