Springsteen Hates Ticketmaster – Just Like Us!
Bruce Springsteen – ever the working man – placed his newest album right at the top of the charts this week. His latest, Working on a Dream, finally knocks Taylor Swift’s eight-week chart topper Fearless out of the top spot by selling 224,000 copies in the U.S. This is Springsteen’s ninth time at the top of the album charts – which means he is tied for fourth place with the Rolling Stones for having the most #1 albums (with the Beatles, Elvis Presley, and Jay-Z all having more).
This really isn’t news to anyone who’s been paying attention to Springsteen’s recent promotion efforts, but what may come as a surprise to fans is his tiff with Ticketmaster.
Springsteen reported yesterday that thought the company’s practices were a conflict of his interests. When fans attempted to buy tickets for Springsteen’s show in New Jersey’s Meadowlands on Monday, some kept getting an error message, shutting them out of the site. Then, these fans would see an ad for a Ticketmaster subsidiary that sold the tickets for hundreds more than they are actually worth.
Springsteen took to his website to report that both he and the members of the E Street Band were “furious.”
The ad directs fans to TicketsNow, a site that allows people who already have tickets to exchange, trade, and put them up for sale for much more than they actually paid for them. Springsteen and crew have apparently been reassured that Ticketmaster is going to stop directing people to TicketsNow.
Awesomely, Springsteen fans somehow inspired U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell to call up the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department so that they could investigate any conflicts of interest between the two websites.
I think there should be a precedent set here.
If someone buys tickets to a show they either have to use them or sell them at the price they were bought at i.e base ticket price.
These God damn people make me sick!!!!! They buy loads of tickets and then rip off the real fans by charging them excessively high amounts. Its disgusting opportunism.
What is to stop Ticketmaster from holding 1,000 tickets and selling them on TicketsNow at 200%?
They are way to big.