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Clear Channel Cuts The Lawn
For fans tired of buying concert tickets at their favorite sheds and finding any number of add-on charges attached, Clear Channel Entertainment has decided to cap one fee and eliminate another next season – at least for the lawn ticket buyer.
The company has decided to reduce facility fees by $4 and eliminate box office charges altogether for lawn tickets, a value of up to $7 per, according to CCE Global Music President Michael Rapino.
In addition, CCE has worked out a deal with Ticketmaster to cap the ticket seller's convenience fees at $5 for those same tickets, Rapino said. That should mean another $1 decrease in total ticket costs.
"We're always eager to help out our clients whenever we can, and Clear Channel approached us and said, 'We need to think long and hard about how we approach next summer's season in order to ensure we all sell more tickets,'" TM exec VP David Goldberg told Pollstar.
"Here's a great instance where everyone is stepping up and willing to make less money in the hopes that we'll get greater volume out of it," Goldberg continued. "That's just the name of the game."
Goldberg didn't specify if TM agreed to eat a share of its own fees or if part of that reduction would be offset in any way by CCE, but cited an "across the board" effort by Clear Channel to lower ticket prices.
"Everyone's research has shown that ticket prices are too high in the marketplace and the consumer is always disappointed when they get all the add-on charges that accompany the ticket price," CCE's Rapino told Pollstar.
To that end, the walk-up box office charge for lawn tickets is eliminated as well – a fee that could be as high as $3.
"You don't like [add-on fees] when you go to a hotel; you don't like it when you go anywhere. You expect one price," Rapino said.
The moves are just the first that Rapino hopes to implement in coming months to lower ticket prices at Clear Channel sheds.
"This is just part of repositioning the amphitheatres for a better value proposition and not always looking to the artists' side to fix the situation," Rapino said of the changes.
"It's taking the bull by the horns to address what we could affect."
Rapino does acknowledge that artists' fees constitute another bull on their own, but one the company does not intend to wave a red cape in front of just yet.
Clear Channel doesn't intend to put pressure on "the artists' side of the paycheck," Rapino said, despite accusations from competitors that CCE has paid exorbitant guarantees to artists in order to lock up national tours.
"Our job is as a buyer," Rapino countered. "So the Madonnas and the U2s and Dave Matthewses are great value propositions regardless what the price is. The trick is just to make sure we buy the shows at the right economic price to make a living as well as provide a great value to the consumer."
Clear Channel Entertainment, as well as House of Blues Concerts, offered some limited-time lawn ticket discounts last summer.
However, there's an inherent risk that comes with going to the well too often with deep, last minute-discounts: Ticket buyers could become conditioned to wait for those $10 tickets rather than purchase their ducats in advance.
In addition to the fee adjustments on those lawn tickets, Rapino said the company was working on yet another program to make the ducats even more attractive for advance purchase. He expects to be ready to announce details next month.
It's not known whether HoB Concerts, the other major player in the amphitheatre market, would consider following suit or is working up its own strategy to reduce ticket prices at its sheds. A spokesman for the company wasn't available at press time.
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Radcliffe Wrote: damn, that description just made my nanner turtle
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