US senators introduce Junk Fee Prevention Act
US Senators have introduced new legislation which would eliminate “excessive” ticketing fees for concerts and other events.
Senators Richard Blumenthal and Sheldon Whitehouse have announced the “Junk Fee Prevention Act” following calls from president Joe Biden during his State of the Union address.
Biden argued that hidden or unexpected fees “are not only costly to consumers, but they can stifle competition by encouraging companies to use increasingly sophisticated tools to disguise the true price consumers face”.
If passed, the new legislation would eliminate “excessive, hidden, and unnecessary fees” imposed on consumers and “ensure transparency” in industries such as ticketing by requiring the full prices of services to be provided upfront.
“Concealed surprise fees – nickel and diming Americans to distraction – must be stopped,” says Blumenthal. “Airline travel, concert going, common purchases – seemingly almost everywhere – consumers are compelled to pay hidden excessive charges.
“Our bill will help end this price gouging – forcing full disclosure upfront and restricting abusive fees. It will mandate basic common sense fairness and transparency, which consumers rightly demand and deserve.”
“Our Junk Fee Prevention Act would provide consumers with the transparency they deserve when making a purchase”
“Consumers are charged hidden fees when purchasing everything from flights to concert tickets,” adds Whitehouse. “Our Junk Fee Prevention Act would provide consumers with the transparency they deserve when making a purchase.”
Live Nation has backed president Biden’s call for transparency around ticketing fees last year. The company went on to launch the Fair Ticketing Act last month and has received support from the likes of CAA, UTA, Wasserman Music and WME in its calls for ticketing reforms. Among its recommendations are for all-in pricing across all ticketing marketplaces introduced nationally so that fans know the full cost of a ticket plus fees right upfront.
Ticketing fees have been thrust under the microscope of late after The Cure persuaded Ticketmaster to offer partial refunds for “unduly high” ticketing fees charged in the Verified Fan sale for the band’s upcoming North American tour.
The firm had come in for criticism during this week’s sale when ticket-holders posted screenshots online showing some fees exceeding the cost of the tickets themselves.
Neil Young has also weighed in on the dispute, posting under the headline “concert touring is broken” on his website.
“It’s over, the old days are gone,” he writes. “I get letters blaming me for $30,000 tickets for a benefit I am doing. That money does not go to me or the benefit. Artists have to worry about ripped off fans blaming them for Ticketmaster add-ons and scalpers.
“Concert tours are no longer fun. Concert tours [are] not what they were.”
“Ticketmaster unilaterally decides which tickets it advertises and sells as ‘Official Platinum’ based on a given event”
Meanwhile, a class-action lawsuit has been launched against Ticketmaster in Canada, alleging the company “intentionally misleads consumers for their own financial gain”.
The case – filed by Montreal-based law firm LPC Avocat Inc – says a customer bought two market-driven “platinum” tickets for Drake’s upcoming 14 July show at the Bell Centre for C$789.54 (€533.70) each. However, it says that when Drake added a second show for the following night, the same seats could be purchased for more than $350 less.
As per the Toronto Star, the suit also claims that Ticketmaster knew Drake would be performing two shows at the venue, but “concealed this information” to “squeeze out” as much money as possible from fans buying tickets for the first date.
“Ticketmaster unilaterally decides which tickets it advertises and sells as ‘Official Platinum’ based on a given event,” reads the filing. “The result is that most, if not all, of the tickets advertised and sold as ‘Official Platinum’ are neither ‘premium tickets’ nor ‘some of the best seats in the house’ and are, in fact, just regular tickets sold by Ticketmaster at an artificially inflated premium in bad faith.”
Ticketmaster has not commented on the allegations.
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Lawsuits filed over Astroworld tragedy
Lawsuits have been filed over the deadly crowd surge at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival in Houston, Texas.
At least eight people, aged between 14-27, died and hundreds others injured in Friday’s (5 November) tragedy at the 50,000-capacity event at NRG Park, promoted by Live Nation. A planned second night was cancelled.
Live Nation released a statement saying it was “heartbroken for those lost and impacted”.
“We will continue working to provide as much information and assistance as possible to the local authorities as they investigate the situation,” it said.
A total of 14 lawsuits have already been filed by survivors in Houston District Court in relation to injuries sustained at the festival, according to Billboard. The first names festival headliner and founder Scott, Live Nation, individuals associated with NRG Park and Texas-based festival producer Scoremore Holdings, along with several other defendants.
