Revered Bruce Springsteen Fanzine Closes Over Ticket Pricing Fury

Respected Bruce Springsteen fanzine Backstreets introduced its closure after 43 years because of the musician’s “dynamic ticket pricing” marketing campaign, which noticed tickets for his 2023 reunion tour with the E Street Band capturing out of many supporters’ value ranges final yr.

The controversial technique, overseen by Ticketmaster, meant that some entry charges for his 2023 highway journey soared to over $5,000 whereas followers tried to purchase their means into Springsteen reveals. Ticketmaster and the Boss’ supervisor each defended the state of affairs, with one argument being that tickets would change fingers for these costs anyway, and that the artist ought to obtain the cash as an alternative of touts. Springsteen later admitted he wasn’t snug with the backlash, however defined his personal strategy, saying that if anybody felt they’d been overcharged after a present, they might have their a refund.

Christopher Phillips, writer and editor of Backstreets for 30 years, launched an editorial on the time, condemning the dynamic coverage and saying it offended followers extra by way of principal than the precise costs. In a brand new article, he defined why he believed the fanzine may now not proceed, though some parts together with their on-line archive and social media accounts would stay energetic.

“A key reason something as gonzo as Backstreets has been able to exist, and for so long — since 1980 — is that it has consistently sprung from a place of genuine passion, rooted in a heartfelt belief in the man and his music,” Phillips wrote. “As difficult as it is to call this the end, it’s even harder to imagine continuing without my whole heart in it.

“If you learn the editorial Backstreets revealed final summer time within the aftermath of the U.S. ticket gross sales, you’ve a way of the place our heads and hearts have been: dispirited, downhearted and, sure, disillusioned. It’s not a sense we’re in any respect accustomed to whereas anticipating a brand new Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band tour. … We/re not alone in fighting the ocean change. Judging by the letters we have acquired over current months, the buddies and longtimers we have been checking in with and the response to our editorial, disappointment is a standard feeling amongst hardcore followers within the Backstreets group.”

He added that, while there was “each cause to consider that there might be adjustments to the pricing and ticket-buying expertise when the subsequent spherical of reveals go on sale…we merely realized that we might not be capable to cowl this tour with the drive and sense of objective with which we have operated repeatedly since 1980. That willpower got here with a quickening sense that we might reached the top of an period.”

Phillips emphasized that “now we have everlasting gratitude for Bruce Springsteen and his work, for the E Street Band and the opposite musicians who’ve helped him make it, and so lots of these whose work concerned bringing that music to the world.” He hoped that fans would continue to share “love and pleasure, the camaraderie, the trivia and shut consideration paid, the fervour, the post-shows” and concluded: “Rave on. We have each hope of assembly you additional on up the highway.”