Country start Church taking on scalpers ‘for the good of his fans’
When Eric Church steps onto the Saddledome stage Saturday, he’ll do so knowing his fans have paid a fair price for tickets.
Last month, the Grammy winning country singer cancelled 25,000 tickets bought by scalpers for his North American spring tour.
About 320 tickets were cancelled for the Calgary concert and 345 were rescinded and resold ahead of the Springsteen singer’s March 10 date at Edmonton’s Rexall Place.
“Eric has been working to beat back scalpers since his first arena tour in 2012,” says Fielding Logan, one of Church’s managers at Q Prime South in Nashville.
“We’ve used ticket limits, paperless and other delivery restrictions, different fan club presale schemes. And while we’ve never done cancellations on this scale, we’ve done this anti-ticket scalping thing a lot over the years.”
Heather Prosak, program director and morning show co-host at local country station Wild 95.3, says Church is showing his fans a lot of respect with this initiative.
“Fans are who got him to where he is now and if you look at the reason why he cancelled 25,000 tickets, you can’t argue with him,” she says.
“He’s doing it for the good of his fans and his heart’s in the right place. He believes fans should be able to pay face value for tickets. It’s their hard-earned money.”
Robyn Adair of Country 105’s morning team The Odd Squad heard from a lot of angry Garth Brooks fans five years ago when tickets for his Stampede Saddledome show sold out within a minute. Many of those tickets appeared on resale sites such as StubHub a few minutes later at much higher prices.
“It’s complete frustration,” she explains. “They’re on the phone or online right when the tickets go on sale and then one minute later it’s entirely sold out. They just reach the end of their rope.”
Adair says she hopes the way Church has dealt with scalpers becomes a trend.
“I hope they can figure out who’s buying all these tickets,” Adair says. “There needs to be an intervention of some sort. Whether from governments or the artists themselves. If they can figure out who’s doing it and put a stop to it, then I think that’s better for everyone.”
The response from Church’s fans has been overwhelmingly supportive according to Logan, who says there has been a “notable lack of activity from scalpers” on the rereleased tickets.
“The cancellations seem to be working,” he says. “We’re fighting pros who have more money, more resources, more time, more expertise and better technology. They beat out normal fans. This doesn’t sit right with Eric and he doesn’t think it’s fair.”
Ticket scalping has been an issue for concert promoters for decades, but the problem has become far worse now that most tickets are purchased online.
Thousands of Tragically Hip fans were left furious last year after trying to buy tickets for the band’s final tour. Shows sold out almost instantly and, like Brooks’ Dome concert, most decent seats showed up minutes later on resale sites.
The outcry led the Ontario government to launch a consumer survey this month, the results of which will help develop legislation to make ticket buying more transparent.
Other artists have also been fighting back against ticket scalping. Buyers who bought large quantities of tickets for Adele’s hugely successful 2016 tour were refunded, while Depeche Mode have come up with a unique way of combating scalpers.
The British trio, who play Edmonton’s Rexall Place Oct. 27, gave fans first crack at tickets by allowing them to ‘line up’ through their website. People were able to move up the line by referring friends or pre-ordering Depeche Mode’s new album, Spirit. Known scalpers were then removed from the lineup and those in line were given a code to purchase pre-sale tickets.
Fans are who got him to where he is now and if you look at the reason why he cancelled 25,000 tickets, you can’t argue with him.