Gibson Amphitheatre and Greek Theatre Release Much-Anticipated Summer Concert Series Lineup

Offering a great and varied spectrum of seasoned musicians, as well as recent hit makers, The Gibson Amphitheatre and Greek Theatre just announced their lineup for their concert series starting from summer, and going on until the end of December. Highlights include assorted Latin entertainment, country superstars, and comedians.

The Gibson Amphitheatre, catering to a more diverse audience, will be hosting not only an array of shows from Latin music stars, but also a couple of American pop events. For fans of regional Mexican music, one of the most popular Conjunto groups, Conjunto Primavera, will be back in Los Angeles on June 23rd with one of the oldest and most popular Norteño groups, Los Rieleros Del Norte. Also, Latin pop stars Franco de Vita, Marco Antonio Solis, and Cristian Castro [06/24, 09/22, TBA, respectively] will also be gracing the Gibson stage. For fans of mainstream pop, Grammy-nominated bands Foster the People [06/30 and 07/01] and Barenaked Ladies [07/27] will also be performing at the Gibson. Also, following the successes of comedy tours such as Anjelah Johnson and Kathy Griffin, the Gibson added a couple of comedians of television fame, Larry the Cable Guy [Blue Collar TV – Comedy Central; 10/11] and Gabriel Iglesias [Last Comic Standing – NBC; 12/28]. Lastly, the annual Teen Choice Awards will be on July 22nd.

The Greek Theatre’s shows focuses on a mix of country and contemporary music. Fresh from her Etta James tribute, nine-time Grammy winner Bonnie Raitt [09/22]will be at the Greek Theater as part of her tour behind her much anticipated album – she hasn’t released one in seven years! Another hot concert is the 40th Anniversary celebration of Neil Diamond’s Hot August Night [TBA, sometime in August], and tickets are for sure will be flying off fast. Other adult contemporary musicians that will be performing at the Greek are Kristin Chenoweth of Wicked and Glee fame [05/12], Colbie Caillat and Gavin DeGraw [08/19], and Regina Spektor [08/14].

Both venues are part of the Premiere Marquee Club that offers a VIP experience to multiple events, which is great for avid musical fans that have schedules that allow them to. However, for those who are too busy to go to multiple events, or just want to watch one show, but still want to have a VIP experience, I suggest that you come to us, MUSICAL CHAIRS TICKETS. We would be more than happy to cater to your ticket needs to ensure that your total event experience is enjoyable - at the best prices, of course.

List of artists mentioned above:
Conjunto Primavera, Los Rieleros Del Norte, Franco de Vita, Marco Antonio Solis, Cristian Castro, Foster the People, Barenaked Ladies, Larry the Cable guy, Gabriel Iglesias, Bonnie Raitt, Neil Diamond, Kristin Chenoweth, Colbie Caillat, Gavin DeGraw, Regina Spektor

Repost of LA Times blog on concert sales

This month, pop star Rihanna postponed six dates on her Last Girl on Earth tour (fortunately not her shows at Staples Center with opener Ke$ha). The Lilith Tour had to cancel 10 concerts, and even Christina Aguilera axed her 20-date mini-tour because of "prior commitments" in June. Not to be left out The Eagles, the Jonas Brothers canceled shows and "American Idol" producers canceled eight engagements and rescheduled other dates on the "Idols Live!" tour.

"It's brutal out there," Jordan Kurland, manager of duo She&Him told The Times' Chris Lee recently. "The economy is still not great, and there's a lot of distractions people can choose from. Going to big rock concerts is not one of them."

Paul Tollett, president of Los Angeles-based concert promotion firm Goldenvoice, agreed, telling The Times that the company chose to "not be aggressive in buying a lot of shows" for 2010. "You go back 25 years, the big shows were on the weekends," Tollett, the creator of the Coachella festival, said . "Now you could have three shows on a Monday that are good. That's hard for the consumer. There's just so much to choose from."

Readers of the article were not so sure that the problem is too many choices. See some of their reactions after the jump:

ruskinite said: Slow ticket sales due to a "glut" of artists on tour? Oh pleeze. I used to attend FAR more concerts years ago when not only were ticket prices reasonable and affordable, but the QUALITY and quantity were much better. The last concert I attended was a way-overpriced Eagles concert earlier this year and only because the tickets were a birthday gift. The problem is that the ticket agencies (TicketMaster, LiveNation, etc.) have a near monopoly and can charge whatever they please using Mafia-styled intimidation tactics on venues and artists.

