Who would have ever thought that a simple children’s concert tour could turn into such as public relations disaster.
But, when 14-year-old Miley Cyrus takes the stage next week in St. Louis, MO as her TV alter-ego Hannah Montana, the first concert in her upcoming four-month-long, 53-date tour, the popular teen-ager will stand at the apex of a firestorm that may change the concert ticketing industry.
Several factors are at issue, but to listen to some industry observers, the main problem was simple supply and demand. Tens of thousands of people wanted the few thousand tickets that were made available.
“For every Hannah, there’s a Genesis,” said Jim Holzman, owner of Boston-based Ace Ticket, referring to the overall sluggish sales for the aging British group’s current reunion tour. “There’s no way to predict the demand. Who’s to know how popular her tour would be?”
Holzman and others said that while it’s easy to point fingers after the fact, essentially no single entity was to blame for the fiasco, for which outraged parents sued demanded government officials look into the matter.
“This was a fluke occurrence,” Holzman added. “There was an incredible amount of peer pressure that drove this, and parents didn’t want to say no to their child.”
Should singer and actor Billy Ray Cyrus, Miley’s father, have been more diligent in his stewardship of her rising career by not allowing her handlers to manipulate the ticket situation?
Or, should the tour promoter AEG Live and Miley’s management Front Line Management Group/Morey Management Group be held responsible for holding back too many tickets from the public, some of which were released after they were pressured by the Attorney General of Missouri.
Or, should a finger be pointed at ticket brokers who quickly snapped up many of the available tickets for resale and auctions on their sites, something primary ticketer Ticketmaster also did until the company and Miley’s managers called them off as the controversy boiled.
“I think things could have handled better on all sides,” said Dave Brooks, a senior writer at Venues Today. “Brokers should have been a little more cautious. They know they’re setting the tone, and they should have been cognizant of that. As for the venues, they didn’t do a good job with the ‘holds’ and weren’t completely honest up front with that information. And, even though it’s a hard formula for them to figure out, the promoters needed to price the shows better, and come up with better configurations for the venues.”
Brooks added that the runaway pricing for many of the tickets would have been “more appropriate for Van Halen” but not a children’s show. “There should probably be some ground rules about what should be charged.”
The shows were not configured to be 360-degrees, which could have created more seats, and some said the promoters should have set a strict two-ticket limit, in addition to not virtually promising members of Miley’s fan club, MileyWorld.com, that they would have an excellent chance at tickets.
“There’s been a lot of chatter about the whole situation,” said Jeffrey Larris, president of the International Ticketing Association, referring to all the press coverage. “Was it criminal? A violation of contracts? Or, was it an ethical thing? The market hasn’t really figured that out yet.”
Larris believes that among the first steps that need to be taken are improving the communication between all parties and the public. “Our members are about fair access, so when the public has a certain perception of what’s available they need to be told the truth.”
16 Comments
Comments are closed.
This has been absolutely ridiculous. I am a single mother that would have stood in line for all night if need be to get tickets for my daughter, you know like the good old days, but we cant even do that for our kids. I am a struggling mama not a millionaire, our kids dont get to be kids becuz everyone out there has to act so greedy and selfish like this. Thanks a lot people.
An article about Hannah that does not simply rip and complain about ticket brokers — how did that happen? A journalist being a journalist, who woulda thunk it? This is the most interesting article I’ve seen about this tour, as it looks at the tour from all angles rather than complaining about the resale market. Although let’s face it, the whole strict ticket limit thing is sort of silly. I was only able to get two tickets to the show in my city, and it was the only pair I saw. Even had the limit been 100 tickets, there were not any tickets to buy in the first place — at least for the public onsale, I don’t know about the fan club onsales.
As a parent of 2 girls (ages 12-10) who every single day watches Hannah Montana on Disney after school…Miley is a very nice young lady and works hard. But as a 2 parent middle income working class which is sliding to the next lower level, this over pricing tickets breaks a lot of fans hearts but is just another of those thing we have to explain why we are not rich and can not afford such things as vacations, expensive tickets, and why we drive auto that should of been scrapped. It’s life and the way of the have knots…The one thing no one can ever take away from us is our family of 7, is a home full of LOVE. Which is what all of those rich greedy people so want. In the end we are the winners. Good Luck with your ticket hi-jacking.
