Silke Jasso
Backstreet, Bruce Springsteen’s fanzine, is calling it quits in order to protest the “dynamic pricing” which has led to Sky High concert ticket costs.
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“After 43 years of publishing in one form or another, by fans for Bruce Springsteen, it’s with mixed emotions that we announce Backstreets has reached the end of the road,” publisher and editor-in-chief Christopher Phillips revealed.
Backstreets Began publishing back in 1980 and has since become a go-to resource for insider information on Bruce Springsteen and his plans. It also has an international circulation and was run by fans
“If you read the editorial Backstreets published last summer in the aftermath of the U.S. ticket sales, you have a sense of where our heads and hearts have been: dispirited, downhearted, and, yes, disillusioned. It’s not a feeling we’re at all accustomed to while anticipating a new Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band tour,” Phillips wrote in an editorial. “There’s no denying that the new ticket price range has in and of itself been a determining factor in our outlook as the 2023 tour approached — certainly in terms of the experience that hardcore fans have been accustomed to for, as Springsteen noted, 49 years. Six months after the on-sales, we still faced this three-part predicament: These are concerts that we can hardly afford; that many of our readers cannot afford; and that a good portion of our readership has lost interest in as a result.”
Bruce Springsteen- “Dancing In The Dark”
Springsteen concert tickets are always a topic of debate after they sell out whenever they go on sale, but prices have reached as high as $5,000. Several fans are complaining that this is out of their budget, saying the prices were ridiculous.
Backstreets has spoken several times about the disappointment and acknowledged the difficulty in purchasing tickets, saying “the issue has rarely been the money.”
The singer has remained quiet in the situation and has yet to release any statement or apology for the rising prices. However, he told Rolling Stones that he typically told his handlers to align ticket prices with what “everybody else is doing,” and then from there charge a little less.
“This time I told them, ‘Hey, we’re 73 years old. The guys are there. I want to do what everybody else is doing, my peers.’ So that’s what happened. That’s what they did…. I know it was unpopular with some fans, but if there’s any complaints, they can have your money back,” Springsteen once stated.
The musicians’ manager, Jon Landau, also defended the pricing of the tickets saying “Our true average ticket price has been in the mid-$200 range. I believe that in today’s environment, that is a fair price to pay to see someone universally regarded as among the very greatest artists of his generation.”