Bottom line....40% of tickets that sell in the secondary market (through brokers) sell for below FACE VALUE!

Roger Waters The Wall Concert Tour

This is the music event of a lifetime! Roger Waters will be re-creating the legendary album The Wall this fall as he tours across America! I will be sending out concert schedules and ticketing information as it become available.

Rock On,
Brad Schy

10 Things the Ticket Industry Doesn't Want You To Know

The Wall Street Journal wrote an article two years ago titled “10 THINGS TICKET BROKERS WON’T TELL YOU” (talk about calling the kettle black. How about 10 things Wall Street won’t tell you…um make it a 1000!). Anyhow, we plan to tell all and answer questions you might ask in our Musical Chairs blog. We will address the “10 Things” over the next few weeks.

“We Thrive On Your Confusion”
In recent years you may have noticed the options for buying event tickets have been expanding. It is not very confusing (leave that to Wall Street) if you break it into two markets: The Primary market & the Secondary Market. The Primary market is the buyers and sellers tickets (think ITO-Initial Ticket Offering) issued for the FIRST time. This includes venue box offices, fan clubs, event promoters, teams selling season and individual game tickets, Telecharge (mostly plays) and the 1000 pound gorilla in the industry-Ticketmaster/Live Nation (Now known as Live Nation Entertainment “LNE”). Today, due to their control of most venues, LNE has acquired a virtual monopoly on primary ticketing.

The Secondary market refers to the re-selling of tickets that have already been sold on the Primary market. Historically, it has been cheaper to buy tickets from the PRIMARY market if they were available, but these days almost 50% of tickets are sold for less than face value on the secondary market. For Example, Dodger Dugout Club seats have a $600 face Value and are generally sold in the secondary market for approximately $300-$350 per ticket (When the Dodgers are winning!!). There are three main segments of the secondary market: Consolidators, ticket brokers and eBay/craigslist. Consolidators are the mass marketers of tickets, the majority of which are owned by Ticket Brokers with a minority of tickets owned by individuals. These include StubHub (which is promoted as a fan-fan exchange, but in reality is actually a broker to fan exchange), TicketsNow (Owned by TicketMaster), Ticket Liquidator (Part of something called Ticket Network), and RazorGator as well as Team Websites. Aside from RazorGator, which is somewhat of a hybrid, the KEY attribute of a consolidator is they do NOT own/speculate on tickets. One of the problems of buying fan to fan, especially from Stub Hub, is the following: I apologize for the delay in the confirmation of your order 32107252. When you buy tickets at StubHub, you are buying from other fans that have chosen to sell their tickets. We do everything we can to ensure that sellers honor all sales. Unfortunately, in this case, the seller is unable to confirm your ticket order. While they often try to replace the tickets, when a good deal does occur they often can’t replace the tickets nor will they spend the market price to do so.

The problem for a seller going to a consolidator is that they will never buy them from you outright. As a seller you can sometimes make more money this way, but it is often more time consuming than selling the tickets to a broker and puts you in the role of broker. Most importantly, you are putting yourself at risk for the tickets not selling. One of the psychological problems of Sellers is they tend to over-value their personal assets (we rarely see that in the Real Estate market). Thus, some good advice for those of you who want to play the role of speculator/broker: If you put tickets up on one of these sites, you are best to monitor them frequently and adjust to market fluctuations as the prices change-sometimes rapidly and generally downward. Call a knowledgeable broker or two to see what they would pay. Put it slightly (10-30%) above that price as opposed to competing with other often overpriced tickets and riding the market down. The market one sees on the internet is often inaccurate and overpriced.

If you do get someone to help you at a consolidator such as Stub Hub, TicketsNow or Ticket Network they generally know little if anything about helping someone get value. The employees engaged with the public are low paid and know little about the events. The main skill of these companies are mass marketing and internet search Optimization. For example, call Stub Hub sometime and ask about the seat numbers in section D or E at the Hollywood Bowl. I believe that they could not tell you that seats 5-7 are substantially different than seats 33-35 (neither are great, but the view is substantially better from 5-7 than 33-35). In fact, Stub hub often cannot even tell you which seat numbers you are getting. At TicketsNow many employees are former TicketMaster operators. Have any of you enjoyed that ordeal? It would be surprising if they could even count to 35 and may think seat 34 is between 33 & 35 (the seats are numbered odd or one side of the bowl and even on the other).

Part 2 next week...

Rock On,
Brad Schy, The Ticket Maestro of Musical Chairs