Viagogo gets feisty over new accusations; How much are Oasis tickets selling for?; UK anti-touting laws?; Sylvan Esso reluctantly back on Spotify; and more extreme weather show cancellations

0:02Hello there and welcome to The Price of Music, brought to you by Music Ally. If you want an easy guide to what's going on in the music industry and how it all works. And here we are looking at the finances of the music industry and bringing you all the stories and comments from the pop biz in the last week. As ever, he's Stuart Dredge, I'm Joe Sparrow and let's start, Stu, with a big number, something that's caught your eye this week. What is it this week? Yeah, my big number is 140 ,000. So, you know, a big-ish number. That's how many people who bought tickets to see Ed Sheeran play the Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts, but who didn't get to see him because the concerts were cancelled.

0:39and unexpectedly this has nothing to do with Israel, Palestine or cancellations of the culture wars kind. So now we talked about Ed Sheeran for a couple of weeks now and of course he, I was going to say, he stuck his oar into the whole Palestine situation. He had his oar stuck in there and he didn't respond. He was trying not to stick his oar in. Yeah, he was trying not to. It got stuck in and he sort of, I think everyone has agreed, did not deal with the situation well. But then, so of course, just to bring people up to speed in case you've been living under a rock for three weeks, then all of his support acts and his band pulled out.

1:20So he was there on his own on stage, which he's very competent at doing anyway. And then he went to play the stadium that was owned by Robert Kraft, this billionaire who was the source of all this palaver in the first place. And then it was canceled. Why was it canceled? It was cancelled due to weather. So there's a powerful, and I've got to say it's right, nor Easter storm. But basically this storm raging down the east coast of the United States the weekend. And they cancelled because they were like, this is not safe for anyone, fans, artists. And so the weather had its day. Yeah, I was going to say, I'm sort of dancing around the phrase act of God here.

2:00You wouldn't be careful saying act of God. Yeah, well, I mean, so you mentioned Robert Kraft. he's the guy who he's a billionaire he owns a gillette stadium he owns a new england patriots i think it is isn't it it's new england patriots something like that um and he had basically said we're not going to have macklemore on the bill the gigs won't go on if you have him on the bill as it turned out the weather was like hold my fear the concerts will not go on because i'm gonna which is this weird thing i think where people i think people have been very invested in this we tempted to go hurrah that's karma um on robert craft ed sheeran but yeah when i was writing this up i was more like and this this happened on the weekend at the same time as the global citizen festival in new york was cancelled because of the same storms and then all things go a big new york festival was cancelled and it just felt like a weekend where rather than celebrating a billionaire getting its ass his ass handed to him by the weather it's more time to to worry again about extreme weather, the climate emergency.

2:58I mean, it's weird to sort of say, to focus just on the effects on live music, because its effect is going to be in all kinds of other ways, too. But this is one of the places we'll feel it first. Yeah, live events, isn't it? Well, there's been a bunch of festivals. I mean, I think there was Bonnaroo in the US Festival. That was hit by weather, and it's taking a fallow year next year. Puma Burress Sound in Europe, Governor's Ball in New York. I think they had to end the day early. This is becoming more common. And I'm always wary of saying this feels like it's happening more often, so it's a big trend, because you really need to apply science and data to climate issues.

3:33No, this is a vibes-based podcast, Stu. We don't use data. But it's true. I think people are talking about this more. There was this letter recently in the UK where artists said, look, live music is vulnerable to extreme weather, and we lose earnings, and it's unsafe if you go on. So that's my takeaway. It's not so much about haha, Ed Sheeran. it's about this has been a year of big, big music events being cancelled or disrupted by extreme weather and we've still got this, what's it called? Super Maga El Nino to come so who knows what's going to happen to events in the next six or eight months My takeaway is that it is a little bit haha Ed Sheeran and Robert Kraft because this is giant karma but yeah I mean, we've spoken about this before, and I can actually unite both stories, the climate story and the Palestine story in Ed Sheeran.

4:32I watched a very good interview this week with Brian Eno, who was asked basically about the Ed Sheeran situation, and he had probably the most calm and nuanced take that I've heard, a thoughtful take that I've heard yet, which is, you know, he was saying Ed Sheeran did not deal with this well but why are we talking so much about Ed Sheeran when you know we're not talking about Robert Kraft and the people who have this enormous outside power making these decisions in the first place but you know and he was quite nuanced with this he said you know Ed Sheeran he says he had sympathy or empathy at least for Ed Sheeran and saying that like you know it turns out that Ed Sheeran played at Robert Kraft's wedding and he's been put in a position where he's been sort of forced to choose between personal relationships and his ethics.

