Six months after Bruce Springsteen’s 2023 tour tickets went on sale, the singer and songwriter continues to receive constant backlash over the high-priced shows.
According to Deadline, the tickets for Springsteen’s upcoming tour went as high as $5,000, which caused the events to be overreaching for many fans. Backstreets, the fan publication for Springsteen, announced that in protest of the high-price tickets it will but shutting down after nearly 50 years. The publication noted that while past disappointments have been the difficulty of getting tickets for Springsteen’s shows, the issue was rarely about money.
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Christopher Phillips, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief for Backstreets, spoke out about the publication’s shutdown amid Bruce Springsteen’s backlash. “Six months after the on-sales, we still faced this three-part predicament: These are concerts that we can hardly afford; that many of our readers cannot afford; and that a good portion of our readership has lost interest in as a result.”
Meanwhile, Bruce Springsteen has addressed the high-price ticket outrage and made no apologies for it. He told Rolling Stone in November that he has his tour organizers set up dynamic prices with what everyone else is doing. He also said they usually charge a little less than others as well. “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.”
Springsteen also admitted that ticket buying has become very confusing for not just fans but also for artists. But he said that the bottom line is that most of his show’s tickets are totally affordable. “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.”
Bruce Springsteen Speaks Out About Backstreets Ope-Ed About the Ticket Pricing Drama
As he spoke to Rolling Stone in November, Bruce Springsteen did address Backstreets’ ope-ed calling him out for the concert ticket pricing. The publication described the dynamic pricing approach Springsteen has as violating an implicit contract between the singer and his fans.
“I take a lot of things in stride,” Springsteen declared while laughing. “You don’t like to be criticized. You certainly don’t like to be the poster boy for high ticket prices. But that’s how it went.”
Bruce Springsteen then advised that everyone has to own up to the decisions they have and go out and just continue to do their best. “And that was my take on it. I think if folks come to the show, they’re going to have a good time.”
In regards to using dynamic pricing in the future, Springsteen added that he’s not sure how he will approach tickets. “I think in the future, we’ll be talking about it, of course [laughs]. It changes from tour to tour.”
