Promoters Refuse To Pander to Punters at Ticket Summit NYC

Business writer Sam Mamudi conducts a Q & A session with Rich Krezwick, president of Devils Arena Entertainment, Newark, N.J.

REPORTING FROM NEW YORK — They certainly can't be accused of pandering.

This year's two keynote panelists at Ticket Summit in New York made no bones about their dislike for the secondary ticket market, critiquing the uneasy partnership that's developed between venues and resellers. 

"It’s just gotten so out of hand. It’s all talk about controlling these tickets to sell at a higher price and the way that they do that is to get them before the fans do,” said Seth Hurwitz, owner of I.M.P. and Washington’s 9:30 Club. He spoke before a group of 500 attendees at this year’s Ticket Summit at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. “When it becomes this industry that says to the fans ‘we are here to get all that we can out of you,’ then it’s bad for business.”

His primary problem with the secondary market is that, to him, “a ticket is not like a stock that can be traded and the value goes up and down — a ticket is not a commodity.”

He elaborated by saying, “All of this business talk and treating the ticket as a commodity reminds people that it’s really a business, but it’s bad for the music business and for the fans to feel like money is the sole purpose and main reason why people play music.”

Rich Krezwick, president of Devils Arena Entertainment which runs the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., said that his view of ticket brokers has changed drastically in the last 10 years as he’s started to work with them on a regular basis

“I used to hate brokers. I fought them for years, but now they’re our partners,” he said.

“Ticket brokers were perceived to be leeches capitalizing on the hot tickets but now, with the secondary market being a free enterprise, it’s about the margin on every ticket. We openly deal with brokers on A-games and we sell as many tickets to brokers on C-games,” Krezwick said.

However, he stressed the importance of price integrity.

“We get calls all the time where groups are trying to negotiate a discount price — price is non-negotiable. You pay the published price for the product you’re looking for,” added Krezwick. “If someone can still make money and we get the price that we want, God bless them.”

Krezwick has found the secondary market relatively good for business. “Our sales are up because we got smart about the secondary market.” But he added that “working with brokers is a completely economic-driven decision, not a relationship decision.”

Lyneka Little, a reporter who has worked at the Wall Street Journal, leads the Q & A for Hurwitz's keynote presentation.

Hurwitz dismissed the claim that the secondary market helps fans gets tickets, saying, “Who are we kidding? You’re trying to keep tickets away from Ticketmaster — and I would do that if I were you, too — but it’s not about the fans.”

“All this talk about fan freedom is from people that want to control the tickets before the fans get them,” added Hurwitz, who shared his idea of selling tickets only at retail outlets where waiting in line is necessary, so that fans would get the tickets first.

Krezwick said that he is worried about the future for buildings as the secondary ticketing market grows. “Soon we will have to survive off of season tickets because there will be no transactions in the primary market, it will all be brokers reselling in the secondary market.” 

A few days after the close, the keynote speakers gave their post-conference impressions of Ticket Summit.

“I think what I had to say needed to be said and nobody else seems willing to,” said Hurwitz, who considered it a privilege to share his viewpoint.

“I knew what I was getting myself into,” he added, “although, just before that, I was starting to ask myself why I put myself in these situations.”

Krezwick said that his view of brokers wasn’t changed by speaking at Ticket Summit, because he had already taken measures to work with them and be progressive.

“Working with ticket brokers is no longer a back door transaction, it’s commodity trading,” said Krezwick.

Interviewed for this story: Seth Hurwitz, (202) 265-0930; Rich Krezwick, (973) 757-6205.