5:22And Brian Eno said, look, that's really, really difficult. He should have done it better, but it's very difficult. And of course, Brian Eno as well is the founder of Earth Percent, the climate and music charity. And they were the ones that released that statement you mentioned about events being cancelled and us feeling the effects of climate change. So I'll put a link. I do think Ed Sheeran is more likely to learn from this whole frog of the Robert Kraft. Oh, yes. Robert Craft will be like, I have the great thing. Ed Sheeran is obviously quite penitent and is going away and think and listen. So I think out of all this, I know which one of them, the two, is going to probably take lessons and, you know, learn.

6:02No doubt. And Brian said basically that as well. He said he's confident he'll go away and it will cause change on Ed Sheeran's outlook and we'll see the impact of that. whether that will result in, you know, Ed Sheeran's version of, you know, something extremely provocative like London Calling or not. I don't know. But we'll see. Let's go on to the big stories this week. And we've got a bit of a focus on ticket touting or ticket scalping, depending on how you want to call it. And in the UK, this is a sort of local story which has, I think, gives us a sort of lens to look at the wider picture. Secondary ticketing firm Viagogo is having its latest public argument in the UK with the anti-touting group Fanfare Alliance.

6:47And I will say, Stu, that it's taken me this long reporting on Fanfare Alliance to get the pun in the name Fanfare. Because it's Fanfare, F-A-I-R, but they're making a fanfare as in a big noise. And it's taken me three years, folks. Apologies. and it's all about Manchester, which of course is a big music city and they're not disagreeing about whether Oasis are better than the Stone Roses, which they are. But what's this all about, Stu? So Fanfare Alliance have been long-time campaigners against ticket-tating and they're long-time opponents of companies like Via Gogo. They tangle a lot. And they publish support on the eve of the Labour Party conference, so the ruling party here in the UK.

7:27And it was focusing on grassroots venues in the Manchester area. and I think they looked at 13 venues and found there were about 1 ,600 ticket listings on Via Gogo for these gigs some of which were just absurd markups like nearly£6 ,000 for a gig by someone at like a 1 ,200 capacity venue so it was essentially saying these secondary platforms it's not just about a big stadium and arena gigs look at what's happening with grassroots tickets too this is bad and this was all released with the intention of getting politicians to wake up to it because everyone this week has been saying, will the UK government crack down on ticket touting and secondary ticketing?

8:05So this report came out and then Veagogo actually really quickly sent out this statement, aggressively refusing them, saying this isn't true. One of the points they made was you shouldn't think about what price tickets are listed for because they might not sell. And if they're absurdly priced, they definitely won't sell. Claiming that actually tickets for grassroots venues do sell for much closer to the asking price. and really going in on fanfare and saying, these people are bad and wrong and we don't like them, in a way that was more personal than I've ever seen before. Like this argument, this debate about ticketing is really getting quite heated between the people who want companies like Virgo to be cracked down on and the companies saying, no, we're not bad guys.

8:49Yeah. It feels like it's one of those stories where it's about working to the letter of the law rather than working to the spirit of it. And I think that people hate ticket markups. They just don't like it. They don't like to think they could have bought a ticket for£175 and now they have to pay a lot more. But of course that's legal and you can do it. So these secondary ticket firms are saying, well, we're not doing anything wrong. and the argument of fanfare is saying that this is a moral sort of problem, isn't it, in a sense. And that often, if you challenge someone's morals, they get a bit uppity about it.

9:31They do. And the other thing that fanfare is making is this point that it's not fans who can't go to see Mika Miller at New Century Hall selling their tickets to someone else. Like I said, they reckon it was these high-volume kind of professional traders. It's report claimed, I think it identified three that were responsible for a huge proportion of tickets at these venues and then virgo came back saying no they're not and it appeared they were trying different things virgo analyzed all manchester venues whereas pamper was only just 13 so again they're arguing about the kind of the data in kind of apples and oranges ways but yeah the basic discussion here is it's trying to move the debate onto it's not just about taylor swift harry styles tickets it's about grassroots venues too and this is money being drained out of the grassroots ecosystem by professional touts with the kind of knowledge of these platforms.

10:24And Virgo is pushing back on this, but that is essentially what Fanfare is saying is it's not just a big stadium gigs thing. Yeah, it's worth reading because I have no doubt that, you know, you can make arguments about the veracity of the data and how they can put together and depending on your point of view. But there really is listings for, I think one of the events was an interview with Mike Joyce from the Smiths. And the tickets are on sale for a reason, what I would expect that to be on the sale for. And there was a huge speculative markup. And the suggestion here is this is just people gaming the system and saying, well, here's a huge price.

