The Blame Game: Artists and Ticket Prices
by George Ziemann -- July 5, 2007
The next phase of the music
cartel's genius plan is to divert attention from themselves by
altering their "It's all about the artists" mantra
ever so slightly. Now "It's all the artists' fault."
The first hint was dropped
in an article about the indistry's imminent demise in the UK's Register, (via
Boycott-RIAA), wherein the IFPI's John Kennedy is quoted
as saying, "At one time, artists would work and perform
live for a low price to drive records sales. Now that records
sales are damaged they are trying to drive ticket prices higher
- and there's a kickback."
The LA Times takes this
idea, runs with it and does a hatchet
piece that really wants to convince you the artists are responsible
for high concert ticket prices, namely Prince. The Purple One
is already
under fire for letting a London paper give away 2 million
or so copies of his new CD in the UK for free. Now they have
to make him look bad here, where the ticket price issue "...could
be enough to alienate fans and consign Prince to a pop has-been."
Prince doesn't deserve this.
The entire story rakes him specifically over the coals for prices
to his shows, then drags some other artists in for good measure.
First, we have the story of
some guy who "first saw Prince in 1988 at the Los Angeles
Sports Arena. He sat in the nosebleed section, surrounded by
thousands of screaming fans. He can't remember how much he paid
for the ticket, but it wasn't more than 30 bucks."
"His last Prince show
was on a recent night at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, where
he paid 10 times that for a standing-room-only ticket to an intimate
show that kept Prince jamming nearly until the sun came up. If
he had actually wanted a seat, that would have set him back $3,121
a pair -- priced in homage to the artist's recent album, 3121."
The actual ticket price for that 1988 show appears to have been
$25. Seating
capacity of the Los Angeles Sports Arena is 15,000 to 16,000,
depending on how they set it up.
The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
gig (tickets $1560.50) seats 200 and is a series of "seven-night
concert-and-dinner shows" sponsored by Verizon.
Think that Prince is a greedy
bastard yet? Maybe some of his are friends, too.
"In the past, artists
have been more sensitive to not wanting to be perceived as charging
high ticket prices," said Don Passman, a Los Angeles attorney
and author of All You Need to Know About the Music Business.
"The stigma on that has changed."
Then another example of ticket
price obscenity.
"This summer, folks willing
to pony up $15,000 for a ticket can see Prince, Billy Joel, Tom
Petty, James Taylor and Dave Matthews in a five-concert, 1,000-seat
series in the Hamptons in New York. Guests will dine on food
prepared by what organizers call "celebrated chefs,"
peruse art exhibits and be entertained before the concert by
illusionist and stuntman David Blaine. And they promise no long
waits for the bathroom."
This bony finger of accusation
has been leveled squarely at Prince and company despite the fact
that "Neither the Hollywood Roosevelt nor [the promoter
of the Hamptons shows] are disclosing financial terms of the
deals, including how much the artists are getting paid."
So here's a news flash for
those of you who don't know any better:
It's all a lie. The
artists do not set ticket prices.
The promoters do.
The real cause of the specific
astronomical ticket prices the LA Times is talking about
has very little to do with how much it costs to rent Prince for
the night and everything to do with the fact that rich people
will pay extra to see a show where commoners are not allowed.
When the tickets price is $15,000,
you can guarantee that "hordes
of stoned, dirty, stinking hippies" will not be in attendance.
And neither will you. That's the whole idea. The rich people
don't want you to know that they drool, too.
The best way to understand
just how far removed the artist is from the ticket price is to
know the simple steps involved.
How to Hire a Rock Star
Okay, I used the words "rock
star" because we're talking about Prince, Tom Petty, Billy
Joel, James Taylor and Dave Matthews (and calling James Taylor
a rock star is a technical stretch), but the same thing works
for folk acts, country, disco, comedians or puppeteers.
In fact, let's start with a
straightforward example which, unlike the LA Times story,
does include how much the artist gets paid.
For $10,000, Janis
Ian will come to your house and play in your living room,
even if it's
in Ireland, apparently. "A private show for you and
your friends in your own (or a friend's) living room, which you
can record and videotape for your own use. Open-ended, free-form,
a great chance to show off and an absolutely fabulous present.
Start thinking about which songs you'll request!!" Credit
cards accepted. Tax deductible.
