Ticket scalpers at concerts and live events are a real problem for both the entertainers and the venue. People make a living by mass-purchasing desirable seats, typically at the front, and then selling them on the secondhand market for incredibly high prices. This obviously angers fans hoping to get good seats because they now have to spend even more money to get their tickets. Venues try their hardest to combat scalpers, however they still slip through the tracks. Well Billy Joel was fed up with these guys, and the people in the front rows, so he did something pretty incredible.
In a Billboard interview with Billy Joel, Joel discussed how he sometimes did not like the fans who sat up front. He described them as “gold chainers” who would arrogantly sit down during the whole concert “puffing on a cigar, and never standing up or making noise”. Joel also disliked ticket scalpers who would rob fans of tickets and then sell them for a mark up. So he came up with a great idea one time: hold all the front row tickets and then give them away randomly to people in the back.
Joel has often expressed that the people in the back rows would make the most noise, sing all the songs, and that they seemed to enjoy the show the most. So what he started to do was hold all the front row tickets and then have his roadies go out to the back and then give them out randomly to fans in the cheap seats. Joel exclaimed in the interview “we don’t want to play to the big shots, I want to play to younger people, people who can only afford a low ticket price. They make the best audience”. All in all it was a pretty good move for Billy Joel, and obviously the fans loved it. With ticket prices in general getting more expensive, it would be a treat to get a ticket for the front for absolutely free.
Photo by Brian Ach/Getty Images for ASCAP
