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“A clear, comprehensive look at a murky business.” —The Wall Street Journal
Your favorite band has just announced their nationwide tour. Should you pay to join their fan club and get in on the pre-sale? No, you decide to wait. But the on-sale date arrives, and the site is jammed. You can’t get on—and the concert is sold out in six minutes. What happened? What now?
Music journalists Dean Budnick and Josh Baron chronicle the behind-the-scenes history of the modern concert industry. Filled with entertaining rock-and-roll anecdotes about The Rolling Stones, The Grateful Dead, Pearl Jam, and more—and charting the emergence of players like Ticketmaster, StubHub, Live Nation, and Outbox—Ticket Masters will transfix every concertgoer who wonders just where the price of admission really goes. This edition has an updated epilogue that covers recent industry developments.
“Fascinating.”
Prologue: The Summer of Their Discontent ix
Chapter 1 A Few Reservations 1
Chapter 2 Put Your Seat in Our Hands 27
Chapter 3 Master Class 55
Chapter 4 "A Bunch of Wooly Freaks" 91
Chapter 5 Rumble in the Jungle 114
Chapter 6 Rock and Roll's New Bottom Line 154
Chapter 7 Bigger Bangs for Your Bucks 193
Chapter 8 e-Ticket 226
Chapter 9 A Quiet Victory 251
Chapter 10 Secondary Education 272
Chapter 11 It's a Live Nation 304
Epilogue: Full Circle 331
Endnotes 355 Source Notes 371
Glossary 387
Acknowledgments 397
Overview
“A clear, comprehensive look at a murky business.” —The Wall Street Journal
Your favorite band has just announced their nationwide tour. Should you pay to join their fan club and get in on the pre-sale? No, you decide to wait. But the on-sale date arrives, and the site is jammed. You can’t get on—and the concert is sold out in six minutes. What happened? What now?
Music journalists Dean Budnick and Josh Baron chronicle the ...