Let's look at the most aggregious
examples of high ticket prices again:
Bad: Prince in a seven-night series of "concert
and dinner" shows at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Seating
capacity, 200. Ticket price, $1560. Plus they sold "standing
room only" tickets for $300 each.
Potential ticket sales over
7 nights, $2,184,000 -- a little over $300,000 a night, without
taking standing room into account.
Worse: Prince, Billy Joel, Tom Petty, James Taylor
and Dave Matthews in a five-concert, 1,000-seat series in the
Hamptons in New York. Tickets, $15,000 (which I assuming includes
all five shows, bringing the price down to $3000 a show). "Guests
will dine on food prepared by what organizers call 'celebrated
chefs,' peruse art exhibits and be entertained before the concert
by illusionist and stuntman David Blaine."
Potential ticket sales for
the five-night series, $15 million. $3 million per evening.
Janis makes it easy because
you are dealing directly with her and her booking agent. Her
price is $10,000 a night, take it or leave it because she'll
play in your living room, fer crying out loud, and I think travel
and rooms are probably included in the price. Prince and Tom
Petty are probably a tad more expensive, but every artist has
a preset price range to show up and play. Unfortunately, most
artists do not let you book them from their web site. This makes
it a little trickier but not much.
If you're booking bands into
a venue or maybe helping to plan a special event, whether it
has seating for 200 or 20,000, you're going to need an agent
because either way you probably need more than one act.
There are basically about a
half dozen major talent agencies that handle the majority of
all acts that perform in the U.S. But you're not going to be
talking to them. That would be far too easy. You're going to
be talking to a mid-level agent that deals with all of the majors,
or even worse, a third-tier agent, who deals with the guy who
deals with the big boys. Each agent involved is going to add
a commission to the price, but they've got a menu of who will
show up at what size venue for what price, who is touring, who
is not, and possibly the knowledge of available dates.
If it costs $50,000 or even
$100,000 a night to get Tom Petty or Billy Joel out of the house
and you've only got 1000 seats, maybe you should call Edgar Winter
or the Guess Who instead. But I'd bet that for $100k, Tom or
Billy would come play in your living room, too.
So you send an offer to hire
the act for a certain amount on a certain date at a certain place.
If they accept it, they'll send a contract for you to sign. The
general rule is that you'll be expected to pay at least half
of the amount up front, and any remaining balance must be paid
in cash, the night of the show, before the act takes the stage.
The ticket price should be
irrelevant to the band, especially at this stage. Pay their price
and they'll show up and play. You can charge for tickets or let
people in for free, with state fairs as an example of the latter
scenario. How you recover your investment in the act is up to
you.
The artist's fee is not the
only expense of hiring an act. We've all seen the contract riders at The Smoking Gun. The fine print can jack up your cost,
depending on the act and what kind of "special needs"
they have.
The second major cost of a
show can neatly be summed up as "everything else".
How much will it cost to rent out the facility to hold the event,
taking into consideration electricity, basic lighting, traffic
control, parking, bathrooms, liability insurance, security, cleaning
crews, stagehands, ticket takers, ushers? Whether radio, television,
internet or old-fashioned print media, you're going to have to
advertise. At the very least you have to print tickets. Selling
food or booze? Yes, you are... but it's part of the ticket price.
"Celebrated chefs", remember? Plus David Blaine. Permits
will be required (and probably waitresses), and you may need
a cabaret license if people are going to dance. ASCAP and BMI
will have to be paid.
So the promoter (aka you, the
one putting on this hypothetical show) adds all this up and divides
it out by the number of seats to figure what the ticket price
would be to break even IF the show is a sell-out. What
if you only sold half the tickets? Or a third? This is a lot
of damn work, not to mention financial risk. If booking acts
is your job, your way to earn a living, how much are you going
to make off of this gig? How much do you need to make?
How much do you want to make?
The promoter is going to decide
the final ticket price. It's not the band's decision and they're
not invited over to discuss it. Why should they even care? There's
no risk for them. They've already been paid. That's a done deal.
It's almost assured that all
of these artists will play a larger venue in both Los Angeles
and New York, allowing normal people to see the same acts for
a more reasonable, even if still not entirely affordable, price.
And the artist will probably get paid about the same.
If tickets are $3000 a show,
it's not because of the artist. It's because of the 1400 people
in Los Angeles and the 1000 people in New York who will pay a
ridiculous amount of money to make sure that Joe Six-Pack can't
possibly afford to get in.
|
