Bieber Ticket Docs Revealed

The inescapable conclusion? The Biebs is a scalper.

Now, that may not come as a surprise to most in the concert industry. But the details of just how few face-value tickets were actually available to the public at the general onsale can’t have gone down well with the singer’s fans – the final consumers.

For instance, of 13,783 total tickets available for a Jan. 18 concert at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, the documents show that a scant 1,001 tickets went on sale to the public unencumbered by holds.

That means a lot of pissed-off moms weren’t able to successfully complete Ticketmaster’s onsale for those precious tickets – at least not at the advertised prices.

“If I had known there were only actually a thousand tickets available that morning, I probably wouldn’t have spent the time,” Amanda McDowell, one such mom, told Nashville’s WTVF-TV.

Reporter Phil Williams, who has previously covered the state of concert ticket resales, acquired documents – posted at the TV station’s website – detailing who got what tickets in the form of holds, and compared them to tickets available via TicketsNow – Ticketmaster’s secondary outlet.

According to the hold instructions posted on the website, nearly 6,000 tickets went to American Express customers at presale. Another 3,000 went to members of Bieber’ fan club who paid for the privilege. The tour held out another 500 for Ticketmaster’s “platinum exchange” programs and 900 more for “VIPs.”

Some 3,200 tickets were held for others, including Bieber, his record label, AEG, CAA, and for other promotional purposes.

Of those, WTVF discovered the entire Row G was allocated to Bieber’s tour organization. And at least 14 of those tickets – from Section 205, Row G – were for sale at TicketsNow for $256 each. Three more tickets in the row were available for $216.

WTVF showed the documents, without reporting how it obtained them, to Dean Budnick, author of “Ticket Masters: The Rise of the Concert Industry and How the Public Got Scalped” and editor of Relix, who joked that the documents bear out the book’s subtitle.

“I think there is no question when one looks at the documents that Bieber is scalping his own tickets,” Budnick told WTVF. “I think if one takes a deeper look at the situation and the context, one can understand why he’s doing it. But nonetheless that is what’s going on.”

And it is understandable, from a business perspective, that an artist might see the money scalpers are hauling in and decide not to leave that money on the table. But from a public-relations standpoint, artists risk being seen as greedy rather than as economically astute by their fans.

Bieber isn’t the only superstar to come through Nashville and leave fans in the cold. WTVF also obtained documents showing that three years ago, only about 1,600 tickets were left for Taylor Swift fans at her 2009 Nashville show and, the same year, only 389 tickets out of a 15,000 capacity were available for an advertised $20 ticket promotion at a Keith Urban show.