Back in the early 90’s Pearl Jam was one of the biggest rock band’s in the world.
They released three massive albums with 1991’s Ten, 1993’s Versus and 1994’s Vitalogy.
Following the release of Versus the band opted to stop making music video for nearly half a decade.
I’ve done a whole vidoe on this, the link is down below.
and then it was around this time that the band picked a fight with ticketmaster
that didn’t end well. It would result in an ironic move nearly twenty years later when ticketmaster
and pearl jam would join forces. Today let's take a look at pearl jam's feud with ticketmaster.
Ticketmaster which was started in the 1976 was built on the premise of selling ticketing
software . By 1982 when lawyer and entrepreneur named Frederic D Rosen became the companies
chairman and chief executive and from that point onwards the company increased exponentially.
The company soon changed their business model by signing exclusivity contracts with venues
promising them a cut of the profits and fees and .by the early 90’s Ticketmaster was buying up
its competition effectively owning 60-90% of the market share in the live entertainment business.
While the other 10-40% was held by smaller more regional companies. I'm giving you guys
a percentage range because the articles i read gave me different percentages. On top of that,
ticketmaster had lobbyists in washington and hired the best anti-trust lawyers in addition
to setting up a government relations office in the nation's capital dc to lobby congress. The
company also hired public relations people to tell the company's story in both the media and online.
By the early to mid 90's ticketmaster was ready to challenge any kind of legislation
or messaging that threatened their bottom line.. In fact before pearl jam raised a
big stink about ticketmaster there really wasn’t a big debate around service fees,
the bigger question was how high ticket prices could go with legacy acts like Billy Joel, The
Eagles and Elton john charging upwards of almost $100/ticket. Ticketmaster’s feud with Pearl Jam
wasn’t instantaneous. It was something that built up after both parties had bad experiences with one
another. It would effectively start on Labor Day 1992. Nearly a year prior Pearl Jam released their
debut album Ten which was a monumental success. To thank their fans in their hometown of Seattle
Pearl Jam wanted to play a free concert. It was estimated that about 30,000 people were
expected to attend. Despite being advertised as a free concert ticketmaster was distributing the
tickets and wanted to charge $1 for every ticket distributed. Upset with the request,
Pearl Jam ditched Ticketmaster and distributed the tickets on their own, thus keeping the show free.
One of the biggest misconceptions about Pearl Jam's whole battle with ticketmaster
was that despite the fact that frontman Eddie Vedder. And while it's true that vedfer wielded
a lot creative control over the group he wasn’t the main driving force behind the feud with
ticketmaster. Guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament would tell the LA Times in late 1996
that it was their idea to plan their own tour and sidestep ticketmaster.
Gossard would tell the LA Times what informed the band’s decision making saying
“We swore when we formed this band that if we ever got successful we would make sure we did something
to keep our concert prices down,” “But we decided to take it one step at a time.” In 1993 Pearl Jam
was now supporting their second album Versus which came out in the later part of the year.
While the band was out on tour they were still playing ticketmaster friendly venues and had
the company distributing their tickets. It was by this point that Ticketmaster was charging a
service fee between $3 to $6 per ticket. Pearl Jam soon started cutting deals with venue
owners to take a smaller cut of the band’s merchandise sales so they could lower their
prices from what the industry standard was. So a concert tee that typically went for $24
was now sold by Pearl Jam for $18 Once Pearl Jam became a headliner pn the road, they
started a adopting a non compromising attitude wanting their ticket prices to be only $18.
This move resulted in Pearl Jam forgoing millions of dollars they could have made
had they been charging industry standard rates. Fans applauded it, but the concert business which
featured a tight knit community of promoters, and venue owners weren’t happy with the move,
One promoter who spoke to the LA Times on the condition of anonymity would tell the paper
“The minute they became a headliner, this band refused to compromise with anybody,”
“Unlike a lot of other acts, Pearl Jam is not greedy. But they could care less about
the middlemen in this business and anytime you disagree with them during a negotiation,
they just tell you, ‘Hey, man, it’s either my way or the highway.’ ”
By November of 1993 Pearl Jam was set to wrap up their North America leg of their tour
playing three shows in their hometown of Seattle. Pearl Jam and TIcketmaster had both agreed to
donate $20,000 of their earnings from that night to a local children’s charity . However an hour
before Pearl Jam’s first of three Seattle shows their manager Kelly Curtis, was informed that the
chairman of ticketmaster Frederick R Rosen was not in the loop about the donation and
wanted an additional $1 surcharge added to the ticket prices. Upset with ticketmaster’s ask,
Pearl Jam requested that the concert be cancelled, but a deal would be worked out at the last minute
where Rosen agreed to donate $14,000 to charity without raising the ticket prices. Kelly Curtis
would tell the LA Times “The last-minute nature of that episode was a real eye-opener for us,”
“Most people we deal with don’t do business that way--especially when it involves
raising money for a good cause.”Ticketmaster disputed the band’s account of what happened
By the spring of 1994 pearl jam was planning on hitting the road again to do a 24-date tour.
