September 21, 2019

Black Keys Concert Turns Into Ticket Mayhem

The Black Keys perform live during the 2014 Turn Blue tour at the United Center in Chicago.Daniel DeSlover/ZUMA

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Last night the Black Keys performed at the Wiltern Theater in LA and there was a problem: fans who bought tickets from third-party vendors like StubHub were turned away. There was massive pointing of fingers over this, with TicketMaster saying everyone knew the tickets were nontransferable while the third-party guys said TicketMaster changed the rules 40 minutes before showtime. It was a mess. But being the pedantic nerd that I am, this is what jumped out at me:

Hundreds of fans who purchased tickets from usually reliable third-party vendors, such as StubHub, SeatGeek and Vivid Seats, had the same experience….A representative for the band and Ticketmaster said everyone who purchased a ticket through Ticketmaster or the band’s fan page got in. The concert was well-attended, with 97% of the 1,850-seat venue full.

So according to TicketMaster, there were only 55 empty seats. But according to the Times, “hundreds” of fans were turned away. This doesn’t add up unless duplicate tickets were sold, but the story doesn’t suggest that anything like this happened. It was all just a big communications cockup.

Maybe so. But this is one pedantic nerd who’d be curious to do a deeper dive into this to find out what really happened. The third-party vendors are all refunding the ticket prices to their customers, so it’s hard to see what motivation they would have had to cheat in the first place. Maybe something else was going on?

CORRECTION: Black Keys, not Black Flag. Black Keys, not Black Flag…

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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