Pearl Jam tries to improve upon the Ticketmaster system for new tour
Pearl Jam will employ "all-in" ticketing for their new nine show tour kicking off in late summer
Is Ticketmaster an irredeemable monopoly taking advantage of fans, or is there a way to work with the company that doesn’t end in a giant lawsuit from disgruntled audience members? Pearl Jam is attempting the latter, with a few new measures in place for their partnership with Live Nation on their upcoming nine-show tour, according to a new Variety report.
These are the ways Pearl Jam and Ticketmaster will try to avoid the issues that have plagued everyone from Taylor Swift to The Cure. First, they’ll employ “all-in” ticket pricing, which means all those extra fees will be lumped in with the main fee, so no surprises at checkout. (Apparently, other artists have resisted this model for fear that the appearance of a higher price will turn fans off from buying tickets.) The band is also limiting dynamic pricing (in which tickets hike in price based on demand) to just 10% of tickets, which will “help subsidize lower prices for the other 90%,” according to Variety. Tickets will also be non-transferable to help avoid scalping.
“Pearl Jam has always advocated on behalf of their fans and we hope more artists, teams and venues follow their lead and start using the all-in pricing display available on Ticketmaster,” said Ticketmaster in a statement to the outlet. “It would be better for fans if all-in pricing was mandated nationally, but in the meantime we created the all-in display option to help fans see the full costs upfront.”
Ticketmaster may be pushing its luck mentioning national mandates when it has drawn the ire of the U.S. Senate, but it will be interesting to see if these measures improve upon the problems about which fans and artists alike have complained. While Pearl Jam has opted to work with Ticketmaster to try to find a solution, others are trying to circumvent the service altogether. Maggie Rogers, for example, opted to sell her tickets directly at the box office. Could the future of ticketing be in the past? Only time will tell, but at least artists are taking steps to make things better. (Dates for the new tour can be found at Variety.)