Neil Diamond, You Should Be Ashamed of Yourself
And here I thought Neil Diamond was one of the good guys. But no, no, no. He's just as greedy as the rest of the money-hungry ticket brokers I love to hate. At least, that's how this Wall Street Journal article makes him out to be. They are using Diamond as an example of artists who set aside tickets for their own shows, only to turn around and sell them to unassuming strangers like us for way, way, way more than face value. You know. The tickets that end up on TicketExchange.com? The article says, "Selling premium-priced tickets on TicketExchange, priced and presented as resales by fans, is a practice used by many other top performers." Hmm. Let's just hope country stars are not the top performers they are talking about. Otherwise, every time I saw a ticket price of, say, $284 for one ticket to a major country concert in Minnesota, I'd get very suspicious.
©2008 Country Music Television, Inc., a Viacom company. A division of
RedMaZ says:
This seems to be common practice in Pop Music (including Country). Personally, I see nothing wrong with it, and accept it as part of the industry. Way to go Neil. Milk it bAbY. They don’t call it Pop Music for nothing. This is just another part of the definition…
Purecountry says:
I have heard of this practice. I am sorry, but if anybody is stupid enough to pay that much for a ticket, they should be deported to the tune of “America.”
Soul says:
I completely agree with Purecountry. I Love All Access tickets were expensive enough, yet cheap compared to the “Platinum” seats which included nothing. Just one question, why single Neil out?
ConcertLover says:
Neil should not be singled out as this is common practice now.
I don’t hold it against him.
He is the best performer there is and if wealthy people want to pay that much for a really good seat, let them. I also rather see him make the money than the scalpers. Besides it was only a small amount of tickets at only two of his shows.
Colorado says:
How dare you lead with that headline? Do you think Neil Diamond needs money so bad he’d risk his reputation (and shoddy journalism such as this and the WSJ — once respected but now catering to the lurid and the sexy as much or more as tabloids?) to sell about 100 tix? Bad enough if someone in Neil’s employ did - but get the facts straight before you run off with it. And you know what, I sure as heck would rather pay HIM the extra money if I want front row than the sad, sorry, greedy ticket scalpers who have nothing better to do than take over Ticketmaster’s system and drive Normal Joe users like me out of the market. Sensationalist drivel is all this is. Nothing more. I would expect more from you, but why bother? Jumping on the hot bandwagon is the easier course; doing the right thing is usually the more difficult one.
John says:
Alison– Maybe you should dig a little deeper and find the same thing with Country Artist. Try to find a $20 ticket–very few.
Marjory Johnston says:
Before you start blaming stars for reserving and selling seats at inflated prices. I think you should look at the real villians - the ticket sellers. These were the people who were making a killing of selling over priced tickets. I do not think you can blame stars who think if this over pricing is going to happen anyway, they should be the one to benefit not the ticket touts.
JB says:
Well the (sensational) headline got us to read and respond, right ?
To single out one artist is ridiculous.
But, then most ridiculous people I’ve met, go for the easy target.
Frank says:
I agree with the bloggers who are nailing you about the sensatioal headline and singling out one artist. Would you feel the same way if Chesney or Underwood were doing this? Probably not.
hotelmotel says:
The sensational headline gets readers to click,to visit the page, et cetera, and more clicks is what the advertisers on this site want(right now I see ads for GAIN and RHAPSODY) .
So the sensationalist headline is doing its job. The people who don’t like it and who respond negatively to it and click anyway are only encouraging more sensationalist headlines.
RedMaZ says:
gee…that’s just sensational
Hal Dixon says:
The Wall Street Journal was very selective by picking on
a singer/songwriter/performer like Neil as opposed to the sleaze bags who work on the infamous Wall Street! There are an incredible number of gougers, who took money under the heading of “doing business”, but where’s the list? Who were those bastards and where did my money go? Out that the Wall Street Journal won’t print their names, and how much they stole from me!
Brownsbay says:
I am at a loss to understand why Neil Diamond has been singled out ? Just a little research would reveal that many other top artists are also involved. Neil Diamond has always been good to his fans pushing for affordable priced tickets and in the UK Diamond fans get real priority tickets offered to them at face value. I think the rot set in when he signed up to a new management outfit which is now affilitaed with Ticketmaster so the setup is very incestuous. This kind of deal appears to only have happend since he has been with this outfit.
Bruce Spingstein is I gather with the same outfit and last summer his fans went online to purchase face value tickets of $95 for concets in New Jersey and were automatically directed to a tcket source where the tickets were around the $1,530 per seat. Springstein only found out about this when his fans wrote to his website and he has apparently taken ticketMaster to court.
I agree it all stinks but Neil diamond should NOT take the headlines and the blame as you are inicating he is the only artist ehaving like this. He has always been a very decent, honourable man who has given millions of $’s to charity over the years and it is incomprehensible that he would suddenly become so greedy since signing up with this new management outfit.
What about the Michael Jackson’s 41 London 02 Arena concerts happening during the next 12 months. The Promoters Live Nation are splitting profits of large quantity of the seats for each concert 80% to promoters and 20% to the agency. It was deemed to be a legal move which actually does not now suprise me seeing the indescribable greed and mis management most major banks and other financial institutions have displayed recently.
cj says:
What is strange got kicked off again just because I think Alison is wrong singeling one person out when so many do it. They ask for your opinion on thees blogs but when you give it they don’t like it. Double standard here. Does anyone else have this problem. I do not use foul language or badger so whay do they take you off? Does anyone know?
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