Now Showing: 9,078 Artists | 61,803 Events

The Concert Hotwire™

Like Pollstar on Facebook Facebook | Follow Pollstar on Twitter Twitter | Help / FAQ | Send Feedback
Average Ticket Prices
311 $30.90      Phish $53.90      The Temptations $32.78      Drive-By Truckers $25.40      Skrillex $28.22      Michael Flatley's "Lord Of The Dance" $52.81      The Avett Brothers $33.71      Girl Talk $25.20      Bryan Adams $53.35      The Civil Wars $20.50      Stevie Nicks $100.82      Reverend Horton Heat $18.93      Jackson Browne $64.51      Foo Fighters $49.52      Boz Scaggs $45.96      Avenged Sevenfold $36.88      Wiz Khalifa $30.14      CSS $18.86      Celtic Thunder $57.30      Garrison Keillor $50.62      Rise Against $35.23      Beats Antique $18.71      ZZ Top $51.81      Dirty Heads $17.61      Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue $23.85      Chromeo $26.95      Korn $42.17      Toby Keith $39.74      Baths $12.70      Rain - A Tribute To The Beatles $58.99      Death Cab For Cutie $35.61      New Kids On The Block $67.41      Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus $18.28      Five Finger Death Punch $30.45      Dark Star Orchestra $26.28      Tech N9ne $27.73      Don Williams $46.86      Cold War Kids $22.18      Chris Tomlin $26.02      Alison Krauss + Union Station feat. Jerry Douglas $52.94      Josh Groban $76.66      Matisyahu $26.56      Dailey & Vincent $21.66      Rascal Flatts $40.43      Hank3 $19.64      George Lopez $59.95      Asking Alexandria $23.98      Matt White $13.00      Slightly Stoopid $30.09      Infected Mushroom $22.61      
See all average ticket prices

Ticketmaster CEO Responds To The Boss

06:07 PM, Wednesday 2/4/09 12 |   |

Bruce Springsteen posted an open letter on his Web site today criticizing Ticketmaster for how the ticket service handled his initial onsales earlier this week. Now, Irving Azoff, CEO of Ticketmaster Entertainment, responds.

An Open Letter of Apology to Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau and the entire Springsteen Tour Team:

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. 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. 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.

If any fans inadvertently purchased tickets in the resale marketplace believing in error they were purchasing from the initial on-sale, we will refund the difference between the actual purchase price and the face price of the ticket. (Please don't abuse this good faith gesture - we did not give brokers any preferential access to tickets.)

We are committed to helping deliver the most transparent and best live entertainment experience to fans. We will do better going forward.

Sincerely,

Irving Azoff, CEO, Ticketmaster Entertainment

12 Comments leave a comment

  1. 4
    nurse12 wrote:

    08:18 PM, Feb 04, 2009

    Well its fine now to apologize when a lot of us did not get tickets for a show that we've waited for for along time...I was on line right at 10 and still no tix for me...I hate that i will miss this show..but no more purchasing tix from Ticketmaster...

  2. 1
    jerseymom wrote:

    08:54 PM, Feb 04, 2009

    I tried for 4 hours to get tickets. I was logged on to Ticketmaster at 8:45am and promptly attempted to purchase as 9am. After a screen message of a 7  minute wait, I was knocked off for routine maintenance. Logged on 2 more times only to have the same thing happen. After 20 minutes, I was redirected to the Ticketsnow/Ticketmaster.com site where tickets were offered starting over $200 for behind stage! They escalated exponentially from there. I tried for over 4 hours because I love Bruce. I was denied a fair opportunity to purchase tickets and feel that Ticketmaster should supply all of us with the tickets they have on Ticketsnow for the original price. I have a hard copy of the "routine maintenance" notice printed from my screen. The CEO is covering up a scam. They need to be investigated and we need to be compensated with nothing less than the tickets we, in good faith, were attempting to purchase.

  3. 258
    Heavy Metal Infant wrote:

    09:30 PM, Feb 04, 2009

    Ticketmaster? A RIPOFF? WHAT HAS THE WORLD COME TO?

  4. 107
    randyjregan87 wrote:

    12:09 AM, Feb 05, 2009

    apps.facebook.com/.../1743400.

    facebook cause to help stop this cruel in human thing

  5. 1
    lptoxicity wrote:

    01:24 AM, Feb 05, 2009

    IF U PEOPLE KNEW HOW TO BUY TICKETS U WOULD FIND IT VERY EASY I WAS ABLE TO GET 8 TICKETS FOR LAMOST EVERY SHOW ON THE TOUR U JUST HAVE TO KNOW WHAT UR DOIN WHEN TICKETS GO ON SALE ITS PRETTY EASY

  6. 2
    Local Promoter wrote:

    02:53 AM, Feb 05, 2009

    Ticketmaster is paying the price to mess with the BOSS!

  7. 1
    crazyed wrote:

    05:24 AM, Feb 05, 2009

    This idiot CEO is a freakin criminal and should be thrown in prison right next to the idiot who was driving the ENRON bus.  It's ridiculas they are allowed to have this spin-off scalping business which always seem to have plenty of tickets at the time of the general onsale, funny how that works.   At least someone (Bruce) finally got sick of their BS and made some noise about this issue that has been going on for too long.

