“Do you really think her reputation as a person has that much to do with sales?” Pauline asked. “Remember, you’re the one who has always maintained that an artist’s reputation has nothing to do with sales as long as the artist produces good music.”
“I was saying that about notoriety, which is a negative thing that the suits try to encourage,” Jake qualified. “The record company execs have always said that Ozzy Osbourne sold all those albums because he bit the head off a bat once and peed on the Alamo, that Motley Crue sold all those albums because of their drinking, that Intemperance sold all of our albums because we were Satan worshipers who snort cocaine out of butt cracks.”
“You never told me if you actually did that or not,” Obie said.
“Please,” Jake said, deadpan. “That’s not a story to be told in front of little Tabby.”
Obie chuckled.
“Anyway,” Jake went on, “notoriety has little to do with album sales in the big picture, but a positive public perception is something else entirely. People want to believe we’re selfless, dedicated artists. We still have to make good music, of course, but they eat it up when they believe we’re struggling artists and they start to lose faith in us when they get the perception that we’re greedy and money-grubbing just for the sheer exploitation of it.”
“Which is kind of what we’d be doing if we started charging outrageous prices for concert tickets simply because people will pay it,” Celia said.
“That’s not exploitation,” Pauline insisted. “It’s capitalism. The market price for Celia’s concert tickets is a hundred dollars. People are willing to pay that and they are going to pay that whether we’re the ones charging that much or not.”
“What about the guy who lives paycheck to paycheck and wants to take his wife to a Celia Valdez concert?” Jake asked. “We start charging a hundred bucks for each ticket and we lose him and everyone like him as a customer. And when that happens on a grand scale, the resentment might just cause enough animosity that he becomes disillusioned with Celia as an artist. Now he won’t even buy a CD.”
“Well ... let’s look at your hypothetical paycheck to paycheck guy realistically for a minute,” Pauline suggested. “He wants to buy two tickets for Celia’s show so he and his wife can go see her. Theoretically, he can wait in line for hours so that when Ticket King opens, he’s able to pay retail price of twenty-five dollars for a GA ticket, or forty for a reserved. Alternately, he can pick up his phone and dial up Ticket King’s eight-hundred number with his credit card in hand and hope to get through so he can buy his ticket that way. Is everyone following me so far?”
“We’re following you,” Jake said.
“Okay,” Pauline said. “Now, this all sounds good in theory, but in reality, his chances of actually scoring a ticket this way are maybe fifty percent. These tickets are selling out quickly, in less than a day. If he wants to get one from the Ticket King booth, he’s going to have to basically camp out all night or they’ll all be gone before he gets to the front of the line. He’s a working man. He probably doesn’t have the time or the inclination to camp out in front of a record store all night. And as for the phone order, we all know how that works. The scalpers and their agents are extremely well-organized when it comes to high-value tickets. They flood the phone lines the moment the tickets are released for sale and they snatch up every ticket they can get their hands on because they know they can resell them for more than twice face value. There’s a very good chance our hypothetical paycheck to paycheck guy, who is just trying to score some tickets and not make a profit, will just keep getting busy signals on the line until he gives up ... says, ‘fuck it, I’ll buy my old lady a goddamn toaster instead’.”
“But he can get the tickets if he’s persistent,” Celia said.
“That’s the thing,” Pauline said. “He has to be persistent. Most people, when it comes to something they do not necessarily need in their life, tend not to be persistent. So, what ends up happening is that the scalpers are the ones who snatch up most of the tickets. I’ve seen figures floated around that estimate well over seventy-five percent of tickets for acts that sell-out every show—the Rolling Stones, U2, Pearl Jam, Nirvana back before Kurt offed himself, and Celia herself—are resold after purchase for a higher price. That means the scalpers are getting the vast majority of them and making insane profits off of us. Profits that we should be making for ourselves.”
“That is unacceptable to me,” Obie pointed out. “If our paycheck-to-paycheck guy really and truly wants those tickets for his wife, he’ll most likely have to get them from a scalper. He’ll have to pay the hundred dollars apiece anyway.”
“I understand that,” Jake said, “but in that scenario it’s the scalpers that are being perceived as greedy profiteering slimeballs, not the artists.”
“Then you’re saying you’re against the plan to raise ticket prices?” Pauline asked him.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m against the plan.”
“Uh huh,” Pauline said with a nod. She turned to Celia. “And how about you, C? It’s in your name that we’re even discussing this. Where do you fall?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” she said. “I don’t want to be thought of as a money-grubbing corporate puta, that’s for damn sure. At the same time, it really bothers me that these lowlife scalpers are making all this money off me while my tour is barely in the black.”
“And it’s only in the black at all because you did not allow them to have all the dancers and lasers and choreography,” Greg pointed out.
“This is true,” Celia said.
“Why don’t we all look at this thing from a practical point of view?” Obie suggested.
“What do you mean?” asked Jake.
“Well, we have a test case to look at,” Obie said. “The Eagles are the boys who got this whole discussion rolling in the first place, right? They’re the ones selling those concert tickets for premium coin. Are people buying them?”
“Well ... yes,” Pauline said. “People are snatching up every last one of them in a matter of hours as each venue is released for sale. And there is still a considerable black-market resale market for them after that. That’s kind of my point.”
“And they are regularly accused of profiteering and exploitation of their fame in the media,” Jake said. “That’s kind of my point.”
“Is this reputation for profiteering having any effect on album sales?” Obie asked next.
“I think we all know the answer to that,” Pauline said. “Hell Freezes Over is selling like mad. It shot right to the top of the album chart the moment it was released and has been perched there ever since. And it’s mostly a live album, full of songs that have already been released in studio versions back in the day. There are only three new studio cuts on the album and only a few live cuts that have not been previously released on earlier live albums. I think it’s safe to say that the band’s image as profiteers is not impacting sales of their product.”
“And Celia’s CD is a studio album in its entirety,” Obie said. “Nothing but original, unreleased material on it. Hell, there’s not even a cover tune on it.”
“That is true,” Jake conceded. “But there is still the potential for the negative press and profiteering accusations to have an impact on sales.”
“Is that really what you’re worried about, Jake?” Pauline asked.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Are you actually worried that KVA would lose money and sales in this deal, or are you more worried about being seen as someone with a little greed in his soul?”