Yesterday (1/27/11) tickets went on sale for three Bruce Springsteen shows in New York and New Jersey. Ticketmaster was the website to purchase tickets at, but numerous fans received error messages and could not receive tickets. Tickets for these shows can be found on eBay, Stubhub, and other secondary broker sites for hundreds of dollars more than face value. This has resulted in Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D., N.J.) promising to reintroduce the “BOSS Act” (Better Oversight of Secondary Sales and Accountability in Concert Ticketing). Full text of the bill can be viewed HERE. In general, it would prohibit the purchase of tickets by brokers for the first 48 hours of the primary sale, along with requiring more reporting by the ticket seller on how many tickets are available, the distribution of all the tickets, and some additional restrictions on secondary brokers and employees or other “insiders” who may acquire tickets.
The music industry has been slow to adjust to the age of the internet. What could have been a cash cow now and for years to come for the music industry has become it’s biggest fear (as evident by the overwhelming support from music industry executives and the RIAA in the battle for SOPA and PIPA).
While the BOSS Act doesn’t directly address these intellectual property issues, it does address another issue — what exactly is the business acumen of these label executives? These tickets are going for hundreds of dollars more on resell and, most importantly, people are buying them. If the labels are going to make extreme claims of how piracy effects them (I don’t doubt that piracy hurts the artists and labels, but some of the claims made by the RIAA seem far reaching) they should realize the opportunity to make more money on ticket sales when it exists. They are undervaluing their product by hundreds of dollars and that is their prerogative. It’s also their choice to use Ticketmaster as opposed to another ticketing service or another means that assures the tickets end up in the fan’s hands and not a broker.
Sure, the BOSS Act is supposed to be a way to protect the consumers and ensure they get tickets at a fair price but it’s hard for me to feel bad for the fan when it is the label putting them in this situation, and they don’t ever seem to care about the fan. Representative Pascrell’s insistence on reintroducing this Act only goes to show how the music industry, in large part, has failed to adjust from 2009 to now (the bill was originally introduced in 2009, due to another failure by Ticketmaster in selling Springsteen tickets). If the music industry truly cared about the fans this would have been fixed by each individual label, Ticketmaster, and everyone involved in the ticketing process.
There are numerous options that could have led to more fans getting tickets for this show, or any other shows where this has been an issue. First, why not reserve more tickets for a set presale, where the fans provide the label with their e-mail address, and in return get a user specific link to purchase up to 5 or so tickets? The label gets an e-mail to add to their list, and they make sure these particular fans won’t be complaining about not being able to receive a ticket. Second, make the face value of the tickets reflective of what they are actually worth. If fans are going to pay more money than you are charging, it’s time to raise the price. You’re only encouraging these secondary ticket brokers to purchase mass quantities of tickets when you charge under what the customer perceives as the fair market value. These are just a couple of ideas to solve the problem without enacting legislation that shouldn’t be needed in the first place.
I personally would be much more interested in seeing an antitrust investigation launched against Live Nation & Ticketmaster than seeing Congress waste their time on this Act, when there are far more important matters to take up.
