Top Reasons that Bruce Springsteen is charging $5,000 a ticket for his 2023 tour – Philadelphia Weekly | CPT PPP Coverage

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Perhaps so to further convince the people of the East Coast that he is still a man of the people with (a) soul, Freehold, New Jersey’s Bruce Springsteen just announced the November release of classic R&B covers Only the Strong Survive. Touching on the songwriting catalogues of Motown, Philadelphia International Records, Stax and more, and featuring guests such as Sam Moore (from Sam & Dave), Fonzi Thornton (from Chic and Luther Vandross) and The E Street Horns, the album named for, and dedicated, to the emotional twin towers of endurance and empowerment as penned by Jerry Butler, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff is surely meant to connect The Boss to an audience who remembers him sweating his way through the Jersey Shore-bound oldies of his youth.

?

That’s fine. Often, we relive our past by singing old Motown songs such as “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” and vintage Aretha Franklin classics such as “Don’t Play That Song for Me” as Bruce does on his newest cover album.

I know I have. Loudly, too.

One can’t help but think, though, that Springsteen is creating a soul-strewn smoke screen for going above and beyond his choice 21^st Century brand of capitalism – selling off his recording and publishing rights, as has many a legacy artist in 2022, only his went for over $500 million+ – by charging ticket buyers over $5,000 a pop for his 2023 tour with the E Street Band’s tickets and “Dynamic Pricing” schematics.

For the uninitiated, Dynamic Pricing – according to the Harvard Business Review – is a strategy where constantly adjusting prices move (presumably upwards only) in response to demand, a practice that consumers are usually more accustomed to when buying airline tickets and booking hotels.

“In recent years, sports teams have begun using the technique, and Ticketmaster now offers musical artists the option of using it for concert tickets, too. As a result of Springsteen’s decision to allow Ticketmaster to use dynamic pricing, tickets for some of his shows reportedly jumped to over $5,000.” (According to the Harvard Business Review, “Ticketmaster reported that just 11.2% of tickets were dynamically priced and the rest were sold at fixed prices, with the average price below $300. Only 1.3% of tickets sold were over $1,000.” It was, however, the lack of communication as to what not-beware-ing-buyers were prepared for, that confounded everyone)

Of course, no one wants to spend more on a ticket, even a dollar over, just because their musical hero is popular. To that end, Beyonce and Harry Styles could charge $10, 000 a ticket while Iggy Pop might only be able to charge $100 a ticket in comparison.

The problem lies in the fact that unlike the more glamorous likes of Beyonce, Styles or even The Rolling Stones is that Springsteen has forever represented blue collar ethics and the whole of the working class – the hard scrabbled, hand crafting, sweat dripping laborers who made Born in the USA, Nebraska and more American classics beyond their music. Those albums stand/stood for something to the Tom Joads who loved them. So did the epic concerts that followed the releases of those albums – long ass shows of upwards of 4 hours (!) that could, depending on the night, resemble a prayer assembly, a union meeting, a WWE cage match, or all three rolled into one.

However, this same Harvard Business Review feature, penned by Rafi Mohammed (who did actually buy tickets to Springsteen’s 2023’s show so he says), made two interesting points on Springsteen’s side of the ledger.

A: You are not required to grandfather low prices to loyal customers.

One of the complaints about Springsteen’s pricing is he was exploiting longtime fans, who’ve been paying to attend his shows since the 1970s. It is natural to be grateful to long-standing customers. Just remember that they purchased out of self-interest, not charity, and they’re not necessarily owed a life-long discount. On previous tours, fans got a fantastic deal because for whatever reason, Springsteen preferred to price all tickets at below-market value. In my experience — I have seen Springsteen in concert approximately 40 times, and yes, I bought tickets to his 2023 shows — his energetic performances have yielded the greatest dollar-for-dollar value in concert history.

For companies pricing goods or services that are purchased more frequently than concert tickets, however, when implementing a steep price increase, I recommend slowly transitioning existing customers when possible. Instead of raising prices immediately, let them know that as VIPs, the boost will be gradually implemented over a longer time period. This prevents sticker shock and conveys appreciation.

B:  Low prices can devalue a product.

Springsteen’s history of charging below-market prices conditioned fans to expect them. This illustrates the hazards of extending discounts.

I’m often asked by start-ups if they should extend steep discounts to initial customers, because as a startup, these companies tend to be happy just to have some initial customers. I urge them to proceed cautiously. Not standing up for your product’s value by discounting to get early sales can be problematic when it comes time to focus on profit.

This really got me thinking, how even with that recent $550 million windfall Springsteen recently accrued – that he and his might actually need the money that Dynamic Ticket pricing could afford.

A few reasons:

One: There are now like forty people in The E Street Band. How much does it cost to feed, drive and hotel-house those people during a long tour, let alone put them on a retainer for each year? A lot, and that’s not even counting how much more he might have to pay them for staying on stage for all those extra hours – what ever happened to music union rules, 40 on, 20 off? This all is a far cry from when The E Street Band were just a couple of guys messing around at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park. Besides, have you seen Asbury Park now? Totally gentrified. Money money money.

Two: Springsteen, like Jon Bon Jovi, Christie Whitman and other fellow New Jerseyans, can no longer rely on tax incentives and loopholes for their “so called” organic farm lands as they once were able now that Governor Phil is taking away that pricey privilege. As I joked on my Bad Bunny / Jared Paul tax evasion feature, The Boss is too busy whipping his band into fighting shape to sell fresh Jersey tomatoes from his “farm” acreage.

Three: Jessica Rae Springsteen. The Boss’ daughter with Patti Scialfa is an equestrian and a show jumping champion rider who has represented the United States Equestrian Team in international competition with medals to her name. The kid’s been riding since the age of four, with her own pony at age six, and horses kept on the Springsteen family’s 300-acre Stone Hill Farm in Colts Neck, New Jersey. C’mon. You want Springsteen’s kid to ride, don’t you? God only knows what Bruce and Patti’s other kids, Evan James and Samuel Ryan do for jobs, but surely, the Boss is in up to his neck.

Four: Workouts and diet: remember when Springsteen used to be shaggy dog handsome and tank top cool? Well, first with the pumping iron days of the Born to Run tour, and then with the zero-carb lean mean figure he’s cutting at present, The Boss is presenting at what looks like a solid 160 pounds and hipster slim-jeans lanky. Good on him at age 73, but do you know how much maintaining a paleo diet costs? Like $5,000 a meal. (The same thing goes for maintain a haircut as sharp and close to the head as his is now).

Five: Little Steven Van Zandt: Ever since the success of The Sopranos, Springsteen’s musical capo de capo and consigliere has gone off and done additional acting gigs in Lillihammer and The Irishman. And while Little Stevie isn’t Brando, you got to pay him not to act (not insulting the guy at all, but that is a funnier line than I first imagined).

Six: Keeping up appearances. Not just because The Boss needs someone to keep his skinny jeans to-the-bone fresh and his short sleeves tightly rolled to that exact point on his arm, but rather the fact that after his co-podcast with Barack Obama – himself a newly-minted resident of tony upstate New York’s The Hamptons, Springsteen has got to keep up with the Joneses, and the Obamas, at any cost.

Seven: You can’t go backwards. Once he sold out his 2017+ man-alone Broadway run for something like $1,000 a ticket, he can’t go back to the cheap – only upwards. Besides, if you consider that one man with one guitar talking into one mic per night cost $1,000 and 40 people on stage at one time – not counting an entourage of drivers, stage hands, paleo chefs and workout trainers – ticket holders to Bruce Springsteen’s 2023 tour are getting a bargain I tell you.