Well this is a fine pickle. Bruce Springsteen and his rarely-heard-from manager, Jon Landau, have posted a letter condemning Ticketmaster after the company tried redirecting fans trying to buy tickets to Springsteen’s upcoming tour on the web to Ticketmaster’s reselling site, Tickets Now.

Here’s part of the note posted on Brucespringsteen.net:

Last Monday, we were informed that Ticketmaster was redirecting your log-in requests for tickets at face value, to their secondary site TicketsNow, which specializes in up-selling tickets at above face value. They did this even when other seats remained available at face value. We condemn this practice.

We perceive this as a pure conflict of interest. Ticketmaster is there to ensure that we have a good, fair sale of our tickets at their face value plus normal ticketing charges. TicketsNow is supposed to be a secondary site where people who already have tickets may exchange, trade, and, unfortunately, speculate with them. We have asked this redirection from Ticketmaster to TicketsNow cease and desist immediately and Ticketmaster has agreed to do so in the future and has removed its unwanted material from their and our site.

Hitsville is noticing that it is difficult to type and pat myself on the back at the same time. This is exactly the type of sleaziness I suggested was in the works as companies like Ticketmaster get creative in wringing as much money as possible out of the reselling game.

Think about it: The company’s taking a 22 percent skim on selling regular tickets—yet it’s still trying to get people over to TicketsNow. It’s probably making more there!

It’s pure kismet that such a trenchant example of this happened so soon after the announcement of a possible merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation.

Indeed, Springsteen & Co. are looking at that with a jaundiced eye as well:

A final point for now: the one thing that would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan than it is now would be Ticketmaster and Live Nation coming up with a single system, thereby returning us to a near monopoly situation in music ticketing. Several newspapers are reporting on this story right now. If you, like us, oppose that idea, you should make it known to your representatives.

It’s nice that Springsteen has broken the code of silence that generally holds when it comes to Ticketmaster, particularly since the entire artistic community took a pass when Pearl Jam stood up to it back in the 1990s.

That said, you have to laugh when you read his note closely: “Ticketmaster is there to ensure that we have a good, fair sale of our tickets at their face value plus normal ticketing charges.” Those “normal ticketing charges,” as I detailed in the previous post, are actually insanely high—nearly $50 on a pair of tickets to his current tour.

And secondly, it’s hard to believe that the Springsteen tour isn’t getting a cut of that take.

I can’t wait to hear what Irving Azoff has to say about all this!*

p.s. One other little bit of Springsteen news: His new album, Working on a Dream, debuted at number one this week with 224,000 sold, according to Billboard. That’s not much. Now, to be fair, the full impact of Springsteen’s appearance at the Super Bowl last Sunday might not be being felt yet saleswise; still, Billboard notes, it’s a full 33 percent less than the sales of his previous CD, Magic, released less than 18 months ago. Fans have apparently not yet gotten the word from Rolling Stone that it’s a five-star masterpiece.

* Update! Azoff backs down, apologizing abjectly, Billboard reports:

“While we were genuinely trying to do the right thing for fans in providing more choices when the tickets they requested from the primary on-sale were not available, we clearly missed the mark,” Azoff says in the response.

“Fans are confused and angry, which is the opposite of what we hoped to accomplish. We sincerely apologize to Bruce, his organization and, above all, his fans.”
[…]

“We recognize that we need to change our course,” Azoff continues. “We have committed to Bruce and state publicly here that we have taken down all links for Bruce’s shows directing fans from Ticketmaster to TicketsNow. This redirection only occurred as a choice when we could not satisfy fans’ specific search request for primary ticket inventory, but to make sure there is no misunderstanding in the future, we also publicly state that we will never again link to TicketsNow in a manner that can possibly create any confusion during a high-demand on-sale. Specifically, we will not present an option to go to TicketsNow from Ticketmaster without the consent of the artist and the venue, both of whom work together to bring the joy of live entertainment to millions of fans.”

Notes reporter Ray Waddell:

Saying that fans won’t be linked to TicketsNow as before is not an insignificant move, as Ticketmaster has positioned TicketsNow to compete with the dominant players in the secondary market.

————

Previously in Hitsville:

P.S. on Ticketmaster: A case study, starring Bruce Springsteen
Why the potential Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger is a very bad idea
Is Ticketmaster trying to muddle the fees issue?
The Azoff-Ticketmaster deal: Bad news for concert-goers—and the music industry
Why you so seldom read about obscene Ticketmaster-style ticketing charges