http://www.wthr.com/article/eric-church-cancels-25k-tickets-bought-by-scalpers
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Country star Eric Church has been battling ticket scalpers for years as his popularity grew and he began selling out arenas. But he's taken his biggest step yet by cancelling more than 25,000 tickets to his spring tour that were purchased by scalpers and putting them back on sale for fans to purchase.
The "Springsteen" singer told The Associated Press he's going to do everything he can do to stop what he calls a criminal organization that's making millions.
"They buy thousands of tickets across the U.S., not just mine, and they end up making a fortune," Church said in an interview. "They use fake credit cards, fake IDs. All of this is fraud."
The tickets will be released on Tuesday at noon local time for the remaining stops of the 60-city tour. Previously purchased tickets for his tour stops in Canada, which start Feb 28 in Ontario, have already been released and more tickets for his shows in Washington and Oregon will go on sale on Feb. 27.
Church has used this same method to cancel tickets purchased by scalpers for a few individual shows previously, but never on this scale and few artists are as meticulous as Church is when it comes to verifying who is purchasing tickets for his shows.
"We're getting better at identifying who the scalpers are," Church said. "Every artist can do this, but some of them don't. Some of them don't feel the way I feel or are as passionate."
In a report last year, investigators in New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office cited a single broker that bought 1,012 tickets within one minute to a U2 concert at Madison Square Garden when they went on sale on Dec. 8, 2014, despite the vendor's claim of a four-ticket limit. By day's end, that broker and one other had 15,000 tickets to U2's North American shows.
The report said third-party brokers resell tickets on sites like StubHub and TicketsNow at average margins of 49 percent above face value and sometimes more than 10 times the price.
Over the years Church has tried a variety of methods to crack down on reselling tickets for money. He's used paperless ticketing, where buyers have to show a credit card at the door of the venue. He's also tried increasing the price of the tickets to make them less appealing to resellers and has increased screening of purchases through his fan club, which has access to the best seats before the general public, according to Fielding Logan, one of Church's managers at Q Prime South.
Church admits that a lot of these methods are arduous for the average fan, but he said he doesn't want his most loyal fans to pay inflated prices to see him perform. On this year's Holdin' My Own Tour, he's got no opening band and is playing two extended sets of hits from his entire catalog, including the multiplatinum album "Chief" and his most recent Country Music Association album of the year "Mr. Misunderstood."
"We're doing 39-40 songs," Church said. "I played three hours and forty minutes in Atlanta. I want the fans who are, by the last hour of the show, pulling me to the end."
Church's new tour is among the top 10 global tours with ticket prices averaging $60.67, according to Pollstar. He doesn't want to set prices at $500 for the closest seats because "that's not the people who have gotten me here."
Last year Congress passed legislation to make the use of computerized software used by ticket brokers to snap up tickets an "unfair and deceptive practice" under the Federal Trade Commission Act and allow the FTC to go after those who use it. But Church says that kind of legislation is toothless without enforcement and argues that very few scalpers are caught or prosecuted.
"They are not really backing it up with prosecuting these people," Church said. "I don't believe they will anytime soon."
But he said in the meantime, he can control who buys his tickets and he intends to do just that.
"Our fans know that as long as we tour, we're going to do everything we can to make sure they pay face value for the ticket," Church said.
Everyone has a plan, till you get punched in the face,
Good for him, I hope it makes a dent in the problem.
Just curious, it says he cancelled those 25,000 tickets - I will assume the scalpers got their money back ?
After reading this I might have to buy an Eric Church record. I absolutely love an artist who takes a stand like this.
Any recommendations on what to get?
I'd love to help you Rob. I became a fan of Eric's after seeing him in the Gregg Tribute. I felt his version of "Win, Lose or Draw" was one of the standouts of the whole thing. Then I caught him on Austin City Limits and promptly went out and got most of his CD's. I pretty much like everything because I feel he has a genuine honesty about him. The fact that he's a Tar Heel is just icing on the cake. I was going to suggest Chief which was his breakthrough record which contains the hits "Creepin'", "Springsteen" and "Drink In My Hand". However, upon further consideration pick up Eric's latest Mr. Misunderstood. He recorded it with his touring band who are really good. I especially like the drummer, Craig Wright. Susan Tedeschi duets with him on one song, "Mixed Drinks About Feelings. The title track and "Record Year" are the hits and they're good. I'm partial to "Round Here Buzz." Is it LAFE? Of course not, but it is something decent in this day and time by a guy credited with co-writing all the tunes. More power to him. Two FYI' s Jeff Cease original Black Crowes guitarist is in the band. And Jay Joyce is his long time producer. Jay if you'll remember produced the dtb's Grammy winning Songlines. One further Jay's brother Mike Joyce played bass in the Prisoners of Love, Jimmy Hall's band with Jack Pearson. Hope this helps and hope you enjoy. 
After reading this I might have to buy an Eric Church record. I absolutely love an artist who takes a stand like this.
Any recommendations on what to get?
I agree on the aspect of an artist taking a stand on this. About darn time and WAY overdue.
He just needs to keep backing it up and hopefully others will step up and follow suit.
Hopefully this will move the needle in the right direction. The general public needs to STOP feeding into the secondary market and stop buying, its a simple answer also. Quit feeding the beast.
I am a fan of Mr Church for doing this, but not sure if I could ever buy into what country music is trying to sell though 😉 . Not my cup of tea.
For the most part over the last few years I have been priced out as far as ticket costs.
If I wanted to get a seat fo the TTB it would be close to 100.00 a tix.
General admission seating ,in the lawn is 40.00 which is reasonable.
