Band seeks to give fervent fans a hand:Ticketmaster sparring with SCI Ticketing

By G. Brown, Denver Post Popular Music Writer, March 21, 2003

In thinking-of-the-fans fashion, the String Cheese Incident's enterprise includes an in-house travel agency and ticketing service, set up to help devotees who are going to great lengths to see their favorite band, even "international Incidents" in Mexico and Costa Rica.

According to Jason Mastrine, who came on board in 1998, "SCI Ticketing's motivation has always been to provide fans with an alternative to the high service fees and impersonal service of major ticket agencies."

But for the fifth-year anniversary of the String Cheese Incident's Mid-Winter Music Festival, which continues tonight and Saturday at the Fillmore Auditorium, SCI Ticketing had to buy tickets from Ticketmaster and resell them to fans. Ticketmaster is the exclusive ticket-sales agent at many of the entertainment venues in America, including the Fillmore.

Ticketmaster is saying SCI Ticketing doesn't have the right to sell tickets and put venues in violation of their Ticketmaster contracts. SCI Ticketing thinks the value of the ticket is dependent on the act playing.

"We believe it is the right of every artist to sell their own tickets, for without the artist there would be no tickets," Mastrine said.

Who owns the tickets in the first place? Standard industry thought holds that the inventory belongs to the venue. Each ticket is a temporary license for space in the venue, and the venue has the right to commission an exclusive agent. Ticketmaster stepped up to the plate many years ago, putting up a lot of money (seven figures in some cases) to tie up venues.

But in the last decade, competition to Ticketmaster's dominance has increased. The Grateful Dead started the idea of artist ticketing, working to make it easy for fans to get tickets to multiple dates and not have to contact multiple outlets. Neo-hippie jam bands started asking for a percentage of capacity to sell to their followings, up to 50 percent of available tickets.

Phish started a mail-order program. In 1997, the String Cheese Incident wanted to do the same thing - by phone. The Internet made it even easier, and the act was the first to go online with ticket sales for fans. SCI Ticketing even printed souvenir tickets, a loss leader. But it was also a way around Ticketmaster's "convenience" fees, which do not apply to such sales.

But when bands started selling 250,000 tickets a year, Ticketmaster came down on them. Last May, Ticketmaster sent a letter to venues and concert promoters around the country, claiming that artist holds for fan clubs violate Ticketmaster contracts. "Under the Ticketmaster system, all fans have an equal chance of getting good seats and Ticketmaster has a reputation for providing the "best available tickets.' Since your (holding back excessive amounts of tickets) are variably from the best seats in the house, Ticketmaster's inability to sell those seats damages Ticketmaster's reputation and injures the general public," the company's counsel explained.

Recently, SCI Ticketing was not able to offer tickets for any of King Crimson's Clear Channel-promoted concerts in major markets.

"There was a mandate attempting to require us to meet arbitrary 'fan club rules' in order to sell tickets," Mastrine said. "We are not willing to jump through those hoops. We'll continue to work for what we believe is right."

There haven't been legal proceedings since Pearl Jam swore off Ticketmaster during a summer tour back in 1994, trying to crack the ticketing giant's dominance in the concert business. By year's end, the corporation was more powerful than ever, but the Seattle rockers had given the company a public- relations nightmare by bringing some of the industry's back-room dealings into the light.

Mountain West Music 2003