Bon Jovi: “Selling Out” Without Selling-Out Body: I'm not making decisions with my wallet anymore
-Jon Bon Jovi
Billboard’s Boxscore was reported on 11/15/07 and found Bon Jovi at the Number-one position. Here are the totals:
Bon Jovi Prudential Center-Newark, N.J.
Oct. 25-26, 28, 30, Nov. 1, 3-4, 7, 9-10, 2007
Promoter: AEG Live
Total Gross:
$16,379,070
Attended / Capacity
138,322 / 140,000
Number of Shows/ Number of Sellouts
10 / 0
Prices:
$303 to $49.50
Bon Jovi grossed a whopping $16,379,070.00 over ten nights at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ. Now, on any one's watch, this would be a wild success, however, I think it was a PR nightmare for the band and no matter how much they disguised it, they can't hide the fact that they shot themselves in the foot with these shows. Why was this a PR nightmare? Not one of the shows sold out, even though Jon Bon Jovi says so, with cockiness, on their new DVD. The failure to sell these shows out has NOTHING to do where the shows took place, nothing to do with the band's new album, 'Lost Highway' and it has nothing to do with the band.
It has EVERYTHING to do with ticket prices.
Here's my take on the whole fiasco. The band was testing waters to see how much of a "super star" band they truly are. "Are we under charging our fans for tickets?" is probably what went through their heads. So they decided to "test" the waters and see how insane their most loyal fans really are. They were probably thinking, "if this takes off, we can charge this much everywhere!" Will they sell as well as the Stones, Madonna or McCartney? However, what shocked me is that the handlers at Bon Jovi Management and AEG did not do their homework. Sure, Madonna, the Stones and McCartney all had tickets in the $250 and $350 price margin...but what they didn't seem to comprehend is that very few people actually buy these seats. In the case of all three of these artists, I could go online the day of the show and often find tenth row tickets for these prices and yet no one appeared to be buying them even leading right up to show time.
Many of these pricey seats are "papered" to industry peeps, record company people and reviewers. So where does this leave the casual fan? In the cold. For example, for a fan to attend all ten nights, it would cost them well over $3,000. Now, the band did not perform anything starting or unique over these ten-nights and in truth, I think they came off as a weak stand in the band's career.
Another startling aspect that disturbed me was that during the pre-sale tickets were priced between $67.50 and $337.50. All of a sudden when they went on sale, they were priced between $49.50 and $337.50. Now granted, Bon Jovi worked out a deal where all tickets bought during the pre-sale included a digital copy of 'Lost Highway' with the $9.99 price worked in...but $337 minus $10 equals $327. What happened to the other $24? I inquired and never got a response. In short, die-hard fans who bought tickets during the pre-sale paid $34 more than those during the regular sale. Obviously, tickets were not selling well and they decided to drop the ticket price quietly. Why didn't anyone take notice of this? Why didn't the New Jersey newspapers pick up on this and point this out? I think Bon Jovi took their most loyal and hometown fans for a ride and very few in the media have stepped up and asked important questions that needed to be asked. They were given a pass. Why? Oh wait, that's right, because in this day and age, your access and credentials are only as valid and good as your most recent review. You choose to speak the truth and you're blacklisted from reviewing the band or getting free tickets.
Here is the worst aspect of this all...the band did NOT need to rape and pillage their hometown fans in order to be profitable.
Here is a breakdown of what SHOULD have happened:
Based on all articles I read, the planned capacity for these shows was 16,000 (they could not utilize the 19,000 seat capacity because of their stage set up). Why they only chose to report 140,000 is beyond me. This is nothing new in the concert industry as they often disguise poor selling shows with lowering the capacity. My all time favorite was in 2003 when Springsteen put a stadium show on sale in March for Denver. He was playing the football stadium with a capacity well over 50,000 seats. He only sold 26,000 and they reported it in Billboard with a capacity of 30,000. It was laughable when it was reported, but still, it's a common practice in the industry to disguise shows that did not sell up to expectations.
OK, now onto the math. Now, in my opinion, these shows should have sold out easily and the key to making this stand legendary was to ensure tickets were impossible to come by. In today's day and age, tickets to almost all arena and stadium shows can be had outside the arena for far below face value. However, if Bon Jovi and AEG had been smart, they would have priced these shows affordably at price ranges of $85, $55 and $35. If they had stuck to these prices, they would have created excitement, fervor and unparalleled NEED for more shows.
One thing that every artist who is raising their ticket prices is oblivious to is that you should feel honored that people go to scalpers to want to see you. Is it right? Hell no, but two wrongs don't make a right and when the band begins scalping their tickets (in essence) you've lost the plot. Prince triumphantly sold out TWENTY-ONE shows in London in August and September. How? It’s simple, every ticket was priced at $62.42 (aka 31.21 Pounds).
The key to coolness and longevity is to create demand! The day that people stop scalping your tickets is the day you need to worry. I saw online brokers charging $4,000 to seats at these Bon Jovi shows, but please, I highly doubt any of them sold any tickets especially when Bon Jovi was charging $1,000 via Ticketmaster for a "Lost Highway Experience" and these tickets never appeared to have sold out. If I was an artist, I would want as many people to see my show as possible. With the average ticket price for these shows well over $100, they alienated those blue collar workers WHO DEFINE THEIR CORE AUDIENCE.
