Congratulations to Tom Petty for standing up to scalpers - and policing his fan club:

Rolling Stone: TOM PETTY management and Ticketmaster have canceled more than 400 pre-sale tickets for the classic rocker's June 26th and 27th St. Paul, Minnesota shows (with PEARL JAM) after fans complained of finding jacked-up prices on scalper and other secondary market sites. An estimated 800 tickets for Petty's June 20th concert at New York's Madison Square Garden have also been canceled...

In 1981, after finally emerging as a superstar after 2 under-noticed albums and the breakthrough Damn The Torpedoes, Petty held up the release of his follow-up, Hard Promises, refusing to allow his label to jack up the list price to $8.98, as they were attempting to impose a sliding scale, charging more for albums from so-called superstars than they did for others. [Note to Labels: it didn't work then, it won't work now. Steve Jobs is right. Knock it off.]

Now, after finding that scalpers had joined his fan club in order to purchase great seats at list price, and then auction them off to real fans, Petty's team has taken the unprecedented step of canceling the tickets! The new procedure for fan club ticketing is said to involve will-call pickup on the day of the show, with proper ID. Props to Petty and his management for doing something more than talking, and less than auctioning off the best seats ala Madonna.

Note the $8.98 airbrushed in just off Petty's elbow

This problem of simultaneously being able to get good tickets into the hands of hard core fans and keeping them out of scalpers' mitts is a thorny matter that we wrestled with back in the mid-nineties when running the Aerosmith fan club, Aeroforce One. Back then, we, along with U2 and believe it or not Barry Manilow, were pioneering the preferred seats for fan club members concept.

After much thought and many scenario run throughs, we settled on a policy that allowed any fan club member to purchase in advance of general sales, at face value, 4 tickets to every show on the tour. But, they had to pick up the tickets at the box office the evening of the show, with proper fan club ID and a photo ID. The promoters hated the extra work, and probably the lost revenue from scalping their own primo seats, but the fans loved it. And, from all accounts and careful observation, it worked. I'm sure we didn't beat all the scalpers, but... we did beat most.

By working with local security to monitor scalping on or near venue premises, and by using recruited fan club members to check with people in the seats we knew we had reserved, we knew that we had more than adequately succeeded. The satisfaction in our fan club resulted in increased sales of travel packages and ancillary merchandise, and positive word of mouth that no money can buy.

Other touring acts are strongly encouraged to follow Petty's lead here, and not Madonna's.

Is it so hard to remember that the object is to put dedicated fans in the best seats at no more than face value pricing?

If you can't get your head around that, you'll never understand our club's free ticket upgrade policy. I'll save that for another day.