11:06And if you buy it, I'll go and find a ticket somehow and get it to you. and it feels to me a little bit like I know this is not fraud because it is legal but it feels a little bit like the rationale behind music streaming fraud which you've talked about before which is fraudsters will try and gain money out of music streaming because it's the path of least resistance they can put$2 ,000 in they'll get$4 ,000 out so it almost feels like ticketing is operating in this space there is a problem here I think which is that One of the things that is possibly happening, we'll talk about that in a minute, is there may be a cap on all this.

11:44You won't be able to resell tickets for more than you paid for them. And the idea of this being a market where it's just fans who've bought tickets selling them if they can't go. Now, the problem with that is, and we can talk about Oasis, for example, all their gigs sold out in less than a day. And where there is something that is hugely in demand and where tickets are scarce, there'll be people trying to sell them for loads of money more than they pay for them. And so, in a sense, and I'm not coming in on either side here, but one of the arguments we go is like, this should be, if you make this legal, rather than have it a complete black market where you don't know what's happening, and people will be being distorted.

12:22So, those are the arguments. But there's a middle ground argument, isn't there? There's a middle ground argument, which you mentioned at the start, which is regulation and legislation can be somewhere along the scale, and we could say, okay, yeah, you can resell your ticket, but you can't sell it for more than 10 % than what you paid for it. And that would immediately stop this speculative, you know, everybody hates the idea of queuing to try and get an Oasis ticket or whatever, knowing that there's organized operations out there, snapping up hundreds of them to sell on at hugely inflated prices.

12:59That isn't, like, the law is the law, right? But then there's also the spirit of it. And it would be easy enough to say, right, if you're found selling it over 10%, okay, it'll be driven underground. Good. Now it's really illegal. So we'll find you out. And that's the job of law enforcement. The curious thing here, there is a curious thing here, which is that I think you're right. I think the sentiment on music fans is we hate this idea that professional touts are getting tickets for us. And so if you're a Villagogo, public sentiment is you're going to struggle with that. At the same time, we are the people who are going onto sites like Villagogo because we want to go into Oasis and paying this money.

13:37so we are their customers even if we're outraged at them being allowed to the people on their platform allowed to do it so it's a weird it's an interesting situation i think we're going to talk now about the government is the person in charge of the person the government is the entity in charge of saying listening to all this and going right we need to set some rules so that it's not just a moral argument there is a clear this is what's legal this is what isn't you're in trouble if you don't do it we'll talk a little bit more about oasis tickets in the lock-in later folks which is the bit that follows the main podcast for our Patreon superfans.

14:11And you can become a superfan for the price of one beer a month. You get access to another 20 to 25 minutes or so of chat every week after the main podcast ends. You'll find a link in the podcast below. And we'll talk about this next thing a bit more as well. But I am on the Via Gogo website right now, looking at the price of Oasis tickets at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester. and, you know, nosebleed seats in the worst possible position are about 250 quid. And if you want to stand in front of the stage, it's beginning at about 350 quid, which is way above the original ticket price. And it's saying there's only 3 % of the tickets they have are left.

14:55But there's tickets available all around the ground. So I do wonder how many tickets have been bought per show. that this is just for one show that allows you to see. I think people just don't like it. And if there was a cap on it and you said, okay, you can have the tickets at 10 % more of the original price for people who honestly can't go or don't need them anymore, people would still go to Viagogo. They'd still pay their Viagogo fees or whichever fees for whichever site. I feel like people just, I mean, we've said it before, people don't want it, do they? The thing I think, you know, Viagogo, Twickets, these are both secondary platforms one has a worse reputation than the other it's the professional touts i want to i would love to kick out people who just go and buy tickets and so like i just fair enough they're exploiting this loophole exists but i'm behind i think we'd all be more than happy to see them power business and then maybe the ego has a business a platform for a legal resale or not we don't know but yeah i don't think anyone is really really here batting for the touts apart from those platforms at the moment no and and that brings us on that moves us geographically to our next story, 30 miles to the west of Manchester, where the UK's ruling Labour Party is having its conference in Liverpool.

16:11And on Monday this week, the Creative Industries Minister, Ian Murray, promised the attendees that the UK government would speed through, quote, a long-promised crackdown on ticket outs quicker than we initially intended. Now, we spoke about this in the days of yore when formerly of this parish, Steve Lamack was here. And he was sort of incensed under the previous Labour government led by Sir Keir Starmer that while promises had been made in the past that the government would crack down on secondary ticketing, it had sort of been kicked into the long grass. and now it's being pulled out of that long grass under this new version of the Labour government and they're saying they're going to do something about it sooner.