For example, let's say the band has 16,000 seats to sell;
Take 8,000 of those seats and charge $85 per ticket. You have a gross of $680,000.
Then let's say 4,000 are priced at $55. That gives you a gross of $220,000.
Lastly, let's say the remaining seats (4,000) are all nosebleeds or behind the stage, price these at $35 each. You have a gross of $140,000.
Add those three totals up and you have $1,040,000.
Granted that is $600,000 less than the per show gross they made, but if they had charged these prices, they would have been NO bad press and EVERYONE would have wanted to go. It's like the unattainable girl in high school that every boy wants. Who does she go for? The good guy who she knows is in love with her? No way, she goes for the guy who doesn't express his emotions...she wants a challenge...SHE WANTS WHAT SHE CAN NOT HAVE! It's the same thing with the industry and I have to admit to wanting to see a smaller show that unexpectedly sells out more than one where tickets are plentifully available.
Another possible money option I have for Bon Jovi would have involved getting rid of the screens and stupid backdrops on stage to utilize the entire 19,000 seat capacity. I ranted and raved about this a few months back at antiMusic (link is here). Every time an artist does not sell these seats behind the stage that means fewer people who will be exposed to the new music, fewer who will buy merchandise and fewer who will seek out your new album! The more people you play to, the more your records will sell!
Let's do the same math for the $85 ticket...for a gross of $680,000.
Let's double the number of $55 tickets to 8,000 and this gives a gross of $440,000.
Take the remaining 3,000 seats and price them at $35, you have a gross of $105,000.
These three price tiers total up to $1,225,000. Multiply this by ten and you come up with $12,250,000. Subtract the total gross from this theoretical figure and the difference is $4,129,070.
In short, Bon Jovi sold out their fan base and threw them under a bus for $4 million dollars, or $400,000 per night. Yes, that is a lot of money, but the band doesn't need it! Jon Bon Jovi has been quoted saying "I made my first million by the time I was 25 and my first 100-million by the time I was 35". If you had a business and you were incredibly profitable and had loyal customers, would you triple your prices for the short term easy money? This is exactly what Bon Jovi did and I can't tell you how many fans they alienated in the process. Even worse, let’s say that Bon Jovi made those extra 5,000 seats available with a good view of the stage, chances are they would have spent an average amount of $10 per person on merchandise. That is $50,000 extra per nights and $500,000 extra over the course of ten nights. The more and more you look at cheaper ticket prices, the more it appears that the band will probably make almost as much money in the long run through album sales and merchandise, while maintaining their credibility. All of a sudden, that $4 million gap becomes $3.5 million. Also, it’s no secret that the less a ticket costs, the more inclined one is to buying merchandise.
If you really want to be frustrated, in order to make up the $3.5 million all the band had to do was perform three more shows and they would have made more than the ten nights at obscene ticket prices. To really put it in perspective, all it would have involved was 7.5 hours of extra work for the band. That is less than what the average American workers works in one day! This is a band who didn't feel like doing three extra shows, instead it's all about doing as few shows as possible and making the maximum amount of money. Could you imagine telling your boss you want a 200% increase in salary with the caveat that you are going to work fewer hours? How do you think that would go over?
Here is what kills me, Bon Jovi fought the hard fights and have found themselves able to fill arenas nationwide. Why not take the Tom Petty and Pearl Jam route and undercut your contemporaries? Make it easy for fans to choose your concert before all others. One of the most amazing things I witnessed was in 2005 when Tom Petty sold-out 30,000 seats here in Chicago. Ironically he had played the Chicago area upwards of a dozen times in the three-years before this show (including a week long stand at a club). How did he not saturate the market? His tickets were cheap and affordable ($25-$65). The other thing that astonished me was that fifty-percent of the audience was under the age of 30. I don’t think I’ve seen more than ten-people under the age of thirty at any Springsteen show in the last few years and I'd say less than 10% of the audience at Bon Jovi is under 30. The youth is the future of the music and concert industry and they’re not in the habit of paying $100 for tickets, let alone nosebleeds. Bon Jovi has more money than God and they’ve survived for a quarter of a century, why not charge less and ensure that the next generation can witness their magic? We all deserve a discount, this is a guy who pays $71 in taxes for a 6 acre piece of prime real estate property for his bee farm. That is less than the service fee his fan club charges for two fan club tickets. They have more money than they could ever dream of spending, why gouge fans for more?
Should you price tickets affordably (all under $100) ensuring a sell-out, good word of mouth, a new generation of fans and maximum exposure to your show, OR should you drive up the price, paper the unsold expensive tickets to industry peeps and piss off your most loyal fans leaving such a bad taste in your mouth that it will stay there forever?
"We are very aware of ticket prices when we set up a tour," Bon Jovi says. "We don't do a cheap ticket, but we do a very fair ticket price. Forget about the cost of a concert ticket, I'm very aware of the cost of living. I can't dispute what the Stones or Madonna wanna charge, but I know that to take a date to a concert, park the car, get a T-shirt, buy a couple of beers -- that's more than a week's pay for a lot of folks. We charge less and know that 50,000 seats will be sold for Soldier Field. That's just good business."
-Jon Bon Jovi
Chicago Sun-Times July 21, 2006
