PreferredSeat.com Blog

Bruce Springsteen it turns out withholds hundreds of tickets for his concerts, as do most artists apparently, but in his case the BOSS ACT was brought forth because of his complaining that ticket scalping was keeping the best seats out of the hands of fans at exhorbitant prices.

Yet as reported in the Wall Street Journal Blog, “Now comes word, courtesy of an Open Public Records Act request from the Newark Star-Ledger, that the biggest reason fans couldn’t find good seats had nothing to do with Ticketmaster, TicketsNow, or scalpers.
In reality, almost none were ever actually, y’know, on sale. Instead, 90% of the best seats were reserved for friends and family of the band, venue employees, record-label executives and their guests.”.

And NJ.com reported “But an examination of ticket sale data from the May 21 concert shows Springsteen himself may be part of the problem. The best seats in the house that night were the 1,126 seats in the four sections closest to the stage, but only 108 of those tickets were ever for sale to the public, according to new ticket data obtained through the Open Public Records Act.”

Now I may not be an expert in this, but I’ve seen a lot of “comp” (free) tickets in my 22 years as one of the owners of Preferred Seating Tickets and all of these were from friends, family, employees, radio station, etc who were given the prime tickets, for free, but that’s not what they sold them to us for. And I would assume that when an artist such as Bruce Springsteen prepares to go on tour and determine the face value of the tickets for the tour, that they must take into account the 1200 tickets given to these friends, family, employees, etc because they will get no revenue from them and someone else must cover that cost. So my question is, are ticket prices adjusted higher to make up for the 1200 tickets given to friends, family, etc so they may have the pleasure of sitting up front, and those fans that helped pay for those “comp” (free) prime up front seats, can watch from the rear of the concert venue or stand on the floor the entire show?

For the record I’ve been a big fan of Bruce Springsteen since the early 70′s. I have ticket stubs from the Born in the USA tour signed by the now deceased promoter Bill Graham, who had an equal hatred of scalpers or ticket resellers, but who I still admired and respected for his work, just as I do for Bruce Springsteen. But like most people who complain about the ticket resell business and ticket brokers, they have hidden profit motives or interests that they fail to disclose.

Both The Dead and Bruce Springsteen are sharing a similar fate in ticket sales. Prices have plummeted for a number of cities on the current tours and The Dead Tickets and Bruce Springsteen tickets can be purchased for well below face value in some cases.

Some of the venues for cheap Springsteen tickets include:Philips Arena, Greensboro Coliseum.For the Dead, great prices can be found for the Nassau Coliseum and the Xcel Center.

It may have more to do with the economy, but this is the second time that Bruce has toured in only a few years and the Dead raised their prices so much they probably out priced many of their fans. Maybe smaller venues should be on the bill for the next tours, just don’t raise the prices!

Find all Concert Tickets

Your probably already know that Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce, Bono and many more are performing at some of the Inaugural festivities, but recently added for the Mid-Atlantic Inaugural Ball in Washington, D.C. on January 20th will be none other than the Dead. As recently reported, the Dead are embarking on a new tour this year, but before they do they will jam for Barack Obama before heading out on the road in April.

The Dead to jam at the Ball

The Dead supported Barack Obama’s campaign for President of the United States with a couple of shows last year and were rewarded as one of the chosen few artists to entertain the crowd at the ball. Mickey Hart was quoted recently in Rolling Stone when asked if they had passed the security clearance, “Oh, yeah, we don’t look so bad on paper. It’s not as bad as you might think.”. Considering the strange trip the Dead have been on through the years, even this may be a bit of a surprise to some of his supporters. Now that is something I just have to see, the President of the United States jamming with The Dead. Let’s just hope the air will be a lot clearer than most of the Dead’s concerts.