A second also names Scott and Live Nation, but adds Drake, who appeared as a special guest during the headline set.
Scott made statements on his social media accounts, speaking of his devastation.
“I’m absolutely devastated by what took place,” he said in an Instagram video. “My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened.
“Anytime I can make out anything that’s going on, I stop the show and help them get the help they need. I could just not imagine the severity of the situation.”
In 2018, the rapper reportedly pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after being accused of inciting a riot at a 2017 concert in Arkansas’ Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion.
We still don’t know what caused the initial surge of the crowd
Meanwhile, Houston fire chief Sam Pena has warned the final death toll from Astroworld could rise.
“At this moment what we know is that we have eight people who have died as a result of the injuries suffered at that event,” he told MSNBC. “That number may rise because we did transport more people in critical condition, we took 11 that they were performing CPR en route to the hospital.
“A total of 23 patients were transported after the mass casualty incident was initiated, so that number, hopefully it doesn’t, but it may rise.”
Pena stressed that the cause of the “unspeakable tragedy” was still being investigated.
“We still don’t know what caused the initial surge of the crowd up towards the stage but the Houston police department is looking at video that was taken from cameras that were present there for security purposes and other reasons so that’ll be part of their investigation,” he said. “They’ll be dissecting exactly what the issues were and what caused the surge and if there was anything else that contributed to this tragedy.
“We don’t know what caused it but we had and estimated 50,000 people in that venue. It was just a matter of people trying to push towards the front and get towards the front, that’s what I anticipate, but again that will be determined after they review the film and they review the video that they have from those cameras.
“From the Houston fire department’s perspective, we’ll be looking at the layout of that venue itself and considering items as far as was there enough means of egress, what caused the inability for people to escape that situation so again we will be dissecting this thing in its entirety.”
We want to make sure that this does not happen again and we learn from this
Video footage shows Scott pausing his 75-minute set when medical emergencies became apparent.
Asked whether the show should have been halted earlier, Pena added: “That’s all going to be part of the investigation. Police with Live Nation did decide to, in essence, pull the plug when situation started to escalate.
“It was a chaotic and really tragic event but they did an outstanding job to get resources in there and try to disperse the crowd as quickly as they could. But we’re going to be looking at this thing from top to bottom because we want to make sure that this does not happen again and we learn from this.”
Pena also addressed accounts of a concert-goer injecting other people, including a security guard, with drugs.
“We did hear the same thing,” he said. “Again, we are going to wait for the medical examiner’s determination on the cause of deaths of these individuals so we’ll get a better picture as soon as the investigation progresses.”
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The O2 celebrates 25 million ticket sales
Twenty five million tickets have been sold for shows at London’s O2 Arena since 2007, the venue team announced today (22 October), following a busy summer with concerts by Ariana Grande, Travis Scott, Muse and more.
The 20,000-capacity O2 Arena, which was crowned the world’s busiest venue for the 11th consecutive year in 2018, has this year seen performances from the likes of Daddy Yankee, George Ezra, Post Malone, Cher and Khalid.
Bjork, the Chemical Brothers, Liam Gallagher, Krept and Konan, Little Mix and the Lumineers are all set to perform at the arena before the end of the year.
Since opening in 2007, the O2 has hosted over 2,000 individual performances and now holds an average of 200 events per year, covering music, sport, comedy, family entertainment and esports.
“To reach the 25 million ticket milestone is a huge achievement and we’re so grateful to have hosted so many artists for the first time this year”
“To reach the 25 million ticket milestone is a huge achievement and we’re so grateful to have hosted so many artists for the first time this year,” comments Emma Bownes, vice president of programming.
“London has the best fans in the world, and we’d like to thank promoters, agents, managers and our partners for continuing to work with us to help bring the very best performers from the worlds of music, comedy, sport and entertainment to the O2”.
Canadian rapper Drake was this year inducted into the venue’s ‘21 Club’, joining acts including Prince, One Direction and Take That to have performed at the London arena 21 times.
Take That hold the record for the most number of shows played at the O2, whereas the attendance record belongs to Metallica, who played to a 22,211-strong crowd in 2017.
Tickets are not the only thing being sold in large quantities at the O2. In 2018, the venue sold over 172,000 portions of chips, 72,500 hot dogs and more than 993,000 pints of beer.
