Boycott The 2005 Tour

I don't think many of us have illusions about the music industry. I also don't think that many here think that the tickets are cheap. Compared to our income they are certainly very expensive and I am sure most of us are aware that the band has everything to do with the pricing.

However, a concert is not a life's necessity. We all can choose if we buy a ticket or if we don't. I think most people who work for their living are perfectly capable of deciding if they want to pay 30/40/50 pounds or euros for a concert ticket. The lottery was a marketing tool which obviously worked very well for the tour - all English venues are sold out. I am sad that so many fans are disappointed because they did not get a ticket but surely a boycott is not something that would win a majority vote here. You, Benn, seem to be closer to the "powers" than anyone else but you did not provide much information that would justify a boycott.

I only offered the thread as a discussion topic - perhaps I should have been clearer in stating that.

I'm boycotting it simply because I don't agree that the management of a band with no new material has actually EXPECTED people to pay £60 per ticket. The even more irritating thing is that there appears to have been a general acceptance of the ticket prices, just because it's been so long since Brian and Roger played together.

It disappoints me but doesn't surprise me that Queen fans remain so blindly loyal and supportive of every scam that is thrown at them. What criteria do people use when they part with their cash?

Is everyone SO desperate to claim that they have seen Queen in concert that money becomes no obhect? Obviously those better off than others financially are better equipped to cope with it all, but even then, is there not a greater vaklue pklaced upon your own money?

Whilst tickets sell at this kind of price, it ffurther stokes the fires and fills the coffers of the people that EXPECT Queen fans to pay out. All it does is give the powers that be the opportunity to think:

"What price can we charge NEXT TIME?"

I certainly won't be parting with any money to go.

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Benn wrote: [/QUOTENAME]Is everyone SO desperate to claim that they have seen Queen in concert that money becomes no obhect? [/QUOTE]
To be honest...?
YES
I bought tickets for 5 different shows- didn't win Brixton and am very sad about it. If you check my history you'll find that I ain't stepford- criticised the band and their decissions soooo many times and was being almost abused by saying that Wembley isn't THAT good and that WORKS, AKOM or HOT SPACE suck big time... BUT- I'm 25, I haven't been to Knebworth or anywhere else... I saw Brian only once in Warsaw and than both of them @ Party at the Palace. I don't know if I'll ever see them again- Brian is waht- 60? That's my only opportunity and dream since I was 11!!! Man, I was dreaming for so long, realising of course that Freddie is long gone and John had retired... But I always wanted to hear LIVE this beautiful crunchy sound of Red Special and hear Roger drumming. For so many years very rare and almost imosible dream (5 years ago I was living in Poland, you can check how many times they played there...). And now is my chance AND they're doing it with one of my favourites vocalist of all time- THE VOICE, not some washed wannabe like Robbie Williams. I mean we're talking about Paul "The Voice" Rodgers!!! Long before a slightest rumour about that tour I had all Free and Bad Company albums (I didn't have anything by The Firm, however...)
WYHY WOULD I DO IT? WHY WOULD I BOYCOT THE THING? Your 5 reasons aren't enough for me. I have a choice of listening for the 12354th time LIVE KILLERS OR going to those gigs and listening to Red Special live. 55 pounds? That's my child dream coming true man- seeing Metallica, Nick Cave or Dream Theater wasn't THAT emotional, even though those turned out to be GREEEEAT gigs. And two of them (Metallica @ earls Court and Dream Theater @ Hammersmith) weren't that much cheaper either...
Man- it's only rock'n'roll- you live only once... I know I do. And I always wanted to see them. There's my chance NOW. If they charged 100 pounds- I'd agree with you. 55 ain't THAT much- for 60 I bought tickets for Ozzy and fucker fell off the bike and canceled the thing. two guys from queen feat. guy from Free/Bad Company IS worth this kind of money for me.

PS
If someone doesn't wanna go to BRIXTON and wants reasonable price- I'm willing to go! Don't care about the whole crap surrounding music industry. Got the money, earned it very hard- I can spend it any way I want- and I'm EXTREMELY happy after buying those 5 dates!!!

BUT- I agree about the lottery thing- the way it was organised was RUBBISH! AND- the Fan Club had finally chance to show us that it can still be important and usefull. IMO- lost opportunity... Jacky- time to make way for someone who knows what the internet is for and doesn't live in 70s...