  8. 15
    evilrob wrote:

    10:15 AM, Feb 05, 2009

    First off, I inherently believe TM's the devil or a minor demon. So the point is clear on my stance on TM to other posters that may read this.

    TM was TRYING to do something for the fans who wanted to get tickets but somehow didn't. TM has NO WAY of preventing those who would lie and cheat to fill the supplies of resellers and scalpers. If John Q. Public buys tickets and reads the warnings against unlawful reselling and commercial use/sale, and he's in fact some website rep. that sells the tickets at a markup, that's not TM's fault. They've done what they could as is. And people like Toxicity that buy 8 tickets to EVERY show, I mean, come on. You're giving the tickets to 7 of your friends for free?  That greed is what keeps folks like Nurse and Jerseymom from being able to see the show they were trying to buy tickets for too.

    The same goes for Ticketsnow too. Read the FAQ some time. I went to the site and knew it was a resell site just by reading the front page. "Offering a large selection of seating to sold-out events including Britney Spears Tickets, Concert Tickets, AC/DC Tickets, Super Bowl Tickets, NFL Tickets, Chicago Blackhawks Tickets, Celine Dion Tickets, World Series Tickets, and Madonna Tickets, TicketsNow is the Internet's best source for premium sports, concert, and theater tickets. Since 1999, TicketsNow has provided consumers a safe and easy way to purchase tickets to the world's top events. " SOLD OUT EVENTS. That means "You can't buy the

    tickets retail, but you can probably find 'em here".

    It's also sad to see the gross misunderstanding of how the internet and servers work too. In the modern age, where no one goes to a ticket seller at 5 am to try to get in a line to be the first to get tickets to a show (oh how I miss those 4-6 hour waits), when the webserver gets bogged down processing a hundred thousand requests at once, DELAYS WILL OCCUR. It's a facet of technology that can't be helped. If you're worried about lag time or busy servers screwing up your purchase, do the old time tested trick of buying them in person. Join the artist's fan club, since they always seem to have pre-sale deals or somehow get tickets for members (I've done this with Death Cab for Cutie actually).

  9. 33
    wildthing wrote:

    11:14 AM, Feb 05, 2009

    Evilrob, sounds like you work for ticketbastard, by the way you are defending their manipulation of ticket practices.  I too tried for my area (HP Pavilion) and noticed at 10:01 they listed seats on their TM Exchange.  There is no way possible for any person to purchase those seats and slap them back onto their website, while the rest of us were in 5 minute waiting periods.  Glad to see they got caught.  Karma is coming back to get them for their evil doings.

  10. 15
    evilrob wrote:

    11:44 AM, Feb 05, 2009

    Actually, I work for an automotive parts marker. Y'know, the industry that Springsteen was a hero to back in the old days when he BECAME a rock star on their backs.

    Secondly, it's not possible? You don't have to present PHYSICAL proof of the tickets to Ticketsnow before you list them on sale. I could post a pair of tickets Saturday morning for LA at 10 AM sharp on TIcketsnow with a marked up price than what's listed openly on TM's site, while buying tickets at the same time. I don't have the tickets to begin with, but hey. Someone's going to try to find good seats and take that route first figuring the good seats have sold out.

    I think the concert industry as a WHOLE is corrupt and guilty of practicing poor business ethics at the expense of the consumer. In the past 6 months, every show I've been to has cost 5 bucks, and I've paid it at the door in cash. The FIRST show I'm going to in more than a year that I had to buy tickets to, is Morrissey next month, and I started pegging the purchase site at 5 minutes before 10, and was probably one of the first 5 people to buy tickets to the tour online.

    As for the server redirect, well. Obviously that's screwed up. But knowing even the slightest bit about computers and technology, unless you worked for TM and you're selling out their confidential info, how can you know if it was deliberate and malicious, or if their server threw some bad code, or the frontend submitted a request to the database and got no response, so it assumed that there were no more tickets available and did a little "If x=0, then goto yada yada yada" action? If The Boss is as concerned about it as he's trying to make the public think he is, then why hasn't he worked out scheduling more shows to make accomodation for the people who got screwed in this deal? Why didn't his management and promotions staff tell TM to *NOT* allow resales of Springsteen tickets on Ticketsnow, which has been around for almost 10 years to control reselling and scalping?

  11. 474
    angie wrote:

    04:14 PM, Feb 05, 2009

    Perhaps if we can get Bruce to write a letter complaining about all the overwhelming and RIDICULOUS costs that accumulate in extra charges after the initial ticket price, they'll quit tacking on nearly $20 for some tickets and charge fair prices....? Just a suggestion, Boss! (pretty please)

  12. 258
    Heavy Metal Infant wrote:

    04:28 PM, Feb 05, 2009

    Bruce should disclose how much he makes each concert, just for curiosity's sake. I'm willing to bet that's the main reason tickets are so expensive.



Artists Mentioned in this article