stay in the shallow end

Last night, my friend told me about MusicToday’s policy of invalidating tickets that were sold on Ebay or Craigslist for above face value. I completely rejected the possibility that this could be true until she pulled up the NBC29 article about it. I wracked my brain to figure out how MusicToday or Dave Matthews Band could possibly think this is a good idea, but came up short. Today, the story resurfaces on cvillenews with a link to a Daily Progress article with a few more details. Here’s what Pat Jordan, the manager of Dave Matthews Band had to say:

“We want to serve the fans and get as many tickets into the fans’ hands, not into the hands of brokerage firms,” he said.

Wow, taking your fans that are willing to pay top dollar for your product and then completely screwing them over is serving them? Sign me up! He also said:

… the group spends a lot of time and energy telling fans where to buy tickets and where not to buy tickets.

It’s been all-Dave-all-the-time in Charlottesville for the last couple of weeks. You can’t turn around without hearing about it in some way, shape, or form, and the first I’m hearing about this policy is the day before the show. I subscribe to the Craigslist For Sale feed, and have NetNewsWire set to keep the last 30 days worth of posts. Searching for “DMB” I get 123 listings and for “Dave” I get 130 listings. I’m sure some of those overlap, but in any case, exactly zero of those are any sort of warning about purchasing tickets for above face value. You’d think if you were ”…spending a lot of time and energy telling fans where to buy tickets and where not to buy tickets…”, you would post warnings in the very first place they would go to buy tickets to a sold-out show.

This policy has nothing to do with serving the fans. It’s a shot across the bow to scalpers and ticket brokers saying, Keep reselling our tickets, and your reputation, and possibly your business as a whole, will be ruined. As for the fans that get screwed? Well, they’re just collateral damage. MusicToday pretty much confirms that:

“Unfortunately, that’s true,” said Del Wood, chief operating officer of Musictoday. “There’s no way to notify a third party. We want to take care of the primary fan.”

The “Unfortunately…” in that sentence really rubs me the wrong way. It’s not “unfortunate” when it’s MusicToday’s policy and MusicToday’s broker prevention department that are screwing these fans that most likely had no idea they were doing anything wrong. At that point, it’s deliberate. MusicToday’s only saving grace is this comment by the arena’s general manager:

Wilson said this search-and-invalidate action is a trend among artists and is being driven by them individually, not ticket vendors.

So it’s possible that they had no say in the matter, but that begs the question: Why do they have a broker prevention department? And of course, the overarching question: Why does anyone care?

Well, I think I have it figured out. Let’s start at the Warehouse, the official Dave Matthews Band fan association. It’s a little club built to “serve the fans”, and for your $35 annual membership fee, you get access to:

• Members-only website with news, photos, audio and video clips, message board, store and live chat room
• Annual membership packages
• Gallery of members’ works

Big deal, right? There is one more item on the list though: Opportunities to purchase tickets in advance of public on-sale. Now I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that a good number of ticket brokers and scalpers are members of this fan club, and take advantage of the pre-sale offers. These scalpers are probably consuming a disproportionate amount of the pre-sale allocation, which in turn makes the fan club membership less valuable to the regular members. Would you pay $35/year for news, photos, audio, and video clips (aka marketing materials)?

By removing the incentive for scalpers to buy advance tickets, the value of a fan club membership increases substantially. More people join, less people quit, and MusicToday and Dave Matthews Band enjoy extra revenue.

Everything I know about MusicToday and Dave Matthews Band makes me want to believe that my conclusion is wrong. What gets me is that there are other ways they could achieve what they are saying they want to do without pursuing their current course of action. If they are only interested in the “primary fan”, they could make tickets will call only. They could also tie tickets to the purchasing credit card which would have to be swiped as you walk into the venue. I’m sure with a little thought, they could come up with a half dozen solutions that don’t end up screwing those who have done nothing wrong, but it seems their primary concern was to put the maximum hurt on the brokers without regard for anyone else.

So in the end, this policy will “serve the fans.” Unfortunately that only includes the fans willing and able to pay $35/year to show how committed they are.

Monday: Lunch at Cafe Europa: Somehow, we’d avoided Cafe Europa for lunch for the last few months. That was definitely a mistake. I had the Majorca, again, which I’ve blogged about several times before . I also added in a side of their Chickpea salad: chickpeas, zucchini, barley, and onions tossed in a vinaigrette. It was a nice cool compliment to the spicy Majorca.

Monday: Dinner at Mono Loco: I loved my last visit to Mono Loco where I got the Pork Tamale. Since it was so recent, I decided I’d try something new and got the Braised Pork on Rice and Beans with the optional fried egg. What came out was a HUGE bowl of rice, beans, and pork topped with a fried egg and a little salad. It was pretty good but much less interesting than the pork tamale. If I’d paid $10-$12 for it, I’d have loved it, but for $18, I believe, it was way overpriced. Next time I’m getting the tamale.

Tuesday: Lunch at Take It Away: In an attempt to change things up, I got the Slicked Chicken on Ciabatta with sprouts, mustard, and house dressing. One again, Take It Away can do no wrong. I’ll be really surprised if I ever have something I don’t like here.

Thursday: Lunch at Bodo’s: The change in weather has been wreaking havoc on my throat, so I decided I’d go out and have a nice bowl of soup. We were in a hurry, so Bodo’s seemed like the best option. I got my usual avocado sandwich on a wheat everything bagel with onions, mustard, and horseradish. I added a bowl of their vegan chili. The sandwich was exactly what you’d expect, and I didn’t really know what to make of the chili. Unfortunately my travel Tabasco was on empty, so I didn’t really couldn’t give it the kick I’m used to. It was still fairly spicy, and tasted like a spicy tomato soup with kidney beans. Overall, not very chili-like, but still pretty good.

Thursday: Dinner at Szechuan: I’d heard about this restaurant next to Aberdeen Barn awhile back, and had been told it was good. We were pretty much the only people there, and the service was still pretty slow. I ordered the Orange Chicken. It tasted like “fresh mall chinese” if that makes any sense at all. I’d much rather go to First Wok in pretty much any situation. At one point, our server, who I think is the owner, asked me if I was Indian. I told him my parents were from India, but I was born here. He then put his hand on my shoulder and said, “You are very smart people.” Next time he came around, he asked lpk if she was Indian, to which she replied, “no”. He had a flash of disappointment on his face, just said, “oh,” and walked off. Good thing he’s not running for governor.

Friday: Dinner at Baja Bean: As I’ve mentioned before , I really don’t like Baja Bean. This time around, I did manage to actually enjoy my meal, but that could have to do with the pitcher of Baja Gold (aka Pabst Blue Ribbon), I had beforehand. I ordered the Burro del Fuego: a large burrito stuffed with chicken, jalapeno sausage, batter-fried jalapenos, black beans, and rice topped with a avocado crema and served with lettuce and tomatos. I asked for the extra hot and green salsas, poured some of that on there, and it was pretty damn tasty. If I ever go back there, I’ll have to order it sober, and see if it stands up.