The glory days of seeing The Boss without going into debt may soon be over.
Fans of Bruce Springsteen, who built his music career on his working-class image, are dismayed by the sky-high ticket prices for his upcoming tour with the E Street Band – the first in six years.
The tour kicks off Thursday in Buffalo, and seats are going for as much as $5,000 apiece.
The four-digit ticket prices are a result of Ticketmaster’s system of “dynamic pricing,” in which an algorithm fluctuates prices in real time based on supply and demand.
The Boss’ manager, Jon Landau, defended the astronomical prices, noting the average ticket price is in the mid $200-range and calling it a “fair price,” the news outlet HellGateNYC.com reported.
“It felt like a sucker punch,” Donna Gray, from Connecticut, told the outlet of not being able to afford tickets to see her beloved working class hero.
The longtime fan talked of her special connection to The Boss and how she looked to him as a mentor of sorts over the years.
“[He’s] someone whose catalog of music I use as a blueprint for my emotions, my life situations, celebrations and sorrow.”
“I even tied a song to my mother’s passing,” she said.
Others are equally upset and questioning just what Springsteen stands for at this point.
“It’s just so out of character for what he was. He was supposed to be this guy who writes about Youngstown and writes about the working-class guy and gives money to food banks,” Kevin Farrell, a Sea Grift, New Jersey native told HellGateNYC, calling the price gouging tone deaf.
“Now with this ticket pricing he seems to be either unaware or doesn’t care that people are left behind – To me, and other people like me – we feel betrayed.”
Farrell told the news outlet the most he’s spent to see the Freehold, New Jersey music icon was $250 – a price that now won’t admit him into arenas like Madison Square Garden or Barclays Center, though, as HellGateNYC notes, it can get unideal seating at MetLife Stadium when Springsteen rolls through in September.
Farrell can afford to shell out the extra money to see Springsteen, but it’s more about the principle, he said.
“I was so disgusted by the entire process that I said, ‘I’m not buying a ticket. This is just wrong,” he said.
The skyrocketing Springsteen tickets are a sign of the times. Taylor Swift and Beyonce fans have also faced sticker shock when trying to buy concert tickets.
Springsteen seems OK with it all.
The singer told Rolling Stone last year: “I tell my guys, ‘Go out and see what everybody else is doing. Let’s charge a little less.’… For the past 49 years or however long we’ve been playing, we’ve pretty much been out there under market value. I’ve enjoyed that. It’s been great for the fans. This time I told them, ‘Hey, we’re 73 years old. The guys are there. I want to do what everybody else is doing, my peers.’ So that’s what happened. That’s what they did.”
Still, it seems like even Springsteen’s most deep-pocketed fans aren’t willing to cough up $5,000 to see him. As of late last month, Asbury Park Press reported that the $5,000 tickets have not been sold for the band’s North American arena tour.
Another super fan, Julie Chazanoff from Mount Kisco, told HellGateNYC the price for two tickets she set out to buy for February in Tampa tripled when she clicked “check out.”
“These tickets are insane. I’m holding some in my basket and they’re absolutely a mortgage payment,” Chazanoff told the outlet.
“I was almost crying at that point.”