17:00So that's a switcheroo. What's going on here and how much do we believe that something's going to happen? Well, I want to go to the exact quote here. So I've interviewed Ian Murray. He's a creative industries minister. So he is the guy who's dealing with a lot of stuff related to the music industry. And I've interviewed him twice. He seems like a nice man. He talks like a normal person, not like a weird politician robot. And he seems to have the right... So nothing against him here. But what his exact quote was, right, we've got the draft bill, for a second, coming as quickly as possible. So that's the first bit.

17:32As quickly as possible, what is the things that make that? Waiting for the AI to finish writing it. That's what he means. It'll be 15 seconds. And then he said, I am hopeful we'll be able to progress that quicker than we initially intended. so I am hopeful and quicker than we initially intended and you're like well there's a lot of very careful language in there that means well what straight away soon this year next year it's it's it's one of those things where he was in a room full of people in the music industry going sort out ticketing and he was essentially saying we would like to do this but it's not a cast I am promised and it's not a firm date and so with that in mind I'm kind of wary of the music industry has put this out like I have press releases from the music industry saying look they said they're going to speed it up and everyone's very happy about that and I'm hopeful I'm hopeful like Ian Murray that's true but I want to see the I want to see the legislation I want to see the timetable before I get carried away because that's how you get disappointed you say well they said they'd do it and then something else happens and another bill takes precedence.

18:38I guess it's a statement of intent isn't it and whereas the previous government made a clear statement of intent, which is we're punting this into the long grass, come see us in a few years. And now they're saying, oh, well, we're kind of moving a bit closer to where we are now on the timeline. I agree. It's, you know, it's vague and who knows, but at least from the industry, I'm sure the people in the UK music industry are thinking, well, at least now we've got a stick to beat him with if this gets knocked back into the long grass. And I think that's why they will press release it straight away.

19:08They want to have it on the record. But it's one of those things where life comes at you fast. Like Donald Trump could do something tomorrow that throws everything to chaos and they have to do all kinds of, you know. So I think, yeah, it's a good sign. I mean, we have a government that's talking about very much from a fan's point of view on a lot of things. Yeah. Not just this people's point of view. And so, yeah, their hearts in the right place. But yeah, the next thing is, well, when is this draft bill to clamp down coming? and how long will it take to get through? And also, when there's a draft bill, it can be changed.

19:44And it can be changed by politicians who've been lobbied by all kinds of people. So, you know, you can have a draft, but it looks really great. And then at the last minute, some change gets whacked in that makes it really not good. So again, until there's this bill, until it goes through, until everyone is looking at it going, yeah, that's great. That's exactly what we wanted. And now it's been signed into law. I just think everyone should be a little bit, not wary, but everyone should be just not throwing all their kind of champagne. I mean, I guess there's a bigger point to be made here, which is, well, maybe two bigger points.

20:16One is this new UK Labour government under Andy Burnham is making they're trying to show like you said, that they are for the people. You know, there's all this stuff going on. He's being I think a little bit canny in the way he's picking projects to speed through and make a song and dance about, renationalisation of various local water industries and railways and stuff like that, which I think, you know, under the sort of the idea that it's for working people and makes things better, we'll wait and see what happens there. And this is another one of those things. Of course, he is the music loving Prime Minister, as we discussed last week in the lock-in.

20:55And, you know, there's a wider picture here as well, isn't it about expectations versus reality in a sort of very febrile environment of saying we want it now and what what's the we want a firm answer right now and we want it defined clearly and that is not how life or politics works so at least i guess this is soft steps isn't it towards an environment where at least people in the music industry perhaps can say right well now you've said that we're going to put pressure on you and you're going to have to do something and we'll know which which way you're going to fold and i know i was saying this chap here murray who's in charge of this he seems like like i've interviewed twice you know short interviews you can't really get the measure of person but he seems to be he seems to be focused on on what he wants to do so yeah i'm hopeful but like him hopeful but again yeah don't don't get don't everyone get too excited until it's actually there on the statute books don't get the fireworks out it's it's a little bit like when you hear rumors about a footballer signing for your favorite club and And essentially, having been around that particular roller coaster many times, until I see a photograph of the player in question wearing the club's shirt, holding a scarf under the main stand of the football stadium, I just won't believe it.

22:06Hugh Jackman is purportedly investing in Norwich City. But until I'm seeing Wolverine on the pitch, waving his wallet, again, I'm not going to get my hopes up. Kissing the badge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's an exciting development. okay um let's move away from ticketing uh to uh more pesky um uh major businesses as as seen by uh one artist in particular sylvan esso quit spotify last year took the music off the platform in protest at now let me get this right daniel ek is the former ceo he's the chairman i think he's the executive chairman now but he was the ceo at the time he was the ceo at the time of Spotify.

