Continuing our exploration of how fans are getting caught in the crossfire of the concert industry, here’s yet again another reason for concert fans to actually form their own legit grass-roots group, or a perhaps a powerful Complaints Rock Band, to voice and truly change everything that’s wrong with concert industry.
As the New York times reports, two allegedly pro-fan coalition groups have been formed to fight for fan rights. But the precarious twist is that the groups have ties to concert promoters Live Nation-Ticketmaster, AEG and Stubhub.
What fans might not know is that the [Fans First] coalition is financed by Live Nation Entertainment, the parent company of Ticketmaster, and that it has grown out of a lobbying fight between Live Nation and StubHub, the biggest legal online ticket reseller, over control of the multibillion-dollar secondary ticketing market.
Muddying the waters further, there is another group with a confusingly similar name, the Fan Freedom Project, which also claims to represent the interests of consumers. But it is largely financed by StubHub, a division of eBay.
The organizations, which were introduced with the help of Washington public relations firms, are of a sort typically referred to as astroturf groups. They are unusual for the entertainment industry but to political watchdogs, the idea of powerful interests creating apparently populist nonprofits is all too familiar.
Yes, we’ve seen ridiculous stuff like this go on in the concert industry over the years.
And the truth is that it will continue to happen if concert fan themselves don’t take a radical stance.
And what’s more radical than concert fans getting pissed off enough to choose to not go to shows until fans’ rights are actually front and center.
Yes, it would really suck to have to give up going to shows in order for things to change.
And at this point I don’t see any other way to make things better for fans.
The upshot is that the power is ultimately in your hands, and all it would take is a gradual groundswell of committed fans to assemble and get the ball rolling.
Until that happens, we’ll take a deeper look at both Stand with Fans and Fan Freedom to see what they’re both all about and what other fans are saying about them.
In the meantime, check out our previous posts on Live Nation, the concert ticket industry at SXSW 2011, and the new book Ticket Masters, and let us know what you think about this stuff and we’ll share your thoughts on future episode of Live Fix Radio.