PreferredSeat.com Blog

Many of the winners of this years Grammy Awards are currently touring or will be touring soon and most of the artist are hoping the added attention helps their live concert ticket sales. The revenue from concert tours is becoming much more important now that cd sales are so low, and every bit of advertising such as the popular Grammy Awards can make a difference in ticket sales.

One of the biggest winners at this years Grammy Awards was Taylor Swift. Taylor walked away with Album of the Year and three more awards and she is currently on an already sold out concert tour that begins on March 4th in Tampa Florida. Even though the “Fearless Tour” is sold out through Ticketmaster, you can still find a huge selection of Taylor Swift tickets on the secondary market. The ticket prices for Taylor Swift are very high reflecting the demand for her first major arena tour, and as the tour dates draw closer it remains to be seen whether the prices will go up or down.

Beyonce was the clear winner on Grammy night as she took home a record six Grammy Awards including Song of the Year with “Single Ladies”. Beyonce recently finished touring and her sold out shows never needed any help anyway.

Lady Gaga was also a winner and a performer at the Grammies with two awards including Best Dance Recording. She is just finishing up a hugely successful tour of small venues and will likely be jumping to arena shows on the next tour.  Tickets for Lady Gaga are currently unavailable but expect quick sellouts the next time she tours.

Some more of the Grammy Award winners and  tour schedules:

Kings of Leon – Record of the Year – Currently not on tour

Zac Brown Band – Best New Artist – Zac Brown Band Tickets and Tour Dates

Jason Mraz – Best Male Pop Vocal Performance – Jason Mraz Tickets and Tour Dates

Black Eyed Peas- Best Pop Performance by a Dup or Group with Vocals – Black Eyed Peas Tickets and Tour Dates

Michael Buble – Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album – Michael Buble Tickets and Tour Dates

Bruce Springsteen – Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance – Currently not on tour

AC/DC – Best Hard Rock Performance – AC/DC Tickets and Tour Dates

Green Day – Best Rock Album – Currently not on Tour

Jay-Z – Best Solo Rap Performance – Jay-Z Tickets and Tour Dates

Lady Antebullum – Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals - Lady Antebullum Tickets and Tour Dates with Tim McGraw on Tour

Carey Underwood & Randy Travis – Best Country Collaboration with Vocals – Carrie Underwood Tickets and Tour Dates

Last evening Taylor Swift won the Best Female Artist Award at the People’s Choice Awards at the Nokia Theatre for the 36th annual ceremony. Carrie Underwood won for Best Country Artist and Lady Gaga took home the award for Favorite Pop Artist. That award was sure to be a surprise to many, but considering the rise in Lady Gaga’s popularity, it shouldn’t have.

Taylor Swift has the top selling album in 2009 with her album “Fearless”, which sold about 3,200,000 just barely beating out Susan Boye’s “I Had a Dream”, which sold about 3,100,000 units.

Some of the other winners of the Peoples Choice Awards included Keith Urban for Favorite Male Artist, Paramore for Best Rock Band, and Mariah Carey for Favorite R&B Artist.

Ticketmaster has been convincing more and more artists to scalp their own tickets by offering Gold and Silver packages that give the fan access to the first 10 to 20 rows from the stage, at a steep premium. After years of blasting ticket brokers for reselling tickets, Ticketmaster is selling these seats for many times the original face value and passing on most of the profits to the artist.

Take Rob Thomas at the Tucson Music Hall; you can purchase a face value ticket for $56 plus service charges at the time of this post, that will seat you in the Orchestra, Row V, or you can buy a Silver Package, which seats you in Orchestra, Row L, 10 rows closer to the stage, for a whopping $350 each. Or, you can go all out and buy the Gold package, with 2nd row seats at $450 each. Rob Thomas, $450? Even most ticket brokers would agree that $450 is an over-the-top price for an artist such as Rob Thomas.

This isn’t an isolated case either. There are a whole slew of artists looking for big bucks at a time many of their fans are hurting financially. Kanye West and Lady Gaga just started selling Fame Kills GA VIP Packages through Ticketmaster, with a $500 price tag for a standing room only, general admission ticket! Have they lost their minds! Many of today’s artists have no idea how to treat their fans. Rather than cut prices during the worst recession since the great depression, they come up with these outrageous promotions with prices fans cannot afford, and honestly, these guys aren’t worth it.

And this is only the beginning. More than just a few artists have jumped on the program to scrape as much money out of the fans as possible, using the excuse that this is how they earn their living to support their lavish lifestyles. At some point soon, they will break the bank and fans will start staying away in droves and find other ways to spend their entertainment dollars.

Kanye West’s outburst at the VMA ceremony last night, upstaging the winner of the award, Taylor Swift, caused a backlash from artists around the country. By Tweets and by blogs, the word was spread and none of it was good for Kanye and may affect ticket sales for his upcoming concert tour with Lady Gaga as well.

Mellow Out Man!

Tickets for the Kanye West and Lady Gaga tour are set to go on sale soon, but if the fans are as pissed off as his contemporaries are as mentioned in RollingStone.com, then he better be prepared for some empty seats this tour.

Like a spoiled brat, Kanye just doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut and he went over the top by interrupting the celebration for Taylor Swift. Kanye has already apologized several times, but tonight on Jay Leno’s opening show, we’ll see what kind of roasting he gets.

Lady Gaga and Kanye West are collaborating on a “groundbreaking” stage design for their unconfirmed tour that should kick off October 4th in New York.

Apparently the two are good friends and have been working together for some time on what Lady Gaga promises in a recent BBC interview, “It’s going to be one of the most groundbreaking moments in touring history,” she continued. “I am sure of it.”

That’s no small talk considering some of the biggest productions in concerts involved huge bands such as Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones and U2. But these were huge outdoor stadiums though, and this concert tour will be performed in indoor arenas with more limited staging options.

Lady Gaga will be performing at the 2009 MTV Video Awards show and is up for nine awards this year. Concert tickets for Lady Gaga and Kanye West will be on sale soon at Preferredseat.com