DIY Tour: New Era of Ticket Sales?

Have you ever bought tickets for an event and thought "Man, cut me some slack on these prices"? Well, prices may not be going down, but certainly there may be some major changes in coming years to the way event ticketing is handled. In the era of the markup and the (somehow) legal online scalper, a change would be welcomed by fans and artists alike.

Louis CK: For The Fans

Recently, Louis C.K. announced a tour in which he bypassed traditional ticket outlet Ticketmaster in favor of selling his own tickets directly to his fans. LouisCK.net is offering the tickets exclusively. Every seat is $45. Pretty awesome.

There are real implications as a result of this that could change the industry. Rolling Stone reported that the tour had already sold $4.5 million worth of tickets in just under 2 days. Obviously Louis CK is a big act, but the thing that impresses me the most about this is that it has not come under fire from any major ticket agencies, nor has it failed. If a smaller artist were to attempt this (let's talk music, not comedy), I'm not sure it would completely work. The die-hards of course would support the show, but how would you get the people on the fringe? An obvious answer seems to be publicity and social media, but it's not as easy as it sounds.

Nathan Hubbard, CEO of Ticketmaster, even went as far as embracing the ticket movement on Twitter saying "We love what Louis C.K. is doing and support it - wish more people had the stones to do all-in ticketing." A later tweet also said "We have been a huge champion of protecting what he is trying to do - delivering a great seat at a fair price to an actual fan." While this is comforting to hear that someone at Ticketmaster has a soul, despite many consumer opinions that would indicate otherwise, the whole concept of ticketing includes more than just a fee.

The way ticketing is broken down is that the artist gets a major majority of the ticket price. The fees are not just a Ticketmaster surcharge, but a way for the promoters and the credit card companies and, yes, Ticketmaster to make some kind of profit off their service. If they weren't making profit, then how could their service be worth anything? It's a double edged sword.

While I agree that sometimes the fees are ridiculous, you can't fault the companies for trying to make a profit because, after all, that's what a business is about. The thing I love about what Louis CK is doing is he is making it more accessible for a fan to attend his show without that fan feeling like he paid a fortune to see an act that may not be his favorite, but one he wanted to see. While you may not get to see CK at a venue that is more popular, you will still get to see his act. As a fan, do I really care specifically where I'm seeing the act? Not usually. I think this is definitely a step in the right direction for getting fans, the artists and the industry to work together on a system that is fair to all.

What do you think of Louis CK's approach to ticketing? Leave a comment and let me know!