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Bob Dylan's 'ticketless' Warfield Theatre show not a sell-out but deemed a success
Folk-rock legend Bob Dylan, no stranger to experimenting with how tickets are sold to his shows, held a concert at The Warfield Theatre in San Francisco last night, August 25, where fans paid an admission fee at the door, in cash, eschewing advanced ticket sales in an attempt to thwart secondary market ticket sales.
The show in the 2,250-capacity theater did not sell out, according to Joan Rosenberg, director of marketing for The Warfield, but patrons did not complain about spending hours in line before the concert, which cost a flat fee of $60 per person. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the theater was "visibly undersold," but Rosenberg declined to offer specific sales data.
"That's not info that we disclose, but we had a very good crowd," she told TicketNews, adding that she believes sales were adversely affected, in part, due to a lack of heavy advertising and promotion before the concert. After paying the entrance fee, fans were given wristbands and a commemorative ticket as a souvenir. See the video below.
The move was at once a return to the old-school days of concerts where people waited in line for tickets, but also a potential harbinger for how artists might consider selling tickets to some of their shows in the future. After paying the entrance fee at the box office, fans walked straight into the theater, and those fans could only pay for their own admission. Credit cards were not accepted for the show.
Prior to the concert, media outlets reported that some fans may have been nervous about standing in line for hours with cash, and no guarantee that they would get in. Rosenberg said that the theater paid an undisclosed amount for street performers to entertain the crowd while they waited in line, and in addition, the theater also rented portable toilets. Also, street vendors were in the area selling bottled water and other food and merchandise.
"We were happy with the way it turned out overall," Rosenberg said. "We think it was a worthy endeavor."
Dylan was the first artist to suggest such a system at the theater, she added, but if other artists wanted to do it the theater would do it again. The Warfield is a Ticketmaster venue, but it has not yet held a paperless ticket concert. The two-and-a-half hour show marked Dylan's first concert at The Warfield in more than 20 years.
While identification wasn't necessary to gain admission, fans could not leave after paying their way into the show, and the commemorative ticket was not used, so there was no way for people to resell anything, which completely eliminated the secondary ticket market.
"I think it would be nice to see other artists experiment with this idea," Rosenberg said. "It could help keep prices down for fans."
David Lefkowitz, vice president of concert promotions company Goldenvoice, told KGO-TV that while the move was inconvenient for some fans, people saved on service and convenience fees.
"Part of the reasoning behind this is to avoid ticketing fees and the kind of up-charges that consumers have to face. Obviously, you lose the convenience of sitting at home buying on your computer, but at the same time, it's kind of a first come first serve thing," Lefkowitz said.
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I applaud Bob Dylan for his good intentions but this method is way too outdated! Queuing up for hours on end just isn't efficient enough anymore! Plus its stressful! Ticket purchasing should be as convenient as our new iphones or blackberry's!
Check out more here:
http://misspaperpang.tumblr.com/post/1020141060/bob-dylan-outsmarts-tick...
Can't believe all the anonymous negativity! Seems like most of these people aren't fans of Bob's. Why read the article? They didn't try this model out in an effort to be progressive; they were having fun with an older format. Big whoop. Sounds like it was a good time. A rare treat. Look at that cool ticket. Standing outside in the company of other local fans? Get me in there! Paying $60 cash to see the man himself croon his way through the hits? Count me in! It's always funny how in tune people who really aren't fans of Bob's think they are with what he's up to.
Bob Dylan stopping people from buying his tickets.......now that's just funny.
You couldn't pay me to sit through his horrid wining vocals.
And any artist who is stupid enough to limit the sale of their tickets in this economy deserves what they get, which will be no sell outs.
This is the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard for an industry that is coming off a very bad summer. Whatever you may think of ticket brokers, the number of non-sell out events FAR outweighs the number of sell out events. It's not even close. And, now you want to make it more difficult for artists to sell out shows?
Here are two very realistic scenarios:
1. A show undersells because people don't want to take the chance of being shut out, don't want to take the extra time off work to make it down to the venue early, or have a sudden change of plans (i.e. previously they would have to re-sell their already bought ticket). This scenario will happen almost every time.
And, by the way, shows that would've normally undersold - guess what? No one knows how bad they're going to bomb until that day. Remember the Christina Aguilera and Limp Bizkit tours that were almost instantly cancelled after on sales? In this fantastic new business model, tour promoters would get absolutely destroyed. Which would mean the end of advances for artists. I'm sure they'll enjoy that.
2. A show sells out fast (as it would have normally) and you have thousands of frustrated fans crowding outside the venue. So, now, an otherwise orderly buying process has turned into Wal-Mart on Black Friday. There will be fights. There will be injuries. Increased police presence will now be required. I'm sure municipalities will be happy with that. And all because some moron decided adopting the ticketing process of the 1920s was somehow progressive.
And, by the way, to the person who 'treated it like a vacation day', do you know what it costs for people to take time off work to accomodate this idiotic process? I guarantee it's more than whatever surcharges you might be annoyed at.
Well, It's not all about money :) Wouldn't expect you to get that. I *chose* to take the time as I did because it was an adventure. I don't choose exorbitant fees and the manipulation of the profiteers.
btw...There were people at the venue waiting who were working...there was wifi and people had their iPhones, iPads, laptops, blackberrys going like mad.
If the promoters, venue, media had let people throughout the day via social media and trad media that there were not --after all-- throngs of thousands of people, it would have made it possible for people to have swung by after work (or cut out a little early) and picked up a tkts up until 8pm.
That was the weak link to this refreshingly meritocratic, democratic process! It should have sold out and would have if people had known they had a chance to score tkts still!
