LCD Soundsystem is rocking the concert world by suggesting that Live Nation has allowed ticket-scalping through another division of its company, TicketsNow.
How's that?
When tickets for the dance-rock band's Madison Square Garden farewell concert went on sale last week, they quickly disappeared from Ticketmaster's site and reappeared on TicketsNow, the resale site, among others. Both are owned by Live Nation.
LCD frontman James Murphy cried foul.
"i just want to give people who want to see us a chance to see us. for a reasonable ticket price. and i want to drop the price of the MSG tickets being sold by piece of shit scalpers," Murphy (pictured below) wrote in a blogpost to fans last week.
In an email response to TheWrap, Live Nation chairman Irving Azoff labeled claims that the company was involved with scalping “ridiculous.”
Meanwhile, an individual close to the ticketing process said that only two percent of the 13,000 LCD tickets were made available to TicketMaster, and the rest were allotted to the band, the record label and Madison Square Garden.
Regardless of who is at fault, the accusation has raised anger among fans and prompted elaborate theories as to why the tickets sold as if they were Justin Bieber's last stand.
Wrote Murphy: "i read that people had already bought flights, hotels. wanted to bring their kids. waited in the cold. i read that some people thought this was one of the reasons we were calling it quits (check). i read that this was a media stunt we planned."
The controversy also highlights an ongoing problem in the concert world -- the rise of rampant online scalping, and the murky question of how that occurs. What goes with that is the danger of alienating music fans.
In his blog, Murphy was skeptical that LCD on its own could sell out the limited run of 13,000 tickets to the Garden show. Yet, he said, "within minutes on Friday all the tickets on offer were snapped up online. The same $50 tickets shortly thereafter appeared for thousands of dollars apiece on reseller websites."
Murphy charges that most of the seats went to online resellers, including eBay’s StubHub and TicketsNow.
According to Ticketmaster’s website on Monday, all seats in the Garden were indeed unavailable. TicketsNow.com meanwhile showed ticket prices marked up for the concert to $181 for upper-level seats all the way to a whopping $2,588 for floor seats.
A spokesperson for the band did not respond to questions about how many tickets LCD Soundsystem controlled.
But in reaction, the group scheduled four more shows, and wrote on its website on Tuesday that it will only allow ticket-holders in who “show i.d. at will call and then immediately enter the venue.”
Murphy added: “We’re told that Ticketmaster will also sweep the online purchases daily and delete any duplications from potential scalper bots."
