Most people reading these words might shrug and ask "who?" if they hear the name Eric Church. But it's not who he is but what he's doing that should make you care.
First, let's level set. He's a popular country artist -- with even a little crossover rock appeal (his biggest tune is "Springsteen", evident of his love for you-know-who) -- and he's capable of selling out arenas. His shows have achieved a sort of rock-level reverance among country fans, offering two sets of music that often push past the three hour mark.
Let's say he's fan-friendly in a way that should be familiar to many of you.
This friendliness extends to ensuring that his fans pay the face value price on the ticket to his shows.
We've already explored how artists, if they wanted, could make on-sales more consumer friendly -- opting out of the routine pre-sales, hold-backs, and self-scalped tickets that exist for the majority of acts. For the extent of this, check out the graphics via the New York's Attorney General's Office a the bottom of this post.
But Church is also willing to go the extra mile. For his upcoming 60 city tour, he's actually cancelled 25,000 tickets being offered on secondary markets and is returning them to the primary market.
"We're getting better at identifying who the scalpers are. Every artist can do this, but some of them don't. Some of them don't feel the way I feel or are as passionate," Church says.
Them's fighting words. The implication is clear -- if Church and his team can do this, the option is open to any band if they cared enough about the issue.
Granted, perhaps this isn't a priority for your favoite band. Perhaps because it's time consuming. It has been reported that Church's management uses proprietary software to identify purchases that are red-flagged as resellers.
Or maybe they are enjoying a portion of that enhanced revenue stream on the secondary market.
But possibly others are standing pat with their existing relationships they have with their fans. Eric is looking at his most loyal folks as those who should be looking out for the most -- creating a bond that will stay with him for years beyond this tour.
There's guys out there that want to come to a show and bring their family to a show and are working a blue-collar job, they were there for us in bars and clubs, so I should raise to $100 because that's what the scalpers think? I refuse to believe that.
Church has also done unconventional things, like directly sending his latest release to 80,000 fans on his list.
His message to scalpers is a little cornball country, but he makes clear he is taking ownership of his most loyal consumers. “You come at us, we’re going to go after you in return. You come after our fans? Well, let’s just say we see you, we know how you are, and we’re coming for you with 10x the vengeance.”
