Elvis on Court TV

johnfoyle · Post by **johnfoyle** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 12:54 am

Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 01:08:46 EDT
From: "Michael Hernandez"
To: COSTELLO-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM

I taped the Hollywood At Large broadcast from 4am this morning. Here
the
scoop:

The piece was about Ticketmaster's auction plan. It starts off with
Elvis
outside Town Hall (I'm assuming) saying, "auction.....that doesn't
sound like a
very good idea, does it?" VO (while showing TM's web site): "Acclaimed
British musician Elvis Costello, getting the news from Hollywood At
Large about
Ticketmaster's new ticket auction service." EC: "It doesn't sound like
a very
good idea, auctioning them, 'cause that's surely gonna inflate the
price of them
still more." Clips from the 13 Steps video. Shot of Town Hall in the
evening, with fans milling about. VO: "And Costello's fans seem to
dislike the idea
of bidding for show tickets about as much as he does."

Fan #1 (tall caucasian guy, glasses, short greying hair): "I think it's
a bad
idea."
Fan #2 (shorter black woman, mid 20s): "I don't think it's a very good
idea."
Fan #3 (good looking early-mid 20s woman, long red hair, grey demin
jacket):
"I think it could be a travesty."

VO (with shot of Town Hall exterior, focusing in on the concert poster
in the
display): "But just steps from New York's Town Hall where Costello is
playing, [showing a pair of tickets to the show] tickets to his
sold-out show are
still available from scalpers at up to twice the face value. [footage
of the
Dixie Chicks live] Which is precisely one of the reasons why
Ticketmaster has
come up with the idea of auctioning tickets: to make bigger profits."

EC: "They would do it themselves?" Interviewer (off-screen): "Yeah."
EC:
(laughs) That's very laughable, isn't it?"

VO (shots of fans going into Town Hall): "Still, a few Costello fans
think it
might be a good idea."

Fan: "I'm all for the fair market. If people wanna pay it, they know
what
they're doing and they're paying it. That.....that money should go to
the
artist."

Then the guy doing the piece explains how the auction would work.
Apparently, the artist, the promoter, and the concert hall would have
to agree on the
auction. The extra profit would be split between the artist, the
promoter, and
Ticketmaster. Evenly? They didn't say. A professor from Princeton
explains
that to an economist it's fair because this gives everyone a shot at
buying
it. A Court TV anchor says this isn't a free market concept, because
you can't
have a market of one. No competition.

EC: "They pretty much have a monopoly on them, but then again most of
the
promoters are in a monopoly now, all the radio stations are a monopoly,
and
you're getting to the point where there's only 3 record companies."

A NY DJ (not John O) comes on and explains that someone who couldn't
have
gotten a ticket before might be able to get it now with the auction.
The guy
says that Ticketmaster declined to comment on camera, but said that the
auction
would mean no more lining up for tickets, no scalper selling you a
counterfeit
ticket, and a refund in the event the show is cancelled. What, you
mean they
wouldn't do that before? TM really is fucked up. The same Princeton
prof
calls it a mixed bag for the consumer, with some places going up, and
some going
down. He didn't say exactly what would go up or down, but I'm guessing
concert attendance. There's talk of ebay's success with ticket resales
(no mention
of the fact that tickets will pop up on ebay -- for specific seats --
before th
ey even go on sale) and how it didn't go unnoticed by TM.

VO (over shots of Paul Mac and Bruce Springsteen): "Still, not every
band is
going to buy the auction idea." Same prof comes back and talks about
how
someone like Bruce wants to keep it real for the fans. VO (over a
dopey looking
graph): "But with concert ticket sales at their lowest level in 12
years,
auctioning may just be the ticket. But it's going to take some
convincing."

Back to the studio. Hostess: "Here's a surprise: according to
Ticketmaster,
it's not unusual for half of the seats at some concerts, shows, or
games to
remain unsold. So far the new auction plan is not getting rave reviews
from
anyone, including venues or promoters."

The whole thing lasted about 3 minutes.

laughingcrow · Post by **laughingcrow** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 3:51 am

I didn't know about Ticketmaster auctioning tickets! What an outrage!

verbal gymnastics · Post by **verbal gymnastics** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 4:00 am

Not for nothing are they known as Ticketbastards...

Pov · Post by **Pov** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 7:30 am

They are already auctioning off tickets for some Sting concert. Granted, the concert is for charity, the one situation where I could see an auction being acceptable.

verbal gymnastics · Post by **verbal gymnastics** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 9:42 am

Pov wrote:They are already auctioning off tickets for some Sting concert. Granted, the concert is for charity, the one situation where I could see an auction being acceptable.

...except those suffering in this case will be the audience who have also paid for the privilege!

Post by **spooky girlfriend** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 9:47 am

Ticketbastards! Can't stand 'em. Seems like they've been around forever and they just get worse all the time.

Misha · Post by **Misha** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 10:53 pm

Warning to all ticket buyers....my friend is a box office manager for the Damned Clear Channel...they started this ebay ticket auction crap....you can get 40.00 tickets for 6.00....This happened at Neil Young...the peril here is that the system is still whacked....Ticketmaster double booked by accident and many people had to be moved. They had the room, but still there are nightmares abounding with this.

Neil Young tickets also sold for $ 135.00 freakin dollars each if you were in like the front 20-30 rows.....I about died....thank God I didn't pay that!