Bruce Springsteen is at the centre of a new controversy after it was revealed that the boss himself may have been responsible for the lack of premium seats at his concerts for this fans.
While the senate hearing into the Ticketmaster / Live Nation merger is going on, some of the questions being asked are discovering interesting answers from outside the room.One extension of this investigation is finding out who exactly is behind the allocation of tickets to a show and the answer is not necessarily the ticketing agency.
While senate was questioning Ticketmaster over the Live Nation merger, results of a case study into ticket allocations at Bruce Springsteen contents have surfaced, with thanks to Newark newspaper The Star Ledger.
The Star-Ledger, through the Open Public Records Act, found that the Springsteen shows had a mechanism that basically put in play a process to “scalp” tickets instead of selling them directly to the public. it was revealed that most of the good seats to a Springsteen concert were gone before they even hit the Ticketmaster database.
The shows under the microscope were the May 21 and 23 shows at East Rutherford, New Jersey, Springsteen’s home turf.
It was discovered that around 90% of the best seats in the house were “reserved” for friends and family of the band, venue employees, record label execs and their guests. 2,262 seats from the May 21 Springsteen show were withheld from sale, or 12% of total tickets on sale for the venue. Under New Jersey law, only 5% of tickets can be set aside for that purpose.
But then it was revealed that of the 1,126 seats closest to the stage, only 108 seats were made available to the public.
The Wall Street Journal then investigated further. They found a scalper who bought a pair of tickets for $600 from a venue employee. The tickets had a face value of $95. The scalper then sold the tickets for $1,200.
Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau, when questioned by the Wall Street Journal said, “It is true that we hold a significant number of tickets for our friends and family, as does virtually every artist during concert appearances. The location of those tickets are blended into the seating chart, so that there’s always a mix between the ability of fans to buy tickets and tickets being held for the stated purpose. No tickets held by the artist in our case are ever authorized for resale. And to the best of our knowledge, this practice is common to all artists who have to deal with close friends, business associates who work year-round for them, their parents, their wives, their nieces, and so forth.”
The revelation means that Springsteen himself may be behind an alleged scam to scalp his own tickets.
While inside the Springsteen camp they are stating they have done nothing wrong, the fact remains that more than twice the amount of tickets allowed by law to be withheld were withheld.
The controversy started to brew when fans could not get their hands on tickets to his shows. Springsteen was quick to pint the finger at Ticketmaster practices.
It looks like the Boss may now have to issue a personal apology to the fans and to Ticketmaster.
