- Bon Jovi is the only act with a VIP price point this high that DOES NOT CONTAIN a meet and greet. Every other act from Britney Spears to Aerosmith has a VIP meet & greet where you meet the artist/crazy person/band (or with Aerosmith you meet Steven & Joe). I'd rather get a meet & greet than a folding chair.
- Anyone who has bought fan club tickets knows they would be easy (and are easy) to scalp on the secondary ticket market. You show up to the Backstage tent at 3:00 or 3:30 get your tickets and meet your buyer. The only way you prevent the secondary ticket market from reselling those seats is by escorting those folks directly to their seats in the arena. From there you cannot go back outside.
- Since you sell all these seats in 2's the front rows are lined with men who are there with their wives and not there to see Bon Jovi. (You can tell because they stand there doing the white guy head bob with a beer in one hand and the other on their wife/girlfriend. I just want to run up to those guy and be like HE'S NOT GOING TO TAKE HER!! Oh and to those men just because Bon Jovi is from New Jersey does not mean you have to dress like some sort of homage to the "Guidos" from the show Jersey Shore. I mean if you look like you just took a shower and you showered 4-8 hours ago you need to rethink your look. Jon Bon Jovi has never looked like a "guido", in fact until Jersey Shore that term was an insult.) Next tour Bon Jovi try selling those seats in 1 seat or 2 seats, cause there are a lot of die hards who might be able to pony up $1500 for 1 seats but not $3000 for 2 (and then finding someone who has the $1500 for the extra ticket is hard).
The Business Journal - by Mark Kass
Date: Tuesday, May 24, 2011, 9:33am CDT
Mark Kass
Editor
Email: mkass@bizjournals.com
The first clue that you get that Bon Jovi is much more than a legendary rock band is when one of the group’s crew members said lead singer Jon Bon Jovi is the group's “CEO.”
“Jon is a fascinating business man who has built this band into an operation that is run like a business,” said Mike Savas, who handles VIP experiences for the current Bon Jovi tour.
Savas was talking several hours before this past weekend’s show in Milwaukee, a concert that would draw a sell-out crowd to the Bradley Center, even though Bon Jovi has performed in Milwaukee seven times since 2003.
There are very few bands that work harder than Bon Jovi. In the past year, the band has played 74 shows in 15 nations, grossing $203 million in ticket sales and $20 million in merchandise.
Most bands have a manager that runs the group and the tour. But Jon Bon Jovi is the group’s leader on stage and off, Savas said.
“He recognized that he knew the industry as well as anyone else and wanted to determine the direction of the band,” he said.
One of the things Bon Jovi recognized in recent years is that scalpers and ticket brokers were making all the money from the front row tickets at the band’s shows. To keep that revenue, Bon Jovi has put together several VIP packages that include the front row seats.
The band added six rows of seating close to the stage with 200 seats that are separated from the rest of the crowd. The prices for the first row tops out at about $1,500, which includes pre-show hospitality, parking and gifts, and allows fans to take home a custom Bon Jovi chair that they sat in at the show.
“Rather than the money going to the scalpers, it goes to the artist, which is the way it should be,” Savas said.
In all, Bon Jovi shows have up to 20 different price points, including special packages. Admission tickets in Milwaukee ranged from $127.50 down to $17.50.
Many other major artists have followed Bon Jovi’s lead and are now selling VIP packages.
The Business Journal was given exclusive access by the Bradley Center and Bon Jovi for the day to chronicle the business of putting on a major rock concert from how the tour transformed the Bradley Center for its show to how it maximizes its ability to earn revenue through VIP packages.
2 comments:
I wanted so badly to get a front row seat; however, I could not convince anyone else to go in with me to buy a pair of seats...
I know, and since they only give us like a few days notice its tough to get the money ready. Also putting $3000 on a credit card would hurt me financially (beyond having to put out 3 grand) my credit score would dip because I typically don't have that much outstanding balance on my cards (your credit is also monitored on your debt to credit ratio so the higher your debt the lower your score). Then to find a friend who has $1500 laying around who can pay that within about 40 days, that's a challenge.
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