Kid Rock took a swing at Ticketmaster for having too much control over ticket sales in a recent chat with Theo Von. Even though he’s all for capitalism, the singer thinks there’s a need to keep the company’s fees in check.
Kid Rock shared that he reached out to Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder to work together on this issue. He said:
“I just saw Eddie Vedder recently at an event, and Pearl Jam was the first people that really went down this rabbit hole. And I just talked to him briefly. I was like, ‘Hey, I’m kind of going down that rabbit hole again.’ If you wanna get on board…’ ‘Cause this needs to be – You know, he’s obviously liberal and you know where my politics stand but I go, ‘This is something where I think we can get together on.’ Because we’re doing this for the people. For fans. Try to make things better, you know.”
The Issue With Ticketmaster’s Policies
Ticketmaster caught a lot of flak in 2022 because some tickets for Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band’s tour were sold for more than $5,000 due to their surge pricing.
The company responded to the backlash by saying that less than 1.3% of tickets sold were priced over $1,000. But fans and artists kept criticizing its monopolistic pricing strategies to this day.
Pearl Jam’s War With The Company
Pearl Jam declared war on Ticketmaster over the ticket charges way back in 1994. They wanted to keep extra fees for their shows low at $1.80 on top of their $18 ticket, but the company refused.
The band stopped working with Ticketmaster for their tours after the conflict. The decision cost them about $2 million until they came to a compromise in 2022.
Pearl Jam agreed to let go of control over their Ten Club. The ticket company promised to save some of the best tickets for the band’s biggest fans in return. They also set up ways to stop people from buying all the tickets and selling them at higher prices to make sure real fans could get tickets at fair prices.