The band was also planning on doing a summer tour as well.
For Pearl Jam’s spring tour Ticketmaster charged a $3.75 service fee on each ticket and was planning
on listing their service fees on the tickets themselves. But once again things came down to
the last moment. Almost an hour before the tickets went on sale for their spring tour,
Ticketmaster’s chairman called up Pearl Jam’s manager refusing to show the service
charge on the tickets and in response Pearl Jam threatened to cancel the show
and the two parties eventually worked out a deal and Ticketmaster complied with Pearl Jam' request.
But the peace didn’t last long. Nearly a week later during a show in Detroit
the band sidestepped Tickemaster and cut a deal with the promoter
Nederlander. And The band sold their tickets for $18 with a $1.75 fee going to the promoter.
As a result of the move Ticketmaster threatened legal action against the promoter for breaking
their exclusivity agreement and went as far as shutting down the ticketing machine at the venue.
A solution would be worked out where the ticket giant accepted to take part of the promoter’s fee
As pearl jam turned their attention to their summer tour they wanted to be proactive and
started making stipulations to ticketmaster Pearl Jam wanted to keep the cost of their
concert tickets low so fans could see them. They told ticketmaster they didn’t want the company
charging more than $1.80 in service charges on their tickets. The problem was that ticketmaster
sometimes charged two or three times that rate and for high quality seats the service fees could
be as high as $18 per ticket. Obviously Pearl Jam and Ticketmaster were far apart on a price.
Pearl Jam would run out of options with Ticketmaster with Stone Gossard
recalling to the LA Times “By this point, we were getting pretty frustrated,”.
“There’s no doubt that (Ticketmaster) takes more of the total ticket percentage than they deserve.
We really just got sick of arguing about it.”
The band opted not to use ticketmaster for their 20 date summer tour in 1994 across
America, instead they hired a company to scout out potential venues some of which were in pretty
remote locations and at the same time the band also looked at other ways of distributing tickets.
That’s when the band received some unfortunate news. Ticketmaster had
worked with a group that represented the nation’s largest promoters North American
Concert Promoters Association to boycott the group’s planned summer tour. The LA
Times reported that if any of the members of the promoters association agreed to book Pearl Jam
they could face legal action from Ticketmaster, something the ticket giant denied at the time,
Then in April of 1994 Kurt Cobain would die, a death that shook Pearl Jam, a band who was
already dealing with the trappings of fame, and their fight with ticketmaster. Concerns
over possible litigation from ticketmaster and the health, safety and logistics of holding
concerts in remote locations resulted in the band cancelling their summer tour The band’s manager
would tell the LA Times “What if we had spent two months assembling the show and Ticketmaster
threatened the promoter with a lawsuit one hour before we were set to hit the stage?” “What if
a show got canceled at the last second and (a fan) got hurt? We just couldn’t risk it.”Curtis
would tell the times the band could have raked in $9 million had the tour gone on as planned.
By May of 1994 Pearl Jam would filed a memo against the company with the justice
department;s anti-trust division according to billboard magazine. The band claimed that
ticketmaster operated as a monopoly and used their power to pressure promoters to not book
the band during there summer 94 tour. The Justice Department had already investigated
ticketmaster previously and their practices when they bought competitor ticketron in 1991.
The new york times woul report that ticketmaster allegedly hired a private investigator to look
into the band and their record label sony. And that was was something that was mentioned in
the book everybody loves our town with colleen combs who worked with pearl jam as an assistant
to the band’s manager kelly curtis stating “as soon as we started asking questions we
started having problems with booking our tours. Promoters or people we considered friends in the
busines suddenly couldn’t help us or wouldn’t take a phone call. There were definitely strange things
happening in the office. Honestly and this is ging to sound like a bad conspiracy movie - but
i swear there was clicking on the phone line. It seemed like the phones were tapped” she’d say.
The band would however find some allies with some of the most popular acts at the time
who agreed to charge lower ticket prices for the fans. These included groups like Green
Day ($7.50); the Offspring ($12); Stone Temple Pilots, Soul Asylum,
and Hootie and the Blowfish ($18) as well Live ($20) according to Rolling Stone magazine. There
were some concessions made by ticketmaster during this time as some fans were allowed
to buy their tickets through mail thereby waiving the need for service fees, but it wasn’t enough.
