Run Hannah, RUN!!!
Posted on 11/28/2007 7:08:32 AM PST by TornadoAlley3
TALLAHASSEE -- Responding to what he calls ''obscenely high prices'' for concert tickets, a state lawmaker from Miami Beach wants to crack down on people who scoop up tickets and resell them at hundreds of dollars more than face value.
Rep. Dan Gelber, who has two daughters, ages 7 and 9, will unveil his proposed legislation Tuesday at North Beach Elementary School, just hours before Disney Channel pop sensation Hannah Montana performs at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise.
His bill -- which would have to navigate through a GOP-controlled Legislature before becoming law -- takes aim primarily at those who resell tickets. Gelber, the House Democratic leader, is upset with ticket brokers and others who obtained large numbers of tickets to the Montana show through automated software. Tickets for Hannah Montana are being resold for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of dollars more than face value.
''A lot of people who wanted to go to the concert would have obtained tickets instead of most of them going to scalpers and resellers,'' said Gelber, who said he was unable to buy tickets to the Montana show because he was unwilling to pay the inflated prices.
Last year, state lawmakers repealed Florida's anti-scalping law that prevented anyone from reselling a concert ticket for more than $1 above the face value. The Legislature overwhelmingly approved the proposal.
Gelber's bill would not bring back the anti-scalping law, but it would make it a crime to use ''ticket purchasing software'' to obtain tickets from a website. The legislation would also require companies that resell tickets to register with the state and post a $50,000 bond. Those who break the law could be fined three times the amount of the scalped ticket.
Any effort to impose price caps on resold tickets would likely be opposed by those who pushed to change Florida law in 2006.
A spokesman for Ticketmaster, the world's largest ticketing company, said there remains a need for people to be able to buy tickets from those who are reselling.
''We recognize and respect the need for a legitimate resale market -- one where tickets are acquired initially in an appropriate and lawful manner, where all relevant laws are complied with, and where the terms and conditions set by the event provider'' are respected, said spokesman Joseph Freeman.
Gelber is trying to enlist the help of Miley Cyrus, the teenage girl who portrays Montana, to join him. Gelber wrote a letter to her agent in California on Monday asking her to attend his Tuesday press conference.
''My daughters -- Sophie [age 9] and Hannah [age 7] -- love your show. My wife and I also like it because it contains family friendly themes. Regrettably, our daughters will be unable to attend your Broward County concert on Tuesday because so many of the tickets were purchased by ticket scalpers who are reselling them at obscenely high premiums,'' Gelber wrote.
''I recognize that the circumstances that created this were not of your making. However, it has hurt your fans -- including the ones in my family -- so I hope you will be willing to speak out,'' he added.
Hannah Montana concerts have created a frenzy across the country and three state attorney generals have launched investigations into the sale of the tickets. Last week a lawsuit was filed against Montana's fan club, alleging that those who joined were told that they would be given first crack at concert tickets.
“didn’t you ever go to a concert when you were young?”
Indeed and never paid more than $10 for a ticket. Teaching princess that her pouting will earn her a ticket to a 2 hour show that would cost her one or two weeks wages if she had a part time job one isn’t what I’d call prudent character building. It’s spoiling and we know how much daddy likes that.
Run Hannah, RUN!!!
$10? Was that the 1940’s or the 1950’s??? Look, times are different. A little extravagant fun now and again, as long as nobody has to sell the farm, is ok.
$10? Was that the 1940’s or the 1950’s??? Look, times are different. A little extravagant fun now and again, as long as nobody has to sell the farm, is ok.
Once, when Elton John came to Seattle in 1976 (I was twenty at the time) I won tickets on the radio for myself and my fiance to go. There was no way I was going to pay the fifty bucks the scalpers wanted on the streets at that time, not while I earned a few hundred a month.
Parents would rather shell out hundreds of dollars so their children can see wholesome entertainment than pay less to see scantily clad women hump men on the stage.
