. . . apparently before the general public even gets to purchase tickets. Not that I give a rip, I think his music is . . . ah . . . I don’t want to get into that debate today.
The rumor on the street and on the facebook internets is that Sanford and First Premier employees had dibs to pre-sale yesterday, also in the mix were many scalpers. At the time the sale was supposed to start today, 10 AM, there were no tickets available. I checked some scalper sites and best you could get was a ticket in the upper bowl (originally priced at $29, for $100).
First off, I think it is a joke to advertise tickets at $29 and $59 dollars when that isn’t anywhere near the price. Secondly, I think it is total, total, BULLSHIT that the first show at the taxpayer funded events center had a pre-sale to a certain sector of our city. Yeah, yeah, yeah  I understand whose name is on the side of the building, but wouldn’t you think someone, anyone, at SMG would have had the common sense to not allow this show to practically sellout before it was actually on sale? We know that MMM and his ilk don’t have that kind of common sense.
I HOPE THE RUMORS ARE NOT TRUE.
I shouldn’t be surprised, many of us have speculated all along that Sanford and Premier would team up to make this first show a sellout. It certainly is, because they are ‘selling out’ the very people who are paying for the construction of the building. Looks like another Pavilion Great Hall, just on a bigger scale. The ‘have-nots’ paying for the ‘haves’ playgrounds while we are left on the sidelines.
And people wondered why I voted against it?
I would tend to agree with you. Although Sanford/FP are the title sponsors, and with that comes certain perks as set forth in the contract, this is also a very expensive ‘public’ (taxpayer funded) facility. It’s a big problem if any significant number of tickets for events are available only to the title sponsors (and their employees). If this were two private groups that would be one thing, but one entity, the one owning the building should be representing the citizens who are paying for it. I think the pertinent part of the naming rights contract that allows this is:
“In addition, the City or the
Events Center Complex Operator will use their best efforts to provide each
of the Title Sponsors, as well as their respective employees, with the
opportunity to pre-purchase non-premium tickets of publicly available seats
in locations to be mutually agreed upon for each Center Event. The Title
Sponsors’ right to purchase tickets is subject to any restrictions established
by the Events Center Complex Operator or the event promoter.”
I would read ‘non-premium’ to mean all seats except suites, loge boxes, and club seats which are all 100% sold out anyway, and out of the price reach of the vast majority of people anyway…
My questions would be:
1. What are the guidelines of the number of tickets, and, the location where they are available that are mutually agreed on? Is SMG and Sanford/FP free to agree that 10,000 of the 12,000 can be prepurchased? Are there any limits? I see none here.
2. What if any safeguards are in place so that Sanford/FP employees can’t just pre-purchase tickets and post them/re-sell them for a profit? Is there any?
I think as a matter of transparency we ought to know how many tickets are available for pre-purchase before the general public even gets a crack at them, how many are provided to the sponsors for each event, and what if any safeguards are in place to prevent reselling. In general it would be your right to resell a ticket, but I’d say this is a special case, when you can prepurchase tickets ahead of the general public. I don’t think that’s what the intent would have/should have been. I think we do need answers here. I haven’t tried personally to buy tickets for any of the concerts so far, none really interest me, but I’ve heard the same things, so I think its very important it be addressed.
The concerts that they are having so far, don’t do anything at all for me. I wouldn’t pay $5.00 to see any of them. What I am wondering is why, if these acts are so great, do they need more than one opening act? A few years ago, when Cher was at the Arena, I don’t remember hearing that she had an opening act. In fact would a real entertainer need to have an opening act. I just wish people, including the entertainers themselves, would quit referring to these entertainers as country. I grew up on country music, and believe me these people don’t sound country and they definitely don’t dress country. The men dress like scuzz balls and the women dress like hookers.
This may be the worst example of todays so called country. Anyone who pays 100 bucks for this crap is a moron. I have access to presale tickets, and I want nothing to do with it.
You’re making a controversy out of something that isn’t really there. They had four different presales:
Aldean Army Presale
Start: Tue, 06/17/14 10:00 AM CDT
End: Thu, 06/19/14 10:00 PM CDT
Fan Club Presale & Bundle
Start: Tue, 06/17/14 10:00 AM CDT
End: Thu, 06/19/14 10:00 PM CDT
Florida Georgia Line Fan Club Presale
Start: Wed, 06/18/14 10:00 AM CDT
End: Thu, 06/19/14 10:00 PM CDT
Radio/Venue Presale
Start: Thu, 06/19/14 10:00 AM CDT
End: Thu, 06/19/14 10:00 PM CDT
This last one was a promotion with KIKN, along with those who have purchased boxes at the EC. ALL concerts these days have presales, including those at the old building here in town. Each of these presales have a set number of tickets allotted. Usually it is one section, and not necessarily good seats. The last time I attempted to go to an arena show in Minneapolis, the presale tickets were the farthest back on the lowest level. I passed.
Scalping is an unfortunate part of the business that Ticketmaster has not been able to eliminate. They use bots to get in and grab as many tickets as their computers can get.