Deep Purple is coming .
Meet and greet with a close pavilion seat are 400.00 each, ouch!!
A standard lower pavilion seat is 96.00 and in the back of the pavilion is 76.00,lawn is 29.00 .
Best bang for your buck is Gov't Mule. Looked up a random shows for this spring 25.00-40.00.
Cant beat that for what that band delivers!!!
Everyone has a plan, till you get punched in the face,
I'd love to help you Rob. I became a fan of Eric's after seeing him in the Gregg Tribute. I felt his version of "Win, Lose or Draw" was one of the standouts of the whole thing. Then I caught him on Austin City Limits and promptly went out and got most of his CD's. I pretty much like everything because I feel he has a genuine honesty about him. The fact that he's a Tar Heel is just icing on the cake. I was going to suggest Chief which was his breakthrough record which contains the hits "Creepin'", "Springsteen" and "Drink In My Hand". However, upon further consideration pick up Eric's latest Mr. Misunderstood. He recorded it with his touring band who are really good. I especially like the drummer, Craig Wright. Susan Tedeschi duets with him on one song, "Mixed Drinks About Feelings. The title track and "Record Year" are the hits and they're good. I'm partial to "Round Here Buzz." Is it LAFE? Of course not, but it is something decent in this day and time by a guy credited with co-writing all the tunes. More power to him. Two FYI' s Jeff Cease original Black Crowes guitarist is in the band. And Jay Joyce is his long time producer. Jay if you'll remember produced the dtb's Grammy winning Songlines. One further Jay's brother Mike Joyce played bass in the Prisoners of Love, Jimmy Hall's band with Jack Pearson. Hope this helps and hope you enjoy.
Agree. Thought his version of WLOD was powerful. He put himself 100% into the song.
I'd love to help you Rob. I became a fan of Eric's after seeing him in the Gregg Tribute. I felt his version of "Win, Lose or Draw" was one of the standouts of the whole thing. Then I caught him on Austin City Limits and promptly went out and got most of his CD's. I pretty much like everything because I feel he has a genuine honesty about him. The fact that he's a Tar Heel is just icing on the cake. I was going to suggest Chief which was his breakthrough record which contains the hits "Creepin'", "Springsteen" and "Drink In My Hand". However, upon further consideration pick up Eric's latest Mr. Misunderstood. He recorded it with his touring band who are really good. I especially like the drummer, Craig Wright. Susan Tedeschi duets with him on one song, "Mixed Drinks About Feelings. The title track and "Record Year" are the hits and they're good. I'm partial to "Round Here Buzz." Is it LAFE? Of course not, but it is something decent in this day and time by a guy credited with co-writing all the tunes. More power to him. Two FYI' s Jeff Cease original Black Crowes guitarist is in the band. And Jay Joyce is his long time producer. Jay if you'll remember produced the dtb's Grammy winning Songlines. One further Jay's brother Mike Joyce played bass in the Prisoners of Love, Jimmy Hall's band with Jack Pearson. Hope this helps and hope you enjoy.
Thanks and I may just pick up Mr. Misunderstood. Interesting, Carolyn Wonderland released a great record years back called Miss Understood.
Can I call you Charles?
You can call me Ray. You can call me Jay. You can call me anything although I'm not fond of Shirley. 😉
Here is a follow up article from the Indy Star that has some more info about this.
It's legal in Indiana to resell concert tickets for more than face value, but that doesn't mean Eric Church endorses the practice.
The country star is making a splash by canceling tickets he believes are being resold on secondary-market websites. Church invalidated 25,000 tickets for upcoming dates on his "Holdin' My Own" tour, and that number doesn't include 600 tickets he yanked for Thursday's show at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
Fielding Logan, one of Church's managers at Q Prime South, said the "Drink in My Hand" singer is trying to prevent companies from taking advantage of fans.
Church has been an outspoken opponent of secondary-market vendors who buy tickets in bulk since he became a headlining attraction at large venues in 2012. To identify suspect transactions, his representatives look for patterns that match the buying habits of ticket brokers.
"After three tours and over 200 arena shows, we've identified approximately 10 criteria that let us know if someone is a scalper," Logan said in an email interview. "These tells, in combination with our gut instincts, have proven to be a pretty good system for rooting out bad actors."
For the Indianapolis concert, 600 tickets were returned to Ticketmaster.com on Jan. 26 to be sold at face value. The NBA arena's typical capacity for a concert is 18,000.
Logan said the per-show average for Church's invalidated tickets is 500. "We canceled as many as 1,200 on a single show and as few as 100," Logan said.
In a 2016 report, investigators in New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office cited a single broker that bought more than 1,000 tickets within one minute to a U2 concert at Madison Square Garden when tickets went on sale on Dec. 8, 2014, despite the original seller's claim of a four-ticket limit.
The Schneiderman report said resale tickets on sites such as StubHub and TicketsNow average margins of 49 percent above face value and sometimes more than 10 times the price.
Church told The Associated Press he is committed to keeping tabs on who buys his tickets.
"Our fans know that as long as we tour, we're going to do everything we can to make sure they pay face value for the ticket," he said.
Logan said the "Holdin' My Own" tour has reinstated about 1 percent of orders to fans who were mistakenly identified as secondary-market vendors.
As for the other 99 percent of buyers, Logan said refunds were automatically applied to credit cards.
"Ticket scalpers got their money back, and we would expect that scalpers would in turn refund their customers," he said. "But with ticket scalpers, you never know. Fans would have a strong case for contesting charges with their credit card company if they paid for something that the scalper didn’t deliver."
Everyone has a plan, till you get punched in the face,