As for this Hannah Montana character being "wholesome entertainment", I will confess that I don't know squat about her music or any other aspect of her shows, but I did see a clip from one of her shows in a story about the ticket scalping. It showed teeny boppers gyrating in ways not dissimilar to the scantily-clad women you refer to, I sure wouldn't want my daughter (if she were still eleven) emulating that.
If the princesses-in-training really need to have a few hundred bucks spent on them, there are ways to do it where the satisfaction lasts for more than a couple of hours.
ohhhkay then.
Like it or not, that’s just how America works today. It’s not like many of us will ever attend a Super Bowl game, either.
If people want to pay that much to go, then fine. I’m just not going broke sending my kids. Neither do I like the idea of cracking down on people who resell tickets when they simply see a business opportunity.
“$10? Was that the 1940’s or the 1950’s???”
Those were your decades weren’t they? And I think they were cheaper than $10 back then. First concert I ever went to was Bob Seger in 1977 for $4.50. Frampton for $7, Eric Clapton for $10, and Skynyrd two shows before the plane crash for $7.50. The most I ever paid back then was $12 for an all day Jimmy Buffet, Steve Miller, Little River Band and some others I’ve since forgotten .
Times have changed but several hundred for a kid’s concert ticket is ridiculous by any measure, except pure spoiling.
What I don’t understand is why knowing that demand will exceed supply, promoters just raise their prices.
I think fan’s would rather pay 25% more for a ticket up front than 50 or 100% more to a ticket broker. The promoter could even put the best seats on to an auction/E-bay type site and let the best tickets find their natural price.
There was an article in yesterday’s paper about the recent HM concert here. Some of the parents were complaining that the Colosseum sold beer during the event.
You forgot that the Dad gives out good advice. It’s not always followed but it is good advice.
Yes, like the good old sitcoms, it always ends with some kind of lesson for the kids. I know this is ridiculous, but I really like this show...
well, I think some spoiling is not a bad thing. And by the way, I was born in 1959.
Maybe, but some people really dig concerts and find that it's worth the money. My wife is one of them, and she'll pay $100 or more to go see a show. I've asked her why she does it, when she can buy ten CDs for the same price, but she says she likes the show more. That's cool; different strokes for different folks. If that's how they want to spend their money, fine.
Some years ago, I went to see Willie Nelson in concert at a little dive bar that couldn't have seated more than 150 people or so. I paid $50 a ticket to get in. That's WAY more than I'd typically ever go pay to see a concert (basically anything more than free is too expensive for me), but sometimes you've got to splurge for something cool. I love Willie Nelson and years later I still have nice memories about the show. Sometimes people have different sets of values.
There was a segment about this on FOX News last night and the wife and I looked at each other and shruged, who the heck is Hannah Montana?? apparently confirming what fuddy-duddies we are.
There’s plenty of free, live entertainment available, too. Even my little church festival (with the famous climbing wall :-) had musical groups performing all day. Some were better than others, of course, but life is like that.
At a big 3-day-weekend festival like Matthews Alive or Festival in the Park, there will be dozens of performances in various styles, and all free.
I appreciate that this tour is going to include reletively few performances. This girl is too young to go through a long tour that involves hundreds of shows. For one thing, it is really bad for the voice.
She needs to tour so the fans can go see her, but not so much that it takes over her life. I think the Cyrus’s have have it balanced about right.
It is a shame they couldn’t market the tickets with some kind of online bidding though. That would keep the costs under control, and everybody, except the scalpers, would come out ahead.
Just wait until this State Lawmaker finds out that nobody is paying sales tax on the mark-up...
If I was surrounded by tens of thousands of shrieking kids I'd be drinking, that's for sure.
I have no problem with adults who make their own money deciding to value seeing a concert over some other thing that money can buy. I just wonder what it does to the minds of children when they can persuade their parental units to spend megabucks on this sort of thing.
If a kid wanted to save up babysitting money for this, more power to them. (Does anyone make money this way anymore?) I delivered about 10,000 newspapers to buy my own contact lenses back in the early 1970's, because my parents thought that glasses were good enough.
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