Jack Antonoff is calling out the craziness surrounding ticket prices for concerts.
The 38-year-old producer spoke out after winning Producer of the Year at the 2023 Grammy Awards on Sunday (February 5) at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
His thoughts come just after collaborator Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour sale made headlines due to insane costs and wait times on Ticketmaster.
“The whole thing is incredibly tough,” he said in the press room.
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“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.”
He also addressed Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing model.
“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,” he said.
“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.”