Outside of being able to claim they sold out so fast, there would be no reason to have Sanford guarantee a sellout. In those circles, Aldean is huge. To you and me he sucks, but this show was going to sell out no matter what. There would be no need for Sanford to spend the money to ensure this happens.
No free rider problem! Oh, wait, it’s not a public good (infrastructure). It just seems that way since it is paid, in part, by taxes. Maybe they can make it part of Obamacare so if people are crazy about this music or if it makes them crazy, we can get some free riders in the door.
I was hoping after my post I would get some clarification. Scott and Greg both make good points. I found out from a city official tonight that the promoter decides if it wants to do a pre-sale, IF the performer is okay with it. That is what happened in this case along with the title sponsors having dibs. Either way, still sucks, but so does Jason Aldean.
Scott adds some good info and he obviously knows more about the music business than I do. The tickets offered to Sanford/FP may be an inconsequential amount, and they may have had the same problems. It would be good to know for transparency what exactly they get each time and if there are any policies/safeguards in terms of reselling. Just because I’m curious I’d throw out the question how it happens that hundreds of tickets for a show end up on ticket broker websites so quickly when the average person has trouble getting even one ticket. I’m going to infer/guess they’ve done this a few times and have found ways to circumvent protections on websites like Ticketmaster. Do they have army’s of people getting on to buy tickets with any presale code they can find and at general ticket opening time so they can repost them? Just curious. If its the same generic ticket ‘scalping’ issue, fine. But as a matter of transparency it would be good to know what the sponsors do get. Reading that agreement again they have an extensive list of perks, so just being fair they didn’t do this simply to be nice, they are getting a lot of perks. If anything they’ve contracted a perk for employees and a recruiting tool out of it, and a pretty nice place for the yearly company party too.
As a total aside, as a long time Stampede season ticket holder I continue to wait to see what the situation with that will be. We were supposed to have pricing a while back and still haven’t got it. Part of the issue is that the 500 club seat buyers have to either exercise their right to purchase the Stampede season ticket or decline, at which point the rest of us may be able to buy them for that season, with the risk of losing them each year if the club seat owners exercise their right of first refusal. I toyed with the idea of buying the club seats just for the Stampede, as we currently/did have ‘Club’ seats behind the glass at the Arena, but the $600 per club seat yearly fee would DOUBLE our season ticket cost. The $600 club seat fee just gets you right of first refusal to events. It doesn’t get you into any event. So assuming our season ticket price stayed the same (which it wouldn’t in the new club seats I’m pretty sure), we’d go from $630 per seat a season to $630+$600=$1230 per seat per season. The only other perk having the club seat would be right of first refusal to other events coming in during the year. With zero track record to prove there will actually be anything we’d want to go to, plus then having to actually buy the tickets, it was pretty easy for me to pass on that one. We’ll see what happens for us Stampede and/or Storm season ticket holders, and those who go to individual games in terms of ticket prices. I’m actually a little ambivalent about moving to the event center, being honest, because there are some pros, some cons it seems. Will be a vastly better hockey venue, but none of us knows where we’ll get a seat, how much it will cost, what the parking situation will be, etc.
Virtually ALL artists enthusiastically support aggressive pre-sale AND bloc-buying by re-sellers. Much of the time they get a cut of the re-sold (scalped) ticket.
It’s the American way.
And they don’t suck much worse than Aldean. Enjoy all the songs about trucks, bonfires and beer, suckers.
Never heard of the guy. Had to go to YouTube to listen to some of his music. Not all that impressed. Same for the other act. This guy gets a huge percentage of the ticket price and more than likely a good sized piece of concessions. And when we’re talking 50 cents an ounce beer that’s not too shabby for a one night gig. Andean walks away from SF needing armored trucks to haul his stash, and the taxpayer subsidizes the building he played at. What is wrong with this picture?
http://www.rarebeatles.com/photopg7/kansa64.htm
Pat Benatar (oh, I mean Cher) is pretty much a sell-out also. There was presale for that also. And tickets for that show were about triple what the Aldean ones were.
The EC will have a very good first year without the naysayers buying tickets.
And not just title sponsors get dibs. Anyone with any sponsorship at the EC gets an email about the presale. I know this from personal experience. And they then share it with all employees and friends. Cher had her presale info on her facebook page. So this is not another Sanford conspiracy.
The best entertainment value is observing local corruption. There seems no limits. It’s obnoxious and profane. A good movie costs $10 and there’s only one per year. We get this every hour of every day. I’ll never walk into the EC. I don’t care who’s appearing. It’s because of how it came into being and whose name is on the outside.
I agree with Dan about how the Event Center came about and the name on the outside. That being said I won’t set foot in the place for any event, I can’t even afford to attend an event at the Arena. You live off $700 a month, you don’t buy entertainment. The one thing I am really thankful for is because they will never be able to have the King perform there, and he is the one singer I would about die to see. I would be real interested in knowing how many of the total amount of tickets sold for all these events were to people in the immediate Sioux Falls area and how many were from out of staters and I mean further away than 500 miles, people that will have to stay in a motel and have 2-3 meals hear and maybe shop. After all that was a lot of the hype when the center was being crammed down our throats.
