In their first concert series since 2007, The Rolling Stones are geared up to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the first concert they ever played by headlining a four-show mini-tour, appropriately named “50 & Counting.” As many of you already know, two of these four shows will be held in our area at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ. Even though tickets do not officially go on sale to the public until October 26, 2012, presales have afforded many fans with the opportunity to get their hands on these highly-coveted tickets. StubHub, a popular online ticket reseller, currently has the tickets listed at $311 and $339 for the lowest priced tickets to the Thursday (12/13) and Saturday (12/15) shows, respectively. It should be noted that NJ regulates ticket resellers rather vigorously by making these “scalpers” register as a ticket brokers, among various other requirements. (
See N.J.S.A. 56:8-26 to 56:8-38). Fans lucky enough to purchase the tickets through Ticketmaster will expect to pay anywhere from $95.00 to $750.00 per ticket (before the hefty fees are even added!). NJ.com is now reporting that some tickets are going for as much as $600,000. As ticket prices soar, discontent amongst fans is growing and many are pondering whether attending the show is worth the price.
This mini-tour marks Virgin Group’s launch of Virgin Live, which has been hyped to “shake up live touring by putting the fan’s experience right at the heart of every show they promote.” EASL’s Terry Camp, of Budd Larner, P.C., provided the following comment regarding this tour: “The Stones' shows at Prudential Center are particularly interesting in that this is the first promoter effort by the new global touring venture, Virgin Live – which combines Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and Dainty Group. Branson’s advance PR stresses new, exciting fan experiences to come at Virgin Live events. He states that ‘Virgin Live gigs will be truly people driven.’ The average fan may react skeptically to that commentary. One, prices for the Stones shows start at a stunning $750 and only get to a low of $95 after passing through $450, $250 and $150 price levels. And two, although the on-sale is not until October 26, scalper sites already have ticket offers in the thousands and it is disappointing that Branson did not include anti-scalping safeguards as an agenda item in his PR.”
Read more about this here:
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/10/rolling_stones_tickets_on_sale.html
Here:
http://www.entertainmentwise.com/news/91699/Rolling-Stones-Tour-Ticket-Price-Controversy
And here:
http://brand-e.biz/virgin-live-launches-with-rolling-stones-concerts_24094.html
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