I agree that it is a supply-and-demand market. I’ve got no problem with that. However, if brokers are using software that allows them to “cheat” the online ticket buying process — that’s where I think they are not only crossing the line, but should be punished legally to whatever extent they can.
When you read stories about families where one member is waiting first in line at Ticketmaster onsale sites, and other family members are simultaneously working the phones and Internet sales and NONE of them can buy a ticket when they go on sale then something is wrong.
As long as brokers jump through the same hoops as regular ticket buyers with no inherent advantage other than simply a better knowledge of how to do it, then I have no problem with them buying tickets and selling them for whatever people are willing to pay. But if their software allows them to jump other people in line, then that is flat-out wrong.
And why are arenas “holding back” tickets? I can see them holding some for their clients or whatever, but I wouldn’t think this would be a huge amount. If that is a huge amount, then they also share the blame. These big arenas that the tour is coming to should not be selling out in a matter of minutes.
Of course this article doesn’t rip brokers, it’s written by a pro-broker journalist. Hardly ‘fair and balanced,’ but then again neither are the anti-broker Hannah Montana stories I’ve been seeing on NBC, CBS and today on CNN.com.
Here’s a piece that was on CNN.com today – http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/10/12/montana.tickets/index.html
I like the headline – “Brokers Snatch Joy from Hannah Montana Fans.” Yes, we’re all the evil Mr. Grinch. I’ve never seen other stories ripping into legitimate businesses on CNN. How about “Greedy Housing Developers Overbuild, Snatching the Joy from Young Homebuyers while Killing the Housing Market with Excess Supply”
To the point…in the CNN article, I found it funny everyone was whining about brokers re-selling the tickets at these apparently inflated prices, but then they stated this – “AEG Live and Ticketmaster held an auction for tickets in some cities….The minimum bid for a single front-row seat at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was $2,605.” Way to back up all the “we care about the fan” rhetoric they were puking out earlier in the article.
I see it not so much as brokers hijacking the market as the Missouri Attorney General (who helped open the state to the free market of secondary ticket brokering not that long ago) says, but more so brokers allowing fans to go. The majority of people who buy these tickets are fans, that is why they sell out their shows. The small portion of remaining tickets go to brokers who, by reselling them, allow fans access who would otherwise not be able to go. And in a free market capitalist democracy, what the hell is wrong with that?
Maybe these parents who are whining and suing should say NO to their kids if they have a problem paying the price, instead of forking over money better spent on mortgage payments and college saving funds on tickets to some over-hyped kid who will be a nothing more than a passing fad in a year from now.
So why didn’t you get on Ticketmaster with a presale password and buy 4 tickets, like I did? There’s 30x as many people in the city as what the venue seats. When tickets sell out, you have to pay more, just like everything else you buy. Unless you have a wholesaler’s license, every single purchase you make is an inflated price of what the retailer paid. I doubt that Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Sunoco, BP, Cadillac, or any other retailer is coming under fire for selling their products at a price above wholesale.
How come nobody’s complaining about people who got tickets for less than face value? Don’t think that’s possible? It is. Check ebay’s completed listings here and you’ll see 2 tickets that went for as low as $56 (for both). So some people get them for less and some for more. It all balances out and everyone needs to give this issue a rest.
How come nobody’s complaining about the people who got tickets for less than face value? Don’t think that’s possible? It is. Here’s ebay’s completed listings for 2 tickets. Some went for as little as $56 (for both). Why is that fair to the rest of us. It all balances out; please stop crying it’s hurting my ears.
Just to let you know, I did go on Ticketmaster and you were probably only a handful that got it, because myself and thousands more did not get at presale.
Also, I went on Ticketmaster at 10:00am the morning of the sale on the dot. By 10:04am, the tickets were gone. Bad luck? NO!!!! Money grubbing, no good ticket sclapers?? Oh yes!!!!
