The great Michael Jackson ticket scam

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

After the hoopla over Michael Jackson's demise last week, a thought was cast for the people actually putting on his audacious "get out of tax hell" series of concerts. The dancers, the set designers, the musicians, the bootleg t-shirt designers, the venue itself.

In order to claw some money back, the promoter is doing something really wrong. They're giving fans who bought tickets a choice - either a refund or a ticket. That's right - you can either get your £80ish plus all the service charges back, or get a souvenir ticket for the concert date and seat you would have had. The tickets will be a Michael Jackson design exclusive lenticular design, but it's a TICKET.

Of course, if tickets were bought from a third party, like ebay, etc. good luck seeing ANYTHING from that transaction.

The question then becomes how much is a useless concert ticket really worth? Many promoters and ticket issuers will say it's worth the £4-£10 service charge they add on to the price of the ticket and the promoters in this case would have been justified to offer the souvenir ticket for this fee giving the rest of the ticket price back as a refund.

However, I guess AEG and Ticketmaster believe that fans are paying £80ish for ticket and the concert just happens to be a free bonus. In that case, I'm glad to have seen all those free gigs and just wish I'd kept all the expensive bits of paper I'd bought.

This just has to be one of the worst cases of cashing in on celebrity death I've heard about in a long time.

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How we used to buy concert tickets before the internet

From a Newsweek archive piece of people buying tickets for the Jackson's 1984 Victory tour:

When newspapers containing the first official ticket order forms rolled off the presses in the early hours of June 19, fans were lined up to buy them. "It's ridiculous!" said disc jockey Roy Leonard, who has been following the Jackson craze for the Chicago radio station WGN: "People were stealing papers off other people's front lawns." When newspapers containing the first official ticket order forms rolled off the presses in the early hours of June 19, fans were lined up to buy them. "It's ridiculous!" said disc jockey Roy Leonard, who has been following the Jackson craze for the Chicago radio station WGN: "People were stealing papers off other people's front lawns."

Big Brother: As every newspaper thief soon learned, Michael's show was no easy mark. Anxious fans were instructed to mail a money order (four tickets for $120), with no guarantee of a specific date, a good seat—or even any tickets at all. Despite the stiff price and chancey prospects (tickets were to be randomly distributed), customers in Kansas City jammed into post offices to buy money orders—15,000 in one day.

Crazy! I remember having to line up outside Blue Moon Records in Port Huron, MI for Depeche Mode tickets back in 1989... with a TicketMaster imposed cash-only policy. Still, I didn't have to cut coupons from newspapers or post off money orders with NO guarantee of getting anything back.

Still $120 for 4 tickets for a top draw artist is a nice indication of the times. I imagine these days that price would be per ticket.