22:48He's now sort of one step higher overlord. And he personally has a company that has invested, and I checked this, $666 million or euros in defense technology, which means drones and things that kill people, or can be used to kill people. And Silva and Esso didn't like that, so they took the music off in protest. Now they're back on the platform, even though Daniel Ek is still fully invested in this type of weapon technology. What's going on here? Because this feels like one of those stories like, you know, we're talking about principles with Ed Sheeran. What's happening here? Yeah, well, essentially, they spent a year off Spotify and realized that it was just unsustainable for them.

23:40They're losing their access to the revenue from the streams. Basically, it was Amelia, who's one of ZU NSO, said, we want to pay our touring crew, we want to pay the people who work for us and with us. And we don't think we can do that if we're not on Spotify. Which was interesting. And she basically put this video, setting this out and saying, you know, essentially saying, fans, look, I hope you understand why we're doing this, but our views, she said, our views haven't changed. We don't want to support the business of war. And she said, I'd rather you didn't listen to our music on there, please don't.

24:11So essentially what it's saying is it's not about their core fans he's like please listen to us in other ways but the wider reach that an artist needs to sustain their touring career sustain their revenues um and this has happened before i think i think it was neil young was off amazon and then back on amazon and he said i can't not be on this platform so i'm back on was at spotify i think as well um yeah and it's literally his point where i think boycotting Spotify is something that makes headlines, but the realities of it are very difficult.

24:49And a lot of those boycotts kind of return quietly and hope no one notices. But in this case, she just fronted up and said, look, this is why, hope you understand. You know, we still have the thin views. We're sort of tying a few of our threads together in this one story, which is, one, ethics and morals and politics are complicated and and perhaps not always you know they're not finite and you have to make movement around them and you learn as you go forward um sticking by your ethics is a good thing until it no longer works in the world in which you live um and i think we can have a lot of sympathy for sylvanesso here because they they made a they made a clear statement um and and now they're making another clear statement about the reality of being in an artist operating in the modern environment.

25:36And I mean, you know, it makes me think, you know, they put the music back on and, you know, will all those, I guess they're looking to get those algorithmic plays, you know, where they get put on playlists and people hear it without choosing it. And they're asking their fans not to stream on Spotify and stream somewhere else. But they kind of need those passive plays to get some money coming in to pay, to do all the stuff they need to do as an artist. Yeah. They had quite a few listeners when they went off last year. They got 627 ,000 monthly listeners. So, you know, like a decent mid-range independent fan base.

26:11Not insignificant. And just as a reminder for all of you out there, if you get on a platform like Spotify, if you get a million streams, it generates a sort of gross figure of about£4 ,000 to£5 ,000 of money, which then gets split between everybody. so there's a significant amount of money they could have lost out on and it clearly is because they're going back on the platform and it's a weird thing because there's so much nuance to this whole this whole area anyway so one element nuances obviously danielek was spotify's ceo his investment company invested in this company housing spotify didn't but yeah so it's not spotify investing in arms it's the the man who founded it using the money he made from spotify to invest in arms.

26:54So there's a level of removal there, in a sense. Spotify itself is not investing. And even when it comes to Helsing, this is a company that, I did some digging into this last year when this all broke out. And it's a company where it goes, we don't sell to non-democracies. And actually, we're being used a lot by Ukraine. Which, to a lot of people, is like, Ukraine using drones to defend itself against Russia, is that a good use of arms? Like, there's even nuance in terms of the actual defense technology company. So everything is so murky and grey. And as an artist, I empathise with the feeling of, I don't want to support weapons of war.

27:31At the same time, I can't sustain my career and pay everyone around me. It's very complicated. It's like the Ed Sheeran and the Israel-Palestine story. There's levels of nuance at every stage. And it can be hard to make a big swinging statement that is, you know, sustainable. It's difficult. It reminds me a little bit of the story we talked about a few weeks ago, and it was about artists pulling out of festivals because the festival was owned by a bigger festival promotion company, which also had an investor from a major private equity company who also had involvements in occupied territories in Palestine, right?

28:15So there was lots of levels of removal, and they just didn't want to be associated with a company owned by a company owned by a company that did that. And I guess that's sort of a similar thing here. I think, and it's complex. It is. And we can all sort of agree that war is bad, right? But before we get to the point of there being no wars, there will be weapons and there will be conflict. And how involved do we as individuals want to be with that in the choices we make? And that's this very difficult path that Sylvan SOR. And I think the main thing here is they have just been open with their fans all the way along.