entertainment

Why isn’t Maximum the Hormone officially against ticket scalping?

7 Comments
By Master Blaster, RocketNews24

Recently, a joint statement (at left) was issued by over 110 of Japan’s biggest names in music, including artists and major events such as the Fuji Rock Festival. The statement was a strong call to end the practice of ticket scalping in which unlicensed sellers purchase large amounts of concert tickets in order to sell them to fans at inflated prices. It’s an unnecessary and parasitic practice depriving both the artists and their fans of money.

A quick glance at the list of names on the poster will reveal many heavy-weights spanning several genres of the Japanese music scene past and present from Mr. Children and Aiko to Babymetal and Perfume.

However, one name that was conspicuously absent from the list was the fun-loving and hard-rocking band Maximum the Hormone. This caused some to wonder if the group was overlooked or worse, that they might not have been against ticket scalping for some bizarre reason. It generated enough buzz that the band issued a statement over Twitter.

The tweet instructs us to read through the two attached pictures of text for their explanation and official stance on ticket resale.

“Maximum the Hormone is not listed among those in the joint statement. The reason is the agencies representing the artists on that list are members of groups like the Federation of Music Producers Japan, the Japan Association of Music Enterprises, the All-Japan Concert & Live Entertainment Promoters Conference, and the Computer Ticketing Association.

Our agency Mimikajiru is not a member of these groups. Whether that’s because of some grown-up matters or because they’re too cheap to pay the dues, we don’t know. Anyway, as we told our boss at the label, sarcastically, ‘We’re doing major releases, but [not being a member] is like indie or dojin (self-published) stuff.'”

So it appears that Maximum the Hormone didn’t appear on the list because they aren’t members of the trade groups putting it out…possibly due to cheapness.

In the other image file, the band goes on to say that they are indeed against ticket scalping and even developed their own system to combat it.

“A while back, as a countermeasure to ticket resale, we came up with an insane plan called, ‘No 400-word essay submitted about how much you love Hormone, no buying tickets.’ In other words, scalpers would have to go through all the effort of studying our music and history to pretend to be a fan and buy our tickets.

However, we dropped the system soon after. It took all of us reading together three months to get through them all and our eyes were tried. (Stupid!)”

Reaction to the band’s position and efforts against ticket scalping was largely positive.

“They read through them all! That’s kind of cool actually.” “Awesome, that’s stupid but I love it.” “That’s an interesting idea and good for fans, but what about the friends of fans who could buy tickets and experience the group for the first time.” “In theory, that was a good idea.” “They are onto something, we do need a one step system like they had.”

So, let the record show that Maximum the Hormone is against the exploitation of fans through ticket resale just like most of us are. However, also like most of us, they are too “cheap” and “stupid” (their words, not ours!) to find a good way to stop it.

_Source: Twitter/@MTHOFFICIAL, My Game News Flash (Japanese)

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7 Comments
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I thought this was going to be an informative article explaining the economics of scalping and its potential benefits. Boy was I wrong. If you still have any bran cells left, here's what you might have come looking for:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/magazine/the-secret-science-of-scalping-tickets.html?_r=0

1 ( +1 / -0 )

"Maximum the Hormone" ? Bad. Really bad.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

In point of fact, there are no "heavyweights" in the Japanese pop music industry, as they are unable to establish a fan base outside of Japan. The odd novelty act may occasionally have a brief tour, or a group play 2-3 shows before an invited audience in an LA club and call it a "US Tour", but it's all aimed at the domestic market.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Another expat: there are indeed heavyweights within the industry. Just not, as you point out, anywhere outside it.

As for scalping, I seem to recall some agencies trying to stop mass purchases a while ago for this purpose, but that seems to have stopped for some reason. Concerts here are overpriced to begin with, for the most part.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

The statement was a strong call to end the practice of ticket scalping in which unlicensed sellers purchase large amounts of concert tickets in order to sell them to fans at inflated prices. It’s an unnecessary and parasitic practice depriving both the artists and their fans of money.

I'm confused I guess.

1) How does it deprive the artists of money? The tickets were bought at face value. Regardless of whether they were sold or not - and at how much - they still get paid.

2) How does it deprive the fans of money? People will pay what they want/can to see a concert. It's up to them to decide if the price is justified. If not, they miss the concert. I see it as a service to provide last-minute tickets to those who don't have tickets. Its a gamble for the seller. It's not price-gouging because seeing a concert is not a "need" - but rather a luxury.

Guess I've never understood why this is considered such a bad practice.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

How do the scalpers acquire large blocks of tickets to begin with? That's likely the root of the problem.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"Maximum the Hormone" ? Bad. Really bad.

They are a Punk/Metal group. Very few Metal or Punk groups have sophisticated names.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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