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Drake joins Prince in the O2’s ‘21 Club’
Drake has been inducted into the O2’s ‘21 Club’, after reaching the milestone of 21 shows at the London venue on Thursday 11 April.
The Canadian rapper joins previous honourees including Prince (whose 21-night residency in 2007 inaugurated the tradition), One Direction, Take That and Michael McIntyre, all of whom, like Drake, have been presented with the keys to the venue.
Drake’s seven-night run in April brought his total performances to 21. The Grammy- and Brit Award-winning artist first performed two nights at the venue on the Club Paradise tour in 2012, before returning in 2014 for three nights in support of his number-one album, Nothing Was the Same. He last played the O2 in 2017 for the Boy Meets World tour, during which he performed eight headline shows.
The key, designed by The O2 team, was inspired by the latest Assassination Vacation tour artwork. Mounted on black velvet and finished in gold, it will join the rest of the 21 Club accolades backstage, “to serve as inspiration for future artists”, says the venue.
Drake’s reference to the venue in the song ‘God’s Plan’ (“You know me/ Turn the O2 into the O3”) was also celebrated during the latest residency, with the venue rebranding as the O3 for two weeks (pictured above).
Commenting on the accomplishment, Emma Bownes, AEG Europe’s vice-president of venue programming, says: “Drake has consistently brought us incredible shows and our congratulations go to Drake and his team for this achievement.”
Drake is co-managed by Noah ‘40’ Shebib and Adel ‘Future the Prince’ Nur and represented by WME worldwide.
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Female fans first in line for ticket sales
Data presented by online statistics portal, Statista, has shown that women generated the majority of traffic to ticketing sites on the first day of ticket sales for a variety of high-profile world tours.
Female fans drove around 73% of traffic to Vivid Seats on the morning that tickets went on sale for K-pop group BTS’ first world stadium tour, Love Yourself: Speak Yourself.
The band sold out five major stadiums across the United States and Europe, including the Rose Bowl in Los Angeles (90,888-cap.), London’s Wembley Stadium (90,000-cap.) and the Stade de France in Paris (80,000-cap.).
Women generated an even higher percentage of traffic for Ariana Grande’s Sweetener world tour (75%), which sees the star perform across Europe and North America.
Female fans also drove more traffic to ticketing pages for Ed Sheeran’s ÷ world tour (64%), Taylor Swift’s Reputation tour and Drake’s Aubrey and the 3 Migos tour.
Only for the Rolling Stones No Filter tour did men have a bigger presence on the ticketing site than women, driving 56% of the traffic.
The data corresponds with information collected by event discovery guide and ticketing outlet, Skiddle, that shows women now buy 13% more live event tickets than men.
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75%+ of richest artists’ income is from touring
On average, the ten highest-paid artists made more than three quarters of their income last year from touring, reveals a new list of music’s biggest money-makers.
The list, compiled by Billboard, combines revenue from sales, streaming, publishing and touring. Of the top ten – Beyoncé, Guns N’ Roses, Bruce Springsteen, Drake, Adele, Coldplay, Justin Bieber, Luke Bryan, Kanye West and Kenny Chesney, in that order – only one placed artist, Drake, earnt more from recorded music than from live.
Beyoncé (pictured) brought in US$4.3 million from sales, $1.9m from streaming and $1.3m from publishing, but $54.7m from touring (her Formation world tour was the highest grossing of the year); for second-placed Guns N’ Roses, meanwhile, the figures are $771,700, $670,800, $499,600 and $40.4m, respectively.
Drake, the sole exception to the rule, earnt $18.1m from streaming compared to $13.6m from touring. Kanye West’s streaming performance was also strong ($7.6m), although it was still under half the $15.4m he took home from live shows.
Added together, income from sales, streaming and publishing for the top ten totalled around $71.1m – or just 24.4% of the $291.7m they made from touring.
Music streaming is, of course, on the rise, climbing 9.9% in the first six months of 2017 alone. But –Drake aside – Billboard’s charts illustrate how even the world’s biggest artists are struggling to make significant money from streaming – and prove once again that it’s a good time to be in the concert business…
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Bieber, Drake lead decade’s top Canadian tours
With Canada Day 2017 – aka Canada’s 150th birthday – fast approaching, StubHub has released data on its ten top-selling Canadian artists of the last decade.