The idea that pearl jam was able to control what ticketmaster charged was laughable for a few
reasons. As ticketmaster rose to prominence in the 80’s they cut exclusivity deals with venue owners.
This resulted in artists and consumers having no way of going around the ticketmaster.. These
agreements gave the venues a cut of ticketmaster’s profits about 20% for the year if the venues agree
to have ticketmaster sell and distribute tickets for the all shows at these venues.
Therefore, the higher the service fees, the more profits, It was a win-win for the
venues and ticketmaster, but not for the fans or the bands. Generally ticketmaster
paid out $1.50 to venues for each ticket sold through their exclusivity agreements
and just to cover ticketmasters costs they would claim they needed to charge an additional $2
Ticketmaster would answer these claims telling the times “brilliant marketing ploy” to sell
records and says that the firm “operates fully within the parameters of all applicable laws.”
Then nn June 30, 1994 both Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament would show up and testify in front of the
congressional subcommitte who was investigating anti-trust charges against ticketmaster
.Several artists lended their support to the band during the hearing including: Garth Brooks, Neil
Young, R.E.M., the Grateful Dead and Aerosmith, The whole thing was political theater. Both
Ament and Gossard spent a week rehearsing dealing with difficult questions and when it came time to
testify they were asked softballs questions For example you had congress people asking
stupid questions to the band members like “what does pearl jam mean” Here’s some news footage of
the testimony. The bass play and guitarist for pearl jam found themselves at center stage in
an unusual venue a house subcommittee hearing. Members of congress wanted to hear their beef
with the nation's largest ticket distribution firm ticketmaster. This summer we just decided you know
we didn't want the ticket prices to be over $20. Many pearl jam fans are teenagers who do not have
the money to pay $30 or more than is often charged for tickets today. TIcketmaster says that pearl
jam won't compromise. Band statements and in the memo they submitted to the justice
this was a take it or leave it and that cause some of the problems. Pearl Jam's ultimate objection
is one where they want competition they want freedom of choice. What we heard today when
it came down to facts.. Ticketmaster had the facts, ticketmaster had the number i think
pearl jam's representatives had innuendo. Some house committe members had fun, witnesses perhaps
better known by their younger staff members. I just want you to know your just darling guys.
Others with a musical bent could identify or at least tried to. I tried to learn Black and Alive.
I'm still working on it. AMent would look back at the
testimony telling everybody loves our town “the whole thing was a joke The department
of justice used us to look hip…it made me a lot more cynical of what goes on with our government.”
REM lended their support to pearl jam’s cause having a representative at the same hearing,
but for their 1995 monster tour they would play ticketmaster venues
and allow the company to charge a $6.50 a fee for a $40 ticket. Vedder would tell the independent
“There were other people who had opportunities to join in,” “Instead, they actually cut deals
with that company. These were people I feel who could afford to make a stand.”
By the summer of 1994 drummer Dave Abbruzzese was fired from the band.
Personality conflicts led to his departure and I’ve done a whole video on his firing. He never
agreed with the band’s hardline approach against ticketmaster revealing in the book everybody
loves our town “when these guys were testifying in front of congress i was in indonesia just
enjoying being alive. The more i read about the ticketmaster situation, it’s like it all sounds
good and nice but there are way more important flagrant injustices we could have latched onto.”
going on to say “i really thought we should have been playing music instead of particpating in that
ticketmaster fiasco. I thought it was a waste of time.By the end of 1994 The readers of spin
magazine would name the pearl jam vs ticketmaster feud the best thing to happen in that year.
In late 1994 Pearl Jam would release their third album Vitalogy and the issue of touring
to support the album came up once again. The band was still boycotting ticketmaster and there would
be one company that was born during this time and they were called ETM entertainmentthat.
They gave gave fans personalized tickets with their name on it along with a specialized bar
code so scalpers couldn’t sell them and that counterfeits couldn’t be made. ETM would charge
a small service fee of only $2.50 per ticket and Pearl Jam would work with them during their 1995
summer tour but as the band started to plan their summer tour the following year the band
woud learn just how difficult it was planning a tour without ticketmaster with frontman
Eddie Vedder telling the independent
“We were having week-long meetings about chain-link fences and porta
potties,” “And because we would only play in non-Ticketmaster venues,
we had to go to these really out-of-the way places,” guitarist Mike McCready adding . “We had
to handle everything ourselves. I remember taking calls about portaloos. It was an ordeal" he'd say.
