By Jim McCarthy Jun 15, 2009 0 comments

Miley Cyrus “Controls” the Secondary Market

This weekend Ticket News suggested that Miley Cyrus’s tour on-sale had flopped and blamed the paperless ticketing system Ticketmaster made available to the tour.  Here’s the key tidbit:

“Tickets to more than 40 of Miley Cyrus’s concerts that went on sale yesterday are still available for purchase from Ticketmaster and ComcastTix. Only one show, Cyrus’s first show in Newark, NJ on November 7, was completely sold out…In 2007, Cyrus’s concerts sold out immediately and her tickets appeared on several secondary market sites for resale, such as StubHub and TicketNetwork. Cyrus introduced paperless ticketing in an effort to give more fans an opportunity to purchase tickets to her shows. A few industry experts think this strategy backfired.”

The article then goes on to quote several people with a clear vested interest in asserting that without the secondary market, the sales of this tour were poor.

Now, that may be the case, and it may also be the case that the fans want to see Hannah Montana, not Miley Cyrus.  (And, by the way, it also appears to be the case that sales were not exactly poor for the tour because some shows did sell out or very nearly.  Clearly, though, sales aren’t what they were in 2007.  On the other hand, a LOT of things aren’t what they were in 2007 nowadays.)

But it leaves an open question for venues everywhere:

Are you absolutely sure you want to shut the secondary market out of buying your tickets?

Despite the annoyances and problems that sometimes come up, are you sure you don’t want them absorbing some of the risk on your shows?  There are legitimate reasons for answering “yes” and “no” to that question, but make sure you ask it before you make the decision on a strategy like this.

(BTW, the comments on the TicketNews story I linked above are extremely entertaining.  If you want to see this debate played out in comment flame-war form, that’s the place to go.)

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