The stuff these venues will come up with to try to prevent scalping is comical. Making people stand in line for an hour... Portable toilets, entertainment, street vendors... I am sure it would have really been a memorable experience if it rained. Sounds really practical to me.
Not everything is about practicality anyway - lol! We're talking about a rock concert. And if it had rained (or snowed or had a tornado) in August in San Francisco people would have come to the venue closer to 5:30. People end up waiting in line to get into any venue anyway when doors open. This wouldn't be any different.
It was extraordinarily efficient. They'd take groups of 5 people, tell them the drill and ask if they had their money ready, tell them to go, 5 people were taking their money, next step search for contraband and get ID'd if you wanted to drink. Very....practical, actually :)
"fans could not leave after paying their way into the show"
Who the hell does Dylan think he is keeping people as prisoners forced to listen to him wailing along to his rotten boring "songs".
So didn't sell out and they refuse to say how many attended. The best info from media sources says about 1,000. I wonder if Dylan tries this model again? I am betting 'no'. Yes I really want to take a day off work and line-up up downtown for 4-5 hours hoping I get in-I am sure the sideshows are well worth it!
What makes me laugh is that Dylan thinks he is an hot ticket! He canceled a series of shows last summer due to poor ticket sales. I don't think he has sold-out many shows in the last two years. This is nothing more than a publicity gimmick to make news rather than a serious discussion on tickets prices, fee's and scalping. If Dylan and his management want to discuss ticket prices, please discuss the $150 face+$15 fee's for his recent Las Vegas show. I hear the show sucked and that it failed to sell out-lowest prices were $80.
I was there, and I would estimate that there were about 1800 people in attendance. That's based on having been to dozens of Warfield shows over the past 10 years.
As for Bob, he did have a sold-out show the night before in Oakland, and one the weekend prior to the Warfield gig in Monterey. I think this show would have sold out if he hadn't played 2 venues in basically the same market within that week.
I think it's awesome that he is more concerned about fans getting tickets at fair prices than about making money for himself. Tickets for his Oakland show were going for $350 on StubHub and other scalper websites.
I think everyone would have had a different experience if the show was sold out. its one thing to hang out on a street corner during the day to catch a performer but another when you wait the concert is sold out. how much fun could that be?
advance sales, although they are more expensive are the only way I am going to go to a concert. I love dylan but to wait for 4 hours to save 6.00 in service fees and find out it was all a waste is not for me
I went to that Vegas show and it was the worst EVER. I have seen him soooo many times before and that had to be the absolute pits. I even had front row center. It felt like 6th row because of how far back he was and the horrid lighting.
Mellencamp was great, thank goodness.
Too bad, because I love Bob's shows.
As for this Warfield show, it was announced so late that getting an airfare would have cost me between 800 and 850 bucks. Also not knowing if I would get in to the show or just the fact that it was GA. I got trampled at a Dylan GA show before and someone had to pick me up off of the ground because I kept getting pushed down. NOT FUN. Also saw him in Dallas a few years back and almost got tossed down the stairs because the venue had NO CLUE about safety.
The truth is Dylan has sounded awful for years-the true loyal fans won't admit it, but he mangles and distorts his songs so much they are barely recognizable or in tune from the original. The Christmas album he released was painful.
From seeing him live, I can say he doesn't sing because his voice is so garbled. It is a struggle to make out words to songs and whilst I applaud an artist interpreting their songs differently, this isn't good. Fortunately for Dylan, he has a hardcore bunch of fans who revere his legend and a band that carries him.
I am wondering whether the people posting here are from the ticket-selling industry. Otherwise why would they be so embittered and negative?
There were about, I'd say, and I'm pretty good at estimating, about 300 empty seats.
Now here are the salient points about this show:
- the advertising and marketing should have said beforehand--AND on that day itself through Twitter, FB, email alerts, as well as traditional broadcast and print media--that tickets were ***going on sale at 5:30pm*** People might have **chosen** to get on line for hours, but people were showing up at 5:30, 6, 7, and 7:30 and were getting tix. But those were people who came by thinking it would be a total fluke for that to happen--so most people didn't even bother.
The show was really amazing. Intimate, Bob was on fire, the crowd ADORED him!
The waiting was interesting and fun. I chose to treat it as a half-day vacation, brought down a big bagged lunch, snacks (which I ended up sharing), lots of water, sunblock, and enjoyed the jugglers, guys on stilts, roving sarcastic chick with the accordian, guys on guitar and congas, as well as my fellow Dylan fans.
The crowd was made up of serious Dylan fans, as well as people who thought the idea of seeing Dylan in such a small venue was cool--and like me took a what-the-heck vacation day--as well as many youngsters/students, and people with less conventional work schedules--I met artists, poets, writers, musicians, 2 entrepreneurs who were working online and via phone(!), emergency medical people who work 4/4 days on and off, a crew from the Coast Guard, retirees, etc. No one could dispatch their secretary to book $200 for them online, or could scalp. It was really a very unusual, and happy/bouyant event!
And as said, Bob was spectacular!
The best estimate I got was 1,500 which is pretty poor. With amount of extra ticketing staff, security (because they had $60-90K in cash and for the lines), the street performers, portapotties and policing. The venue lost money, great everyone had an happy time but it was a gimmick, not a long term solution. You can't just arrive at the venue at 6pm, you have to be coming from somewhere. The facts are you are asking a lot for folks to commute to a venue for 1-2 hours in the hope they may or may not get in.
Maybe Dylan should take a hard look at his own ticket prices which exceed $100 most times. Besides $60 is still pretty expensive for a General Admission show, if it was $20 then that would have been a real reward and incentive. I mean Dylan doesn't need the money.
It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If’in you don’t know by now
An' it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It’ll never do some how.