The tour itself was frought with problems as well. The opening date in March of 1995
at boise state university pavilion had to be cancelled because the venue had
issues with ETM’s ticketing codes.. MTV would discuss the problems that tour in this segment.
it was another wild ride this week on the rock n' rollercoaster that is the pearl jam tour.
Last day at San Francsico Eddie Vedder was hospitilized earlier for a stomach virus left
the stage after 7 songs unable to continue. On sunday pearl jam suddenly cancelled the remaining
10 shows of it's 15 date 12 city tour because of quote continued controversies associated with
attemping to schedule and perform at alternate venues. in other words, the difficulty of finding
arenas that are not in business with ticketmaster has become more trouble than it's worth. Fans
flooded us with angry emails, but then on tuesday the band announced it would play it's final three
dates after all at milwaukee's summer fest next thursday and friday and chicago's soldier field
next saturday The other dates will be fully refunded as will the aborted san francisco show
by sending a ticket stub and or poscard with your name, address and phone number to the address on
screen. The milwaukee tickets ironically were sold by ticketmaster through it's summerfest contract.
manager kelly curtis telling reflected on the optics of the whole thing telling spin
magazine in 1995 “Publically it looked like all we were doing was fighting ticketmaster,
but i don’t think anyone in the band obsessed over ticketmaster or talked about it.””
Then on July 5, 1995, while washington dc was mostly quiet due to the independence day holiday,
the Justice Department issued a two-sentence statement that said its investigation was closed.
Attornoey General janet reno would put out a statement that read It did not seem an appropriate
time to continue to pursue the investigation. My understanding is that the division found that
there were new companies coming into the arena .” It’s important to note that the justice department
was pursuing charges against microsoft for anti-competitve practices at the same time
and they may not have had the resources or political support to mount another big fight.
In addition to lobbying the politicians in washington, ticketmaster had a lot of support
from the venues they had exclusivity agreements with who created their own lobbying arm to talk
up ticketmaster only giving more ammo to the company. spin magazine would interview one
antitrust lawyer who told the publication ”the question is not whether this is an anti-violation
on the books. it s real world things like whose going to oppose you, how long is it going to take
what the political support for this and how is it going to look in the newspapers it’s hard
politically for the justice deaprtment to go to the barricades for grunge rock.” he'd say.
A spokeperson for ticketmaster would welcome the ruling putting out a statement saying
Getting attacked by a superstar rock band is a lot like being accused of kicking your dog:
There’s a general presumption of guilt until
proven innocent,” “Luckily the facts were on our side, and we prevailed.”
Despite the band’s failed battle against Ticketmaster,
Pearl Jam did shed a light on something that was largely ignored by the media and consumers.
It was around this time that a bill that was circulating around congress that would require
tickemaster and similar companies to clearly display their service fees on the ticket stubs.
Ticketmaster publicly supported the bill but behind the scenes lobbied congress
to successfully defeat the bill Ticketmaster chairman Fred Rosen would be profiled
by the LA Times in the mid 90’s and told the paper that he wasn’t spared from the fight revealing how
his family faced problems with the LA writing Rosen“welled up with tears,” one associate says,
as he recounted an episode during a meal at a Beverly Hills restaurant about his daughter
getting harassed at school by students who blamed her father for trying to “ruin” Pearl Jam’s tour.
By the end of 1995 tour Pearl Jam seemed to indicate a willingness to reconsider their
Ticketmaster fight. Kelly Curtis would tell the LA Times in late 1995 “After this tour,
we are going to reassess everything,” “It took us a whole year to plan [these summer dates],
and we’re not going to go through that again. “We did want to make a point on how difficult
it is to tour without Ticketmaster, and we made the point. I think you’ll find that the band
is just going to do whatever it takes to just play. And if that means they’re going to have
to play some Ticketmaster shows, they’re going to play Ticketmaster shows" he'd say.
Despite that assessment The band still stayed stubborn for their next album no code that saw
them play venues that weren't affiliated with the ticketing giant. No Code wasn’t as commercially
successful as the band’s three previous records Then by 1998 with the release of their fifth
album yield pearl jam finally agreed to start playing some ticketmaster venues with their
ticket prices rising a bit to $22. Pearl Jam also finally decided to release their first
video in several years with do the evolution. Then In early 2020 it was reported that pearl
jam and ticketmaster were now working together to fight against scalpers.
They would distirbute all tickets digitally and have them tied to a purchasers phone number.
That does it for today’s video guys thanks for watching. Be sure to hit the like button
and subscribe and we’ll se eyou again on roc n roll true storeis. Teake care.