Speaking of Radiohead (I am referring to my last "Quote of the Week" post)…
No, let me first say that I LOVE Radiohead. They are one of my top 5.5 (it's complicated, ok?!) favorite bands. I have been to their shows, with pit tickets, standing for over seven hours in line to be in the first row, in front of the stage with big Ed's shoes in my face, watching Jonny Greenwood perform his musical voodoo, observing Thom Yorke drooling all over the mike, while articulating "I salivate like with myxomatosis," as if he was actually afflicted. I saw them perform "True Love Waits" for the first time ever. Good times!
And even though I usually religiously adhere to my own rule of separating the Artist from the Man (otherwise you end up hating everything – people, including geniuses, are nasty creatures), I agreeably pay attention to some of Radiohead members' personal principles: anti-music-establishment, free distribution, less flying, and stuff like that. At the same time, I am very objective. I don't idolize anybody. If something is stupid, I'll call it that, regardless of who did it. Plus, this is a CFO's blog, so when it comes to executive decisions I am especially vigilant.
Soooooo, the latest incident involving Roseland Ballroom (NYC) concerts really irritated me as a blatant display of a gross strategic mismanagement. Supposedly to make sure that real fans get them and not the scalpers, the release of tickets for September 28th and 29th concerts was held off until Monday, September 26th, 10 AM. And what was the wonderfully unique channel of distribution? The fucking Ticketmaster!!!
How out of touch with reality these people and their support staff are??? Don't they know that the days of conventional scalping are long gone? Today, you can be sitting somewhere in Nebraska with your little reloading software, buy tickets and immediately start electronically scalping them as PDF attachments.
I personally clicked "Find tickets" at 10:00 AM. The fucking Ticketmaster advised that my waiting time was 5 minutes. Nevertheless, in 3 minutes flat, I was informed that the tickets were not available anymore. 180 seconds – God bless the electronic age! Obediently I went to the "resale" (read – scalping) TicketsNow site (owned by the fucking Ticketmaster) – the tickets were already listed with prices ranging from $650-$1,500 for GA. The concerts turned out to be the exclusive events for people with money. Most of them cared more about the status of attending than about the music.
Talking about a complete failure of a business action plan! Is there anybody around Radiohead with a common sense to suggest a more intelligent strategy? You want to deliver yourself to your true friends? You are a super-group. Instead of going through Live Nation, you can rent your own venue and sell the tickets the old-fashion way: at the box office, with a limit of two tickets per person. Your real fans will sleep on the street through the night for a chance to see you! It's really not that complicated. But I guess, like with everything, it's too much to ask for a logical reasoning nowadays.
Essentially, a rock band is a small business – no different then, let's say an advertising agency. The set up is the same – there is a core creative staff and a bunch of supporting functions around it: administration, financial management, legal services, etc. My readers know how important small businesses are to me – I believe they need to be cultivated and nurtured as the only option for saving the world's economy. But, again, I am very sensible about it. It's not all businesses that need support – only the ones that are well organized and have smart leadership.
Hey you music fans, don't get mad at me (I'm on your side), but it's possible that most rock bands, after riding the initial fandom wave, eventually end up sucking because they don't know how to run their business well. There were only five really great songs on "In Rainbows" and this last album Radiohead finally squeezed out (I did say I was very objective) is really just so-so.
From time to time Mr. Yorke says that it "didn't jive in the studio," and I keep worrying that, after 26 years together, they will go out of business. I don't want that to happen, because I am sure many people, including me, would be happy to see them doing OK Computer, Kid A and Amnesiac stuff on stage for another 25 years, even if they don't write anything decent anymore. But they really need to figure out a sound business model to be able to do that. And, please guys, get some strategic management advice about that "tickets to real fans" program. I promise you, this will make already eternally grateful fans happy.
The Frustrated CFO 