Publication: Contra Costa Times [US]
Date: April 19, 1997
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Title: "Princely Forethought Would Save Fans Hassle"
Written By: Randy McMullen

There's probably a lot of you out there this morning angry that you couldn't get tickets for one of the two concerts this weekend by The Artist (formerly known as Prince). And there may be some of you who scored tickets
-- despite the 11th-hour notification and restrictive purchasing measures
-- but are wondering whether it was worth the hassle.

And folks on both sides of this unhappy situation may be blaming Prince for the whole mess.

Does he deserve it?

It depends what scenario you believe.

Did Prince, with his patented flair for the dramatic, bungle what should have been a memorable Bay Area concert experience?

Or is Prince one of the few artists willing to do what it takes to thwart the real villain in this situation: scalpers?

Sadly, there's evidence to support both scenarios, which hardly speaks well of the rock-concert industry.

A quick recap: Last week, a sold-out Prince concert scheduled for April 12 was abruptly canceled because, Prince publicists said, scalpers had scored large chunks of the $56 tickets and were gouging buyers to the tune of $300.

Prince promised a new show would be scheduled and on Thursday, he delivered -- not one show, but two. But tickets went on sale the very next day, via a voucher system, meaning you had to buy them in person -- photo ID required -- and with cash. No phones, no credit cards. There was a limit of four ticket vouchers per buyer, and the buyer had to be present for any of the vouchers to be utilized.

No doubt, that's a tough environment for scalpers. It's also an inconvenient one for fans, especially with only four sites -- and just one in the East Bay -- at which to buy tickets.

So, who's to blame?

Prince? There's more than a few fans and music-business observers who suspect that the enigmatic rock star's penchant for unorthodox attention-grabbing is at least partly responsible. With his three-CD set "Emancipation" failing to revive his career as much as expected, was Prince's war against scalpers a shrewd publicity-gaining move?

Still, that could be oversimplifying matters. For starters, Prince tours infrequently, so demand for his concerts tends to build up -- a situation ripe for scalping. Consider also that Prince tours are notorious for incurring more than their share of scheduling problems, cancellations and abrupt changes, says Gary Bongiovanni, editor of the concert-trade magazine Pollstar.

Prince is not the first to lash out at scalpers. It's hard not to take offense at people who add an extra layer of cost to a form of entertainment that's already too expensive, and who contribute to the discouraging perception that it's the rich and well-connected who always get the best seats at the biggest shows.

Several Bay Area concerts have employed a voucher system to discourage scalping, says Lee Smith, vice president of booking at Bill Graham Presents, promoters of the Prince shows and most others in the Bay Area. Guns N' Roses and Eric Clapton have done it.

But these shows were all at relatively small venues. Prince's shows this weekend are different, Smith said, because they involve a larger venue -- the 7,000-seat San Jose State Event Center -- and a lot more ticket buyers and more potential hassles.

Bill Graham Presents officials have said there wasn't widespread evidence that Prince's canceled April 12 show was drawing more than the usual amount of scalpers, though it reportedly sold out in five minutes. So was the restrictive ticket-buying format for this weekend's shows warranted?

"It's a tough call," says Smith. Basically, he said, it comes down to whether you want to discourage scalpers badly enough to inconvenience buyers.

It was a tough call, and it was Prince's call. And it begs the question: If he was so concerned with scalpers, why didn't he institute a voucher system -- with more advanced notice -- from the beginning? Certainly he and his organizers foresaw the heavy demand for tickets. As Bongiovanni says, "If he's going to play so infrequently, he's going to have to face the fact that demand will exceed supply."

As it was, the hastily announced, difficult ticket-buying rules may have discouraged scalpers, but it also undoubtedly discouraged some of Prince's longtime fans, folks in their 30s and 40s, with jobs and families. It's a tough call indeed to ask these fans -- on one day's notice -- to skip out of work for a few hours to stand in a ticket line, change weekend plans at the last minute, hire baby-sitters, etc. Many of these fans are the kind who take in one or two shows a year -- and would have loved this to be one of them.

So is this what it comes down to? A choice between letting scalpers run amok or forcing concertgoers to jump through hoops? It would seem a little logic could have avoided this. Let's hope so, because music fans deserve better.