All you parents that could not get tickets. Not the end of world, next year this time it will be someone else and hopefully, new laws to prevent this from happening again.
Also, regarding your comment about walmart and car companies, you see the price right on the tickets, if they are out, they are out of stock. No problem. However, tickets are sold at a certain price and if they are out because of regular sold out show, fine. However, her shows are not selling out because of families, they are selling out because of brokers and being sold again at a 150% mark up. That is what is criminal.
ROCK ON! I am sick of the scalpers trying to justify what it is that they are doing! But, I truely believe in Karma and they will get what they deserve one of these days when it is their little girl who is heartbroken, or hopefully they get it worse than us. I too had a presale password after joinging the fan club, but was unable to get tickets when the presale opened or when it opened to the public. This is completely the fault of people who purchased them and resold them instantly. They know parents will do most anything for their children, and they take advantage of that. But oh well! My little girl will get to have a super rockin’ birthday party with the $300 I refuse to give to the scalpers! She will get over the concert and have longer lasting memories and those jerks won’t get my money. We all need to boycott ticket brokers and people selling these tickets for so much on sites like Ebay. Let them sit on their hundreds of tickets and loose their money!
The problem is with 2 companies, TicketBastard & The Promoter. First instead of trying to figure out ways to screw ticket buyers, Ticketbastard should figure out ways to stop brokers from using software to buy tickets. They should also maybe think about being a ticket distributor not a ticket broker. The promoter in turn should not steal so many tickets so that way there is nothing left for the fans. What the promoter & TicketMaster did in with the Hannah show is that they held back seats for themselves to sell at a high price. They have been doing this for all shows that is why there are never any good seats. The brokers are not too blame for this fiasco. It is the corrupt companies of TicketMaster & AEG who are out to take as much money from the fans as possible and not there to provide a service for entertainment.
I think the ticket Brokers are the main ones to blame. There is definitely some software blocking or something going on when most people I know were barely able to get upper bowl tickets, if any to the 2 Salt Lake City concerts. I do credit Ticketmaster for releasing blocks of tickets, and the venue, especially for fans just before the event, and the second added concert (which actually happened on Friday Oct 25 before the originally scheduled Oct 26 concert. And yet still within hours I saw many Ticket Brokers had Prime seat up for sale on Ebay.
I noticed on the Ticketfast tickets there were some things printed about laws some states have which limit the maximum resale price on tickets. I think most states should implement these, so as not to cause parents to spend too much on these types of purchases.
hey miley i just wanted to sat y i luv u i watch all ur episode and i just wish one day i could meet you and take you out for lunch im 15 turning 16 and i livein florida whiches i want to go to california to see u in person…. luv u
THIER WOULD BE NO PROBLEM WITH HANNA MONTANA IF DISNEY WOULD HAVE MORE SHOWS IN EACH MARKET. EXAMPLE GARTH BROOKS 8 SHOWS… TICKETS ARE $25 EACH …. POINT PROVEN DISNEY CREATED THIS MARKET JUST TO HAVE HIGH RATINGS…..
I live in Florida but I have two tickets for Hannah Montana in Las Vegas that I will sell for face value ($65.00 each) plus the cost of overnight shipping, about $20.00-$25.00. The concert is on January 20th, 2008 at 7:00pm at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas Nevada. For some reason, the Vegas show is not selling as well as the others, I’m having a heck of a time selling these this is why I only want face value. These are real tickets from ticketmaster, not those fastticket printed off a printer. My email is [email protected]
I also have 4 Hannah Montana tickets for sale, section 202 L for Friday Vegas Show. Below face value. I agree that Ticketmaster is the best site for tickets. You can check out my listing on Ticketmaster Ticket Exchange(I am legit). I have them listed for the lowest price allowed by ticketmaster. I will go lower if sold outside this site. A lot of sites will rip you off. Scammers can take the numbers from your tickets and make fake ones. If interested please e-mail at [email protected] or call 813-777-4087.