Bruce Springsteen took a lot of flack recently for the cost of his ticket prices.
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Springsteen, confident about what he and his E Street Band offer concertgoers, even went as far as saying, “If there’s any complaints on the way out, you can have your money back.”
But now, according to his website, The Boss is giving fans a chance to get in on the action, even if they can’t make the shows along his 2023 tour, or if they can’t afford to go. He’s set to offer recordings of every upcoming live show to those interested via CDs and downloads.
Packages range from $299.99 to $699.99.
Said Springsteen on his website, “We’re excited to announce that official multi-track audio recordings from every concert on the upcoming Springsteen & E Street Band tour will be professionally mixed by Jon Altschiller, and made available promptly after each show!”
He added, “With this announce and for a limited time, we’re offering a heavily discounted tour package for the 31-show US tour that launches in February, and the 31-show European leg that starts in April. … The tour discounts end on January 1st, and all tour pre-orders before then will receive limited-edition numbered sets.”
Speaking to Rolling Stone earlier this winter, Springsteen said of his ticket prices, “What I do is a very simple thing. 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.”
In the interview, Springsteen admitted that ticket pricing has become very confusing for fans and the artists, but that most tickets are still more modest in price.
“Ticket buying has gotten very confusing, not just for the fans, but for the artists also, and the bottom line is that most of our tickets are totally affordable,” said Springsteen. “They’re in that affordable range. We have those tickets that are going to go for that [higher] price somewhere anyway.
“The ticket broker or someone is going to be taking that money,” he continued. “I’m going, ‘Hey, why shouldn’t that money go to the guys that are going to be up there sweating three hours a night for it?’ It created an opportunity for that to occur. And so at that point, we went for it. I know it was unpopular with some fans, but if there’s any complaints on the way out, you can have your money back.”
Springsteen, who recently released a covers album of soul classics, Only the Strong Survive, went on to say that he didn’t want to be the “poster boy” for high ticket prices, but he wanted to own up to his decision. “It’s the last thing you prefer to be, but that’s how it went,” said Springsteen. “You have to own the decisions you have made and go out and just continue to do your best.”
When Springsteen tickets initially went on sale during the summer of 2022, many customers were left outraged at the exorbitant pricing. The ticket prices were a result of the “dynamic pricing” model used by Ticketmaster, which automatically adjusts the cost of tickets based on supply and demand in real-time.
The U.S. leg of Springsteen’s tour will kick off on February 1 in Tampa, Florida, and wrap up on April 14 in Newark, New Jersey. Springsteen and the E Street band will then head to Europe for the next series of dates, running April 28 through July 25.
Fans can pre-order those shows HERE and see the list of shows below.
The package includes the 31 shows below:
- 2023/02/01 Tampa, FL
- 2023/02/03 Atlanta, GA
- 2023/02/05 Orlando, FL
- 2023/02/07 Hollywood, FL
- 2023/02/10 Dallas, TX
- 2023/02/14 Houston, TX
- 2023/02/16 Austin, TX
- 2023/02/18 Kansas City, MO
- 2023/02/21 Tulsa, OK
- 2023/02/25 Portland, OR
- 2023/02/27 Seattle, WA
- 2023/03/02 Denver, CO
- 2023/03/05 Saint Paul, MN
- 2023/03/07 Milwaukee, WI
- 2023/03/09 Columbus, OH
- 2023/03/12 Uncasville, CT
- 2023/03/14 Albany, NY
- 2023/03/16 Philadelphia, PA
- 2023/03/18 University Park, PA
- 2023/03/20 Boston, MA
- 2023/03/23 Buffalo, NY
- 2023/03/25 Greensboro, NC
- 2023/03/27 Washington, DC
- 2023/03/29 Detroit, MI
- 2023/04/01 New York, NY
- 2023/04/03 Brooklyn, NY
- 2023/04/05 Cleveland, OH
- 2023/04/07 Baltimore, MD
- 2023/04/09 Elmont, NY
- 2023/04/11 Elmont, NY
- 2023/04/14 Newark, NJ
Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for SUFH
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