TRENT REZNOR Blasts Ticket Resales, TICKETMASTER Merger

March 17, 2009

According to The Pulse of Radio, NINE INCH NAILS frontman Trent Reznor has updated the itinerary for the band's upcoming tour with JANE'S ADDICTION at NIN.com, also taking the opportunity to blast the so-called "secondary" ticketing market, which amounts to legal scalping sites that are often owned by the original ticketing agency. Reznor also took issue with the recent revelation that many artists actually hold back the best seats at their shows and sell them at vastly inflated prices on such sites.

Reznor wrote, "NIN gets 10 percent of the available seats for our own pre-sale . . . We limit the amount you can buy, we print your name on the tickets and we have our own person let you in a separate entrance where we check your ID to match the ticket . . . We have essentially stopped scalping by doing these things — because we want true fans to be able to get great seats and not get ripped off by these parasites."

Reznor added, "I assure you nobody in the NIN camp supplies or supports the practice of supplying tickets to these re-sellers because it's not something we morally feel is the right thing to do. We are leaving money on the table here but it's not always about money."

Reznor added that while he has to work with Ticketmaster and Live Nation on ticketing and booking for his tours, "At this point in time it would be logistically too difficult to attempt to circumvent the venues/promoter/ticketing infrastructure already in place for this type of tour."

The NIN frontman also said that if the proposed Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger happens, fans should be worried. He guesses that the combined entity, which will form a virtual music industry monopoly, will "move to an auction or market-based pricing scheme — which will simply mean it will cost a lot more to get a good seat for a hot show." He also added that fans should "be suspect of artists singing the praises of the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger."

The NINE INCH NAILS/JANE'S ADDICTION tour begins on May 8 in West Palm Beach, Florida, with RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE guitarist Tom Morello's new act STREET SWEEPER also on the bill.

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