Green Day probably thought it was doing its fans a favor — but, as the saying should go, no good deed goes unchallenged.
The popular band, whose big hits include “American Idiot,” will be playing just one concert at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center in early April. So tickets are scarce.
Someone connected with the band; its promoter, Bowery Presents; or TicketMaster — it’s unclear which — came up with the bright idea that fans who purchased much-coveted floor seats for the Barclays show could only take possession of their tickets at the arena’s “will call” window the day of the show.
That may seem like a little thing to you or me, but it unleashed a storm of protests. There were enough complaints, in fact, that Team Green Day eventually had to relent and allow floor tickets to be picked up ahead of time.
The protest was part of an overall revolution going on in the area of ticketing, and you might not be surprised to know that it is being caused by the Internet.
Green Day’s motivation isn’t known. But chances are that people connected with the band were trying to keep mounds of tickets out of the hands of scalpers so that real fans could get them at lower box-office prices.
Making buyers show up at “will call” with an ID and credit card is a scalper’s headache. But this restriction also creates problems for ordinary people who might buy a ticket for a show well ahead of time — only to find out they can’t attend.
In other words, the “will call” option screws innocent Green Day fans as well as scalpers.
But there is more.
New York state has a law that prohibits sale of “electronic tickets,” which is a vague term that generally means tickets that simply show up as a bar code on a cellphone to be scanned at the arena.
To some the “will call”-only option — originally proposed by Team Green Day — looks to be skirting the electronic-ticketing law.
StubHub, where people sell unwanted tickets, is obviously not happy with what Green Day and others are trying to do. “Not only is this an attempt to prevent resale, but it is an attempt to circumvent the law which prevents the use of technology to prohibit resale,” Glenn Lehrman, a spokesman for StubHub, said when I inquired.
Chris Grimm, who is part of a group called the Fan Freedom Project, agrees. “We believe we own the tickets . . . and that fans have the right to give away or transfer tickets however they choose,” says Grimm. “No fan should ever face the prospect of losing money when plans change because of work or family obligations.”
It’s pretty clear that Green Day didn’t know what it was getting into. And it backed off quickly when it found out.
“There is no paperless ticketing or forced ‘will call’ at the Barclay Center show,” says Brian Bumbery, the band’s publicist. “It may have been when the tickets were initially put on sale in September 2012 . . . (but) this has been reversed.”
Don’t think you’ve heard the end of this.
Entertainment venues that believe their tickets are being sold too cheaply on secondary markets like StubHub or for too much by scalpers have dreamed up the novel concept that fans don’t really own tickets after they purchase them. So fans, this argument goes, shouldn’t be allowed to resell them.
By this way of thinking, ticket purchasers only have the right to use the seats. If they can’t use the ticket, they aren’t entitled to a reimbursement.
That could be the next battle.
***
One editor here at The Post warned me that if I wrote the following item, readers would think I was a cranky old man — I think “old fogy” was the way she put it. Another said I’d be just a step away from being one of those “you kids get off my lawn!” kinds of guys.
But gosh-dangit, I’m going to write it anyway, despite what those whippersnappers think!
On Sunday I was watching the Ravens beat the Patriots, and there were these interesting commercials pitching Mercedes-Benz’s “Something Mysterious Coming” campaign. I have no idea what Mercedes is up to, but I imagine it has something to do with cars.
The background music was a classic tune by the Rolling Stones called “Sympathy for the Devil.” I happen to like this song very much. I even remember my daughter, Kim, and I putting the top down on the car and listening to it repeatedly one weekend.
But “Sympathy for the Devil”? To sell cars? To whom, devil worshippers?
I’m glad Mick Jagger is finally earning some money for his old age. And I don’t mind commercializing old songs, which, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” isn’t going to end.
But there are plenty of tunes about mystery and magic that would have fit Mercedes’ needs. “This Magic Moment” comes to mind.
So is this a devilishly good advertising idea? Or did I fall into a trap by giving space to a helluva marketing campaign?
All I can do is quote the Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil.”
Ooo, who, Ooo, who
Ooo, who , Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who, Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who, Oh, yeah
What’s my name?
Tell me, baby, what’s my name
Tell me, sweetie, what’s my name.