Unsurprisingly, pop superstar Justin Bieber tops StubHub’s rankings, with Drake, The Weeknd, veteran prog-rockers Rush and Vine star-done-good Shawn Mendes rounding out the top five.
National institution The Tragically Hip – whose recent farewell show was watched by a third of the country – place eighth.
While not, of course, a definitive list, StubHub is Canada’s (and the world’s) leading secondary ticket marketplace, so the eBay-owned business should have a fairly good insight into long-term market trends.
The full list is below:
The modern state of Canada was confederated from three colonies of British North America – Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia – on 1 July 1867. The 150th Canada Day (until 1982 called Dominion Day), which celebrates the anniversary of confederation, is tomorrow: 1 July 2017.
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Kanye, Drake fans lead way in mobile ticketing
Despite the abrupt axing last month of the final 21 dates of his Saint Pablo tour, Kanye West was still the no1 choice for mobile ticket-buyers in 2016, new data suggests.
West – whose cancellation, due to stress and exhaustion, led to a loss of US$30 million in potential ticket sales – tops Gametime’s list of the ‘most mobile music fans of 2016’ by tickets sold on its app, followed by Drake and Future, Beyoncé, Skrillex’s show at Super City Fest in Oakland, California, and a country music tour co-headlined by Kenny Chesney, Miranda Lambert, Sam Hunt and Old Dominion.
Gametime is a last-minute mobile secondary ticketing platform for music and sporting events, on which resale prices fluctuate dynamically according to market demand. “Unlike other ticket providers that rely primarily on web-based platforms,” it notes, “Gametime is 100% mobile, revealing consumers who are on the go, largely Millennials (>75% of user base) and looking for a speedy transaction accompanied by great value.”
“A consumer behaviour shift is happening in the live event industry, with a migration toward the last-minute window”
The San Francisco-based company says its research – which correlates with previous predictions of 20% year-on-year growth for mobile ticketing until 2020 – shows that “a consumer behaviour shift is happening in the live event industry, with a migration toward the last-minute window – 7 days or less until the event – driven by a younger, more spontaneous and experienced shopping consumer”.
“For example,” it explains, “55% of concert tickets sold on Gametime are happening on the week of the event, and 30% on the day of the event. As events draw near, prices decline roughly 25% and buying activity spikes via mobile millennial fans.”
Gametime’s top 20, and the average US ticket price of each tour, is shown below:
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Zika virus-carrying Beenie Man barred from Canada
Beenie Man was forced to cancel his planned appearance at OVO Fest in Toronto on Saturday after contracting the Zika virus.
The Jamaican dancehall musician – booked for a Caribbean Day at the festival, which is promoted by Drake’s OVO Sound record label – wrote on Instagram: “No visa fi mi Canada show […] Zika Virus hol’ mi. The same Zika mosquito gi mi dengue.” (“No visa for my Canada show. The Zika virus hold[s] me. The same Zika mosquito [also] gave me dengue [fever].”)
Last month IQ spoke to South American promoters to find out if fears of the Zika virus, which can cause birth defects in babies born to infected mothers, are hurting touring, following the cancellation of the Lollapalooza Colombia festival after Rihanna – rumoured to be worried about contracting the disease – reportedly pulled out.
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In-demand Adele tops summer secondary sales
Adele is the artist live music fans in the US are most willing to pay secondary-market prices to see this summer.
The British singer leads Coldplay and Justin Bieber in StubHub’s 2016 list of its top 10 touring acts, which ranks artists based on demand on the ticket-resale site this summer concert season (defined as the period from Memorial Day on 30 May to Labor Day on 5 September).
Adele also holds the distinctions of the highest sale for a single ticket and the highest average price per ticket.
Drake is the fourth highest-selling act, followed by Beyoncé, Guns N’ Roses, Twenty One Pilots, Kenny Chesney, Paul McCartney and Billy Joel.
Fifth-placed Beyoncé sold the lowest-priced single ticket, and seventh-placed Twenty One Pilots have the lowest average price overall.
On a per show basis, Metallica – who are currently playing just one summer show, similar to the Grateful Dead last year – dominate the list, followed by Pearl Jam and notoriously tour-shy UK act Radiohead.
StubHub, long America’s largest secondary ticket marketplace, became the world’s biggest last month with the acquisition of global resale platform Ticketbis.