I think Benn makes a very valid point. Jim Beach has been itching to organise a "Queen" tour for years, his business is making money. The ticket prices now are only a test, seeing if demand is there. The next tour will be the real money spinner something like the Rolling Stones tours where punters are expected to hand over upwards of £200 for a ticket as was seen with their '40 licks' tour.
The "lottery" has been a misguided and totally foolish endeavour that has served to further alienate the fanclub at the expense of the online "fanclub". It now seems that Jacky & Val are further removed from the band than ever and that those who have remained loyal to the band and club have been treated as an afterthought.
I am glad that John Deacon has not been party to this fiasco of the last few weeks. I agree with Benn that Deacon was probably not asked to rejoin the band.
The last couple of weeks have been unsavoury to say the least and really has tested my loyalty to the band.
I will not be boycotting the concerts but treating them like a BM/RT glorified solo tour using a well known franchise to sell tickets/remain in the limelight/add to the pension fund.
It seems that everyone has forgotten Freddie in their frenzy over Brixton and getting tickets and without him the name "Queen" is meaningless.

Blah, there's always someone complaining for everything Bri and Rog do...just not come to the concerts friend! i'm afraid you are loosing a good show.

too bad tickets are exepensive....
"I like the good things in life, but most of the best things ain't free...uh uh uh"

i don't think anyone's forgotten freddie for a moment.

It's simple business - supply and demand. There's a lot of interest in queen still and the tickets would sell. The management is bound to have engineered the lottery to ensure that the tour sold out. Brian and Roger's involvement would probably have been limited in organising the ticket pricing etc, if at all. Maybe they should be more involved, but they like to make music, and the true businessman amoung them has hung up his calculator. brian and roger pay Jim Beech to make things like this profitable. if it wasn't, then Queen productions would quickly get into trouble, so they're protecting what they spent 20+ years achieving, both monetarily and artistically. they've got families they want to ensure are always going to be comfortable etc...

I have to agree that Queen's management is quite mercenary. But if Fred was still here, and they were all still touring, i don't think it'd be any different as they'd be in the same position as the Stones (only with new material - do the stones still release new stuff?)

I am one who never saw them live either, so am looking forward to seeing a proper, full on gig with Brian and Roger as i know it's the closest i'll get to it. Seen them both solo, tribute and at ocean in 2001. but this will be something different and very special.

For your information, I will be going to one of the concerts. Not until fall though...

After that, you can expect my feedback.

Until then, just grin and bear it!

Benn is you don't want to go, then don't buy a ticket. Sure it may not be "Queen", but I'm anticpating a hell of a show anyway. If they do come to Canada or the U.S., I know I'm going!

Well personally I think Benn is full of sh1t! Judging by what he has said in his posts and what I know to be true, I think there is often a fairly significant gap! He has been negative from the start and I dont expect anything to change anytime soon.

Many people are saying that Queen dont appreciate their fans and are taking advantage of them. As a means or comparison U2 announced their tour dates today. Subscribers to U2.com had to pay $40 to subscribe. This entitles them to buy only 2 tickets for a North American show or 4 tickets for a European show. Thats not per show, but 2 or 4 in TOTAL!

I have also been told (by a contact at Universal Music) that the UK shows will be 85 pounds!

I think the benefits of subscribing (for FREE) to Queenonline are far greater then that.

I am not a member of the fanclub but I cannot understand why some fans might feel hard done by. A few years ago you were paying your membership fees with only the promise of 4 (if you were lucky!) magazines a year. You could buy tickets before anyone else. I know when I logged on at 10am to buy tickets through Queenonline all the best seats were already gone. I would think this is reward enough! Honestly what do you expect, a guilt edged invitation to a free Queen concert?

I am now one happy Queen fan. Thanks to my registration with Queenonline I have tickets for Manchester, Birminham an London and I cant wait!

Paul,

I'm going to sompletely ignore your infantile grasp of how to publicly debate a point. My assumption is that you are still at school, because you clearly can't act like an adult and accept that someone might not hold the same view as you. Why should I be positive about something I don't think is a positive move?

> I am not a member of the fanclub but I cannot understand why some fans might feel hard done by. A few years ago you were paying your membership fees with only the promise of 4 (if you were lucky!) magazines a year.

