In the wake of an ongoing furor over “dynamic pricing” for Bruce Springsteenthe tour, ticketmaster took the unusual step Sunday afternoon to release some statistics on costs and percentages for the dates that went on sale last week. Downplaying the number of controversial variable-priced “platinum” tickets that hit $5,000 each on the first day of sale, Ticketmaster says they make up just 11.2% of total tickets sold.
According to the ticketing service’s calculations, that left the other 88.2% of tickets sold at fixed prices ranging from $59.50 to $399 before additional service fees.
Ticketmaster further says that the average price of all tickets sold so far is $262, with 56% sold for less than $200 face value.
Although the service doesn’t dispute reports of tickets priced through the platinum program as high as $4-5K, Ticketmaster claims that only 1.3% of total tickets so far have sold for more than $1,000.
Ticketmaster is releasing this information after five days of popular outrage over more expensive ducats, and before most cities on the tour go on sale later this week. Ticket sales for the 2023 U.S. tour have been staggered for 10 days, and the company has a vested interest in making sure upset fans aren’t put off by believing that all the hundreds of thousands of tickets still on sale are gone. They will sell for the amounts that have been in the headlines.
The service further broke down the percentages of the 56% of tickets it says sold for less than $200. He said 18% sold for less than $99, 27% between $100 and $150, and 11% between $150 and $200.
“Pricing and formats are consistent with industry standards for the best,” the company said in a statement.
Springsteen has not issued a statement on the controversy. Both he and Ticketmaster have been under pressure to provide an explanation for the four-figure tickets, with some critics holding up the $5,000 figure as proof that the artist isn’t really a “man of the people.”
Ticketmaster and the singer hadn’t previously revealed any set costs for tickets, though fans quickly learned that first-in-line tickets each day could purchase in the $60-400 range…only to have them sell out immediately. , leaving ducats more exorbitantly priced, with values ​​inflated up to 10 times the original value, like what most potential buyers see when they log in.
Ticketmaster is highly unlikely to ditch the “platinum” program that has proven so unpopular this week, designed as it is to devalue secondary ticketing sites like StubHub and put extra money in the hands of the artist and promoter. It seemed that by the third day of Friday sales caps were being placed on higher platinum values, as a survey of seat listings in different cities showed those tickets peaking at between 2,000 and 2,000 instead. from $4,000-5,000. . But it’s also possible that those seats were priced lower in response to perceived less heated demand after the big spike in national interest on day one.
While it was speculated that the higher prices that were released were determined by an algorithm, sources say that the dynamic price is not actually rooted in an algorithm but is set by the promoters’ pricing teams, which would explain some of the the big differences in platinum ticket prices in the city. to the city
Most of the dates arrive at the market from Tuesday to Friday.
On Tuesday, shows go on sale for Washington, DC, Baltimore, State College, Penn., Cleveland and Philadelphia, though the latter two are among the few shows on the tour that don’t go through Ticketmaster. On Wednesday, Detroit goes on sale. Tickets to Atlanta, Kansas City, Seattle, Milwaukee, Columbus and Buffalo will be available on Thursday.
On Friday, the two New York City dates, Madison Square Garden and Barclays Center, go on sale (the latest Brooklyn show is also not run by Ticketmaster). Also on sale Friday are the tour finale in Newark, NJ and a two-night adventure in Belmont Park, NY.