Kid Rock Urges Congress To Not “Be Fooled” By Those Hoping To Exploit Fans
“Testify, it’s a rock revival. Don’t need a suit, you don’t need a Bible.”
– Kid Rock’s “Rock N Roll Jesus”
Robert Ritchie, better known as Kid Rock, proved that he didn’t need a suit as he testified on Wednesday, Jan. 28, at the Senate Commerce Committee regarding event ticket sales.
Kid Rock was joined by Brian Berry, executive director of Ticket Policy Forum; Dan Wall, executive vice president for Corporate & Regulatory Affairs for Live Nation; and David Winegarden, chair and co-founder of the Colorado Independent Venue Association.
“If you were to ask any of my fellow Tennesseans what’s wrong with ticketing today, they will not hesitate to tell you that the system feels rigged against them,” said Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-TN, a member of the Senate Commerce Committee. “They follow the rules, they get in the queue so they can make a purchase … they do everything right, and then they watch the tickets vanish in seconds.”
She went on to add that “secondary markets” have the tickets at “three of four times the price. Of course, sometimes, these tickets on “secondary markets” are not even real.
The purpose of this hearing was to address ticket sales in America, and Kid Rock’s testimony was a highlight of the hearing.
Kid Rock Testifies
Sporting a cowboy hat and a quilted vest, Kid Rock was the first of the witnesses to deliver his testimony to the Senate Commerce Committee on Jan. 28.
“I’m proud to say I’ve been packing arenas, amphitheaters, and stadiums with the greatest fans on earth for over 25 years,” started Kid Rock. “I am also a capitalist.”
Continuing, he said, “I’m here today because I love God, I love this country, I love live music and sports, and I believe music fans and artists have been getting screwed for far too long by the ticketing system.”
Speaking on why he’s well-suited to testify on the subject of ticketing, Kid Rock stated:
“I’m in a unique position to testify because, unlike most of my peers, I am beholden to no one. No record companies, no managers, no corporate endorsements or deals — to put it plainly, I ain’t scared. I ain’t scared to speak out on these issues, like many artists, managers, and agents are, for fear of biting the hand that feeds them.”
Further, Kid Rock went on to say, “I’m here because hardworking Americans who love live music deserve better, and because artists deserve control over their own work.”
He went on to say that this ticketing issue “is older than timeouts and participation trophies.”
Looking to the record, he cited a 1994 hearing that members of the band Pearl Jam testified at, during which the band’s guitarist Stone Gossard described Ticket Master — which is presently the parent company of Live Nation — as having an “incestuous relationship” with promoters and venues, creating a monopoly.
Similarly, Kid Rock then cited a 2009 hearing, saying, “Congress was told under oath that merging Live Nation and Ticketmaster would benefit fans.”
Quoting Irving Azoff, then CEO of Ticketmaster, Kid Rock shared that Azoff told Congress of the merger “experiment,” saying it would “benefit artists, fans, theaters, sports teams, museums, and all the other facilities, performers, and spectators who use our services.”
Azoff went on to say, “The economic foundation that supported artists in the past is crumbling. Piracy is threatening their livelihood. Secondary ticketing is driving up prices for the fans with absolutely no benefit to the artist.”
Kid Rock then said of Azoff’s comments, “Needless to say, that experiment has failed miserably.“
Independent venues have been crushed, artists have lost leverage, fans are paying more than ever — and getting blamed for it.
Addressing the issue of Ticketmaster and Live Nation being merged, Kid Rock said the two companies should “probably” be broken up, but added, “Would that alone fix things? I’m not sure it would.”
Confidently, Kid Rock then declared, “But I am sure of this: no artist should be forced to sell their tickets without a say in who sells them and how they are sold.”
Comparing the music industry to any other business in America, Kid Rock said that “if artists had real choice, real competition would follow.”
Beyond that, he said that “tickets would end up in the hands of real fans,” with those tickets getting to them at the prices set by the artists.
“The truth is, much of this could have been, or still could be, solved through technology, especially proof-of-humanity tools,” Kid Rock said. “It hasn’t happened yet because there’s just too much money in the secondary ticket market.”
Kid Rock added, “Ticketing companies didn’t fail to stop this. It seems they chose not to.”
Overseas, Kid Rock explained, “resale prices are capped,” adding that it seems to be working.
He then said, “I’ve been advocating for a 10% price cap here in the States on the resale of a ticket, and, in fairness, Ticketmaster and Live Nation have supported this cap.”
Offering more than just concerns, Kid Rock then presented his solutions to the problem of ticketing costs and sources, stating:
- Artists should control who sells their tickets, and how;
- Resale ticket price caps work and protect real fans; and
- The BOTS Act should be enforced.
“Brokers and bad actors must be stopped, and all should face serious penalties and consequences,” said Kid Rock.
The BOTS Act, which is a clever acronym for Better Online Ticket Sales, “prohibits the circumvention of a security measure, access control system, or other technological control measure used online by a ticket issuer,” the Federal Trade Commission states.
“All-in pricing is great, but it doesn’t fix the system,” Kid Rock said. “Outlawing speculative ticketing is obvious. The problem is that ticketing lobbyists push these reforms as cover, while fighting to keep tickets in an ‘open market’ that lets them exploit fans under the guise of capitalism.”
Kid Rock urged Congress to not “be fooled by these tactics.”
Nearing the conclusion of his remarks, Kid Rock argued that the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster “wasn’t an experiment,” but rather “it was a monopoly dressed up as innovation.”
Closing out his testimony, he then quoted the band The Who, saying, “We won’t get fooled again.”
Watch Kid Rock’s full testimony, here:
See some of Pearl Jam’s testimony before Congress in 1994, here:
