JOHN BARTUS: THE MUSIC BUSINESS SUCKS! (AND BLOWS, TOO)

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band are touring again, hitting the road for the first time post-COVID. When tickets for the American leg of the tour finally went on sale, there was quite a bit of negative publicity surrounding the cost of tickets. How could working class hero Springsteen charge ticket prices only the wealthy could afford — in some cases, over $4,500 per ticket?! Even New Jersey Congressman Bill Pascrell Jr. weighed in: “Americans have the right to enjoy some live entertainment without getting ripped off. Ticketmaster sees popular events as an opportunity to soak regular Americans.”

Pascrell said one of the bad words about the reason for these high prices: Ticketmaster. The other bad words are Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s partner in crime. This unholy alliance, where Live Nation arranges the concerts and Ticketmaster sells the tickets, has become a monopoly controlling both artists’ tours and the venues that host them. It doesn’t matter what an artist may wish to charge for tickets — Ticketmaster adds in fees and surcharges and whatever else it chooses. And the worst part is that the good seats have now become “Official Platinum,” subject to “dynamic pricing” that depends upon demand for those seats. The more that the good seats are wanted, the more Ticketmaster charges.

Ticketmaster defends its dynamic pricing model, stating in company policy, “Some events on our platform may have tickets that are ‘market-priced,’ so ticket and fee prices may adjust over time based on demand. This is similar to how airline tickets and hotel rooms are sold.” Ticketmaster also stated that the dynamic pricing tickets represent only 11.2% of the overall tickets sold. According to their calculations, the rest of the tickets were sold at fixed prices that ranged from $59.50 to $399 — before Ticketmaster added service fees and surcharges.

Sadly, live performance is the only way for a lot of artists to earn money at all. In the Golden Age of the music business, artists (and mostly record companies) earned the big bucks through sales of recorded music. Touring was mainly a way to promote album and single sales, and was often done at a loss. Ticket prices were cheaper, because fans of the artists would (usually) buy their records as well.

Unfortunately, streaming has basically killed the recorded music business. Why would someone ever buy a record or CD when they can just listen to it anytime with their Amazon Prime membership? Even before that, people got very used to thinking that recorded music should be free — thank you, Napster (and other file-sharing pirates). The streaming services pay various amounts per stream, but it takes multiple millions of streams to get anything substantial on the other end. The aforementioned Amazon pays artists about 4/10 of one cent per stream. At that rate, one million streams earns an artist $4,000. Other streaming services pay different amounts, but none more than about a penny per stream. That won’t buy a lot of the accoutrements that usually accompany a rock-star lifestyle. It won’t even buy half of a decent used 20-year-old subcompact.

That doesn’t affect the bottom line of Amazon, Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora or the other streaming services. Collectively, they earned $13.4 billion globally in 2020, making up 62% of total music business revenue. That’s a lot of cake for selling something they didn’t create and didn’t have to buy.

I don’t have a problem with artists making money selling concert tickets. I do, however, have a problem with the gouging and ripping off of people who just want to go experience the magic of a live show. I wish I had an answer for this — and in some ways, I’m glad I’m just an artist on this small level. Until Ticketmaster and Live Nation’s monopoly ends, and until music lovers see the value in supporting artists by buying their music, nothing is really going to change. If you want to help, support local live music and the venues that host it. Buy an artist’s records or CDs. And encourage every music lover you know to do the same.

– John’s Perpetual Island Tour stops every Monday at Boondocks, Tuesday and Wednesday at the Key Colony Inn, and Thursdays at Sparky’s Landing. Check out John’s music anywhere you stream or download your music! Or point your browser to: johnbartus.hearnow.com

Very few towns or cities could ever claim that their Mayor was a smokin' hot guitar player. The island city of Marathon in the Florida Keys is one of those towns. While politics is a temporary call to service, music is a life sentence. John Bartus, a more-than-four-decade full-time professional musician, singer, and songwriter, continues to raise the bar with his groundbreaking solo acoustic show. It’s easy to catch John on one of his more than 200 shows a year throughout the Keys on his Perpetual Island Tour. His CD releases include After The Storm, Keys Disease 10th Anniversary Remaster, and Live From the Florida Keys Vol. 2. John’s music is available wherever you download or stream your music.