After ticket flap, Springsteen’s fan magazine shutting down
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Digital Subscription
One year of digital access for only $205*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/02/2023 (1337 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
NEW YORK (AP) — A magazine and website that has served Bruce Springsteen’s fans for 43 years is shutting down, with its publisher writing that he’s been disillusioned by the debate over ticket prices for their hero’s current tour.
Backstreets had been an unusually robust publication that imposed journalistic rigor on its writing and photography, while leaving no doubt of its fan worship.
But the complaints about high ticket prices left people there “dispirited, downhearted and yes, disillusioned,” publisher Christopher Phillips wrote late last week in a post announcing the shutdown.
“Disappointment is a common feeling among hardcore fans in the Backstreets community,” he wrote. Phillips did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
Springsteen’s manager, Jon Landau, said that “we are very sorry to hear the news of Backstreets closing and want to thank Chris Phillips for his 30 years of dedication on behalf of Springsteen fans everywhere. “
There was an uproar among some Springsteen fans when tickets first went on sale last summer, particularly over Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing model, which sent tickets soaring to $5,000 or more when there was high demand. At a congressional hearing last month following the fiasco over Ticketmaster’s handling of Taylor Swift tour tickets, U.S. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana suggested major artists like Springsteen and Swift should demand fee caps.
Springsteen’s team has defended the prices as being in line with what is charged today by many of his peers. Like many artists, he says he’s annoyed when unscrupulous ticket brokers — not the musicians — benefit from high markups.
Ticketmaster has said the vast majority of fans were able to buy tickets at face value, which averaged $202. The tour began Feb. 1 in Tampa, Florida.
Many Springsteen fans have been with him for decades, appreciating his working class New Jersey roots, and can remember when a ticket for a four-hour, high-energy show on the “Darkness on the Edge of Town” tour in 1978 could be had for $7.50.
That’s not reality anymore. Springsteen hasn’t backed down, telling Rolling Stone magazine that fans unhappy with the price after seeing the show can have their money back.
“You certainly don’t like to be the poster boy for high ticket prices,” he told the magazine, but said you have to own your decisions and do your best.
Phillips wrote that many Backstreets readers have lost interest because they can’t afford to go to the show.
He said he hadn’t given up on being a fan of Springsteen’s music, and that others shouldn’t, either.
“We simply realized that we would not be able to cover this tour with the drive and sense of purpose with which we’ve operated continuously since 1980,” he wrote. “That determination came with a quickening sense that we’d reach the end of an era.”
