String Cheese Incident has recently bought out all the tickets for an LA show and will be scalping their own tickets to stand out against Ticketmaster’s service charges. By finding a loophole in the Greek Theater’s ticketing system that waives surcharges for walk-up sales at the venue, the band is now offering tickets through their website so their fans can avoid additional ticketing costs.
Earlier this month, about 50 fans and friends of String Cheese Incident walked up to the Greek Theater with $20,000 in cash, buying out all tickets for their July show. Each ticket was $49.95 and the band felt that their fans should not be expected to pay more than the tickets were originally priced.
String Cheese Incident wants to do this with their whole summer tour. “It costs us money to sell the tickets,” said bassist Keith Moseley. “But were going to eat that cost this summer in order to make a better deal for our fans and let them know how much we appreciate them.” A past dispute with Ticketmaster granted the String Cheese Incident the rights to handle ticket sales for five years, an agreement that expired in 2009, which helped inspire this new endeavor. As reported by The New York Times, ticket fees have added 30-40% to fans’ orders and the String Cheese Incident have taken to fighting a righteous cause out of their own pockets for the benefit of loyal fans.