I wasn’t going to write this blog post but seeing as how my last post about Tool single-handedly gave me more page views in a single day than any other blog post, I feel I should write another one to keep the ball rolling.
Anyway, as you know, Tool released their first album in 13 years. Naturally they decided to go on tour. Tickets went on sale last Friday (last Wednesday if you are in their fan club and wanted VIP tickets.) Almost all the tickets sold out ASAP. Very very hard to buy. Well it turns out the demand for the Denver show was so strong that they decided to add a 2nd show. Tickets go on sale TODAY AT 10AM mountain time.
Price range will be $75-$150. So how is the first show reselling you ask? Take a look:
Yes, those $75 tickets were probably $100 after fees. They’re going for about $200 (call it about $170 or so net after fees.) And if you can somehow score in section BBB, those tickets are going for a cool $1,000 right now. Means those $200 all in tickets will net you about lets call it $850 take-home.
Now 2nd shows won’t do as well as first shows and this will also depress prices on the 1st show a bit, but this is as easy as it’ll get. Just be careful of any wording on WILL CALL or not being able to TRANSFER. Good luck!
Of course this post will trigger Tool fans and they won’t understand simple supply and demand economics. If the band would just price the tickets to market like $200-$700, then the scalpers won’t touch it. Oh that’s too expensive? Well it’s NOT since that’s the GOING MARKET RATE RIGHT NOW for the first show. If you don’t want to spend that money, another fan will!
If your counterargument is well they are being nice by selling tickets for cheap to “true fans,” then they are just asking to be scalped. What they should have done like many other bands is use unique pre-sale codes to their fan club membership and let them buy the tickets early (which they did, but they made them expensive VIP only.) If they had opened more seats to the fan pre-sale, then we’d be in the same predicament (scalpers would just join the fan club too.) They could have done like Metallica and base it on WHEN the fan joined meaning if the fan only joined in the last month, then they don’t get to buy since I’m sure a good majority of them are scalpers. Of course all this is complicated and we go back to the simple solution of – PRICE YOUR TICKETS TO MARKET (like Taylor Swift did.)