But if you HAD been a member of the fan club for 15 / 20 years and had to put up with the service that had been provided, would you STILL be happy that a show had been laid on that really wasn't controlled by the fan club, but by a ticket agency? EVEN THOUGH the fan club said that IT was organising it until after the event when they admitted to just having provided the agency with a list of people? HOW DO WE KNOW that only fan club / QOL members are going to be attending the show and that the ticket agency hasn't set aside certain tickets for it's own use? There is a chance that that COULD happen whereas, if the whole thing HAD been organised by the fan club, there's NO CHANCE that it could happen and ALL tickets would be going to fans.

All I'm trying to say is that I feel fans have been short changed here and Brian has even bought into the whole thing by publicly saying that it's being organised by the fan club. If he cared enough, he'd have checked into it and I'm sure he'd have tried to get it change - of course, that wouldn't happen because QPL are the people that hold the strings and control what happens. FOR THEIR BENEFIT and not for the fans.

There are an awful lot of COULD's in your little tirade. One thing I am sure of is that Jackie and Val on their own do not have the administative ability to arrange for tickets on their own. ALL bands use agencies, so its not some unique scheme invented by Queen to rip off the fans.

No we dont know 100% for SURE that ALL the tickets went to fans. But MOST did! They couldve not had ANY tickets for pre-sale. With the demand obviously out there this wouldnt have hurt overall ticket sales.

I guess thats the difference between us. I am grateful for the effort that they went to when they didnt have to. You have nothing better then to complain that they didnt go to enough effort to satisfy you.

You guys depress me. You guys actually have a chance to see the concerts when I'm stuck here in the States and you're complaining about it.

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Fenderek wrote: [/QUOTENAME][QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Benn wrote: [/QUOTENAME]Is everyone SO desperate to claim that they have seen Queen in concert that money becomes no obhect? [/QUOTE]
To be honest...?
YES
I bought tickets for 5 different shows- didn't win Brixton and am very sad about it. If you check my history you'll find that I ain't stepford- criticised the band and their decissions soooo many times and was being almost abused by saying that Wembley isn't THAT good and that WORKS, AKOM or HOT SPACE suck big time... BUT- I'm 25, I haven't been to Knebworth or anywhere else... I saw Brian only once in Warsaw and than both of them @ Party at the Palace. I don't know if I'll ever see them again- Brian is waht- 60? That's my only opportunity and dream since I was 11!!! Man, I was dreaming for so long, realising of course that Freddie is long gone and John had retired... But I always wanted to hear LIVE this beautiful crunchy sound of Red Special and hear Roger drumming. For so many years very rare and almost imosible dream (5 years ago I was living in Poland, you can check how many times they played there...). And now is my chance AND they're doing it with one of my favourites vocalist of all time- THE VOICE, not some washed wannabe like Robbie Williams. I mean we're talking about Paul "The Voice" Rodgers!!! Long before a slightest rumour about that tour I had all Free and Bad Company albums (I didn't have anything by The Firm, however...)
WYHY WOULD I DO IT? WHY WOULD I BOYCOT THE THING? Your 5 reasons aren't enough for me. I have a choice of listening for the 12354th time LIVE KILLERS OR going to those gigs and listening to Red Special live. 55 pounds? That's my child dream coming true man- seeing Metallica, Nick Cave or Dream Theater wasn't THAT emotional, even though those turned out to be GREEEEAT gigs. And two of them (Metallica @ earls Court and Dream Theater @ Hammersmith) weren't that much cheaper either...
Man- it's only rock'n'roll- you live only once... I know I do. And I always wanted to see them. There's my chance NOW. If they charged 100 pounds- I'd agree with you. 55 ain't THAT much- for 60 I bought tickets for Ozzy and fucker fell off the bike and canceled the thing. two guys from queen feat. guy from Free/Bad Company IS worth this kind of money for me.

PS
If someone doesn't wanna go to BRIXTON and wants reasonable price- I'm willing to go! Don't care about the whole crap surrounding music industry. Got the money, earned it very hard- I can spend it any way I want- and I'm EXTREMELY happy after buying those 5 dates!!!

BUT- I agree about the lottery thing- the way it was organised was RUBBISH! AND- the Fan Club had finally chance to show us that it can still be important and usefull. IMO- lost opportunity... Jacky- time to make way for someone who knows what the internet is for and doesn't live in 70s...[/QUOTE]

TOO DAMN RIGHT!

Man I just have to laugh when I read Benn's posts.
Queen haven't toured in almost twenty fucking years and he's acting like they've done this every other month and screwed us over in the process. LOL!

I'm not really sure about the concet,I would want to go if Freddie was their.I like Brian too though, he seems ver gracious.