Jack Antonoff is often not afraid to confront the problems in the music industry.
“While we are having the discussion, can venues simply stop taxing merch of artists? This is literally the only way you make money when you start out touring,” the producer wrote when the internet was shedding light on the problematic nature of Ticketmaster.
At the Grammys last night (February 5), he talked more about the concert ticket messes. With the recent Taylor Swift Eras Tour fiasco, Antonoff talked about it to the press to remind people that it’s not the fault of the artist and that “everyone’s trying to figure it out.”
Read what he said below.
“The whole thing is incredibly tough. There’s no reason why — if I can go online and buy a car and have it delivered to my house, why can’t I buy a f*cking ticket at the price that the artist wants it to be? So it’s that simple. And you know the reason why. It’s not ’cause of artists. So the one thing that I would say while holding a microphone is everybody’s got to chill on the artists. Because everyone’s trying to figure it out. We know who’s making it impossible.
Look, I’ve asked very simple things of the industry. Let artists opt out of dynamic pricing. Stop taxing merch, and let artists sell tickets at a price that they actually believe. Don’t turn a live show into a free market. That’s really dirty. Charge what you think is fair. But if for one person $50 is nothing, and one person $50 is more than they could ever spend, you’re creating a situation where a different group can come together at one price. The second everything fluctuates is the second that everything goes K-shaped and turns into a weird free market. That’s not what we do.”