I reached out to Chris Semrau at the EC to ask about this issue. After he replied, he agreed to allow me to post it here.
“Thanks for the email. Response for tics was huge. I have also heard the same rumors.
Sanford and Premier did get a limited presale opportunity along with radio, fan club, etc. The sale of those tickets went immediately and each group, including Premier and Sanford, were disappointed that they could not get enough tics. The presale allotments are capped in order to hold tickets for the onsale.
The title sponsors are treated the exact same as other groups and do not get “their own tickets.” They were disappointed along with the others who did not get many tickets.
Let me know if you have any other specific questions.
Bottoms line, demand was significantly higher than supply for what may end up being the largest country music tour in the world this year. “
Virtually ALL artists enthusiastically support aggressive pre-sale AND bloc-buying by re-sellers. Much of the time they get a cut of the re-sold (scalped) ticket.
It’s the American way.
And they don’t suck much worse than Aldean. Enjoy all the songs about trucks, bonfires and beer, suckers…
Suckers is right. Everything is not always as it is reported by places like the argus. The first link explains why. The second link tells you how much you can pay to watch “country” thanks to scalpers like stubhub. Play with that link a little bit. Very interesting pricing scheme. Just the thing Joe Sixpack is looking for.
Links from above.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2012/06/04/154299904/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-sold-out-concert-even-for-justin-bieber
https://m.stubhub.com/jason-aldean-tickets/?gcid=C12289x486&keyword=25688695_t&creative=9127298701
There are people who make either extra income or try to make a living off ticket scalping. So if you can buy your 6 tickets and try to double them for virtually any big concert in the USA, you can them have a reseller sell them for you. Stub Hub charges the ticket holder 15% to sell their tickets. If you go to Stub Hub, Ticket Express, many of the tickets are the same seats. Buyers are trying to resell through these outlets and list them with multiple outlets. The outlets never really have procession of the tickets. I know someone in Sioux Falls who was doing this a few years back.
So there may be some who can trick the system, but in today’s environment, probably not many.
After my original posting I went and did quite a bit of reading about concert ‘sell outs’ and how the secondary market works, and how these ticket brokers defeat the robots on places like Ticketmaster. All quite interesting. Between that and Scott’s reaching out to SMG, it would be reasonable to infer that the answer is pretty boring, the same thing that happens everywhere else, demand was high, and, given that brokers probably scooped up as much as they could so they could resell for a profit. Perusing Stub Hub and others there are a lot of tickets, so they must have been able to purchase quite a bit. It would be interesting to know what percentage of tickets were available at the general on sale that everyone got to fight over. Many are held back for promotions, give aways, for the artist themselves, for the title sponsors.
To answer Joan’s question, SMG and the city certainly will have the demographics of who purchased tickets. Something I have studied quite extensively in previous years when we were debating the event center is economic impact. There are countless studies on this and specific examples. Time and time again what you’ll see is wildly optimistic prospective promises and estimates from proponents while the retrospective studies and analysis show the assumptions and promises were not even close. This is true for events centers, convention centers, and special events like the Super Bowl and World Series. With the naming rights agreement and otehr sponsorships, I think it *might* be possible for that revenue to match the operating cost of the building. If so you might hear that the event center ‘is in the black’. If you do I’d urge you to remember we also have a 6-8 million dollar capital cost we’re paying over the next 20 years. You can’t leave that out. That would be like me leaving out my mortgage payment if I showed you my personal balance sheet and budget. In other words, it might provide some quality of life and entertainment for some, but its not going to pay for itself, be a good investment, or bring in oodles of economic impact. Its just not. History says so.
So is PrairieTickets.com (owner, Brian Opp, SFSD) just legalized scalping?
What role did Brian Opp’s PrairieTickets.com play in the Jason Aldean scenario?
He’s a cheater!
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/jason-aldean-dating-mistress-brittany-kerr-report-article-1.1725802
http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/jason-aldeans-girlfriend-brittany-kerr-kids-see-her-as-other-woman-2014116
One glance at PT.com as mentioned above and I see around 200 tickets for sale…/sigh. Many for over $300 a seat, and that’s just one single ticket outlet. So much for catching a show in town unless you know someone in the inside.
PT is by far not the only scalper in this market. So pt has a few hundred for sale…stubhub, many more….and so on. to call this event sold out is far from the truth. Sold out. Yes. To scalpers. Hope they gambled and lose.
See the photo of our very own local scalper (Brian Opp, PrairieTickets.com) at argusleader.com (Week in Photos June 22, 2014) with his BBB plaque propped up against his computer!
Wonder what point he is trying to make?!
Guess many of us taxpayers who are paying for this public facility will have to deal with this guy everytime we want to attend an event at the Denny Sanford Premiere Center.
“Time and time again what you’ll see is wildly optimistic prospective promises and estimates from proponents while the retrospective studies and analysis show the assumptions and promises were not even close.”
Greg – you’ve got that right.