Bruce Springsteen Fanzine Shuts Down As Fans Can No Longer Afford $5,000 Concert Tickets
Bruce Springsteen likes to brag about his working-class roots, but fans are now abandoning The Boss in droves as ticket prices for his upcoming tour have soared to $5,000.
Sign of things getting worse, Bruce Springsteen’s fanzine Alleys announced the closure of its operations after 43 years, with its publisher and editor saying fans have lost interest as they can no longer afford to buy tickets.
Christopher Phillips, who has run the fan publication since 1998, said his staff had been “dejected, discouraged and, yes, disillusioned” by the ticket prices.
“These are concerts that we can barely afford; that many of our readers can’t allow; and which much of our readership has lost interest in as a result,” he wrote in an editorial note.
https://t.co/TCDJkGYZuC pic.twitter.com/pwpROJ8ggP
— Backstreets Magazine (@backstreetsmag) February 3, 2023
The source of the acrimony is Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing algorithm, which sets ticket prices based on consumer demand.
Although dynamic pricing has been around for years, concert pricing has skyrocketed for the most popular artists, causing sticker shock for even the most diehard fans who are willing to make a fuss. splurges on their favorite artists.
Ticketmaster, which is owned by Live Nation Entertainment, is already under congressional scrutiny following the Taylor Swift debacle that led to service disruptions and long wait times.
As Breitbart News reported, Springsteen could have taken steps to circumvent Ticketmaster’s virtual monopoly on ticket sales, but has so far chosen not to.
Springsteen seemed to brush off his fans’ revolt in a recent interview with rolling stone.
“You don’t like being criticized. You certainly don’t like being the poster child for high ticket prices. It’s the last thing you’d rather be. But that’s how it happened,” he said. “You have to own the decisions you’ve made and go out and keep doing your best.”
“You don’t like being criticized”: #Springsteen discusses the cost to see the Boss with @greeneandy For @Rolling Stone, including a direct response to our “Freeze-out” op-ed of 7/4/22 (https://t.co/zbDygQpzwQ). Thoughts? https://t.co/OEH0jcEE7P pic.twitter.com/sI4WPda7WA
— Backstreets Magazine (@backstreetsmag) November 18, 2022
Springsteen was a vocal anti-Trump activist and supported Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
The seesaw even helped push AtlanticPresident Trump’s discredited report called the US military “losers” and “suckers” in an anti-Trump campaign ad he did with novelist-screenwriter-activist Don Winslow.
Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Do you have any advice? Contact me at dng@breitbart.com
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