A Victory For The Boss Becomes A Disaster

Bruce Springsteen wants to sell you live recordings of his concerts. On the surface this sounds like a giant win for the Boss, since fans have long been clamoring for official recordings of his shows. But execution is everything, and it looks like Team Springsteen really missed on this one at least at first, but are trying their best to make it right. The only question is if it's in time to avoid some bad blood within the fanbase.

It all started when the Boss's management announced that in order to buy a concert recording you'd have to buy a $40 wristband with a USB flash drive attached to it. After you received it, you then had the privilege to purchase a single concert within 48 hours, using the flash drive as an encryption key.

This sounds to be on the expensive side, and considering that the concerts are available in MP3 format instead of a lossless format like FLAC, it really is. The Springsteen community was outraged, since Pearl Jam, Mettalica, John Fogerty, et al, only charge $10 for an MP3 and $15 for FLAC file. To make matters worse, you were also charged $8.95 for postage, unless you purchased the wristband at the show.

The good news is that as a result of the public blowback, Team Springsteen has now relented, dropped the wristband idea, and rolled back their prices to match those of other artists.

The sad part of this is that Bruce's common man image has taken a hit from this. You can't be for your hard-working fans when you're trying to gouge them. Everyone knows that Bruce is wealthy well beyond what the vast majority of his fans will ever be. Trying to wring a few extra bucks out of your fanbase never sits well them.

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Even The Boss Has Trouble Selling Tix

In what may be indicative of the new realities of the music business, it looks like there's some consumer push-back to high concert ticket prices once again. If you remember, this is a trend that began during the recession/depression days of 2008, but last year saw a bit less consumer resistance to the high ticket prices that have become the norm.

A great indicator of this is the fact that even Bruce Springsteen, The Boss himself, has had to discount tickets in order to get a sellout in his own back yard of New Jersey at MetLife Stadium. Bruce's promoter decided to use LivingSocial, a competitor to Groupon, to provide a special $59 ticket to its members (prices were $82). Despite the 28% discount, the offer only drew 65 buyers by the end of the first day.

Bruce isn't the only big act that's having ticket problems though. LivingSocial has also done deals with the Black Eyed Peas and the joint dates by Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw, and many other acts like Madonna and even Eric Clapton are struggling to sell out.

But if there's one artist who isn't, it's former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters, who's "The Wall" tour has grossed over $160 million so far, which is about double of his closest competitor, who happens to be Springsteen.

So what does this mean? First of all, the economy isn't great and it's a real struggle to pay for a concert. With the average ticket going for around 60 bucks, it can easily double after the "convenience charges," parking, and beverages are added. What would you do if given the choice of putting gas in your car to go to work or buying a concert ticket?

The next thing is overexposure. Most acts make all of their money on the road, so if they want the revenue to continue, they better keep working. The problem is that you just can't come back to the same venue year after year and expect the same turnout, especially at those prices.

The recorded music side of the music business has undergone a paradigm shift that it still can't get its arms around. I predict that the next sector to see such a major change will be the concert business.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.