Arcade Fire secret gig promo - or how to p*ss off your fans

[kevo]

So Arcade Fire are releasing an album.

To promote it, Universal Music promised anyone who made a pre-release purchase the opportunity to attend an 'intimate' secret AF gig in London.

For anyone who pre-ordered the album, they would be entered into a draw and certain purchasers would receive a link with a passcode enabling them to enter the pre-sale for tickets for the gig (why they couldn't just let everyone who pre-ordered the album have the link and passcode I can't quite understand...)

So I pre-ordered the album and a few days ago I was informed that I had been 'unlucky' in the draw and would not receive the pre-sale link for tickets.

However, they would send me another email with the link for the general sale at 9am on July 2. It wasn't indicated whether I would have any advantage because I had pre-ordered the album.

I didn't receive this email - but a friend (who hadn't purchased the album) somehow had, and forwarded me the link for tickets.

When I went on the ticket site at just before 9am today, the ticket purchasing page was still black. At 9am precisely, I managed to get through OK and clicked to buy but was asked for a passcode. It wouldn't let me purchase tickets without one. Was this passcode included in the email I didn't receive? Who knows. But when I went back 5 mins later the passcode box had disappeared! By then of course it had sold out.

What an utter shambles. I feel distinctly conned.

[Rake]

I hope you will be burning all your Arcide Fire records, cds and merch in protest kevo, the gammy bastards.

[rover]

I hope you will be burning all your Arcide Fire records, cds and merch in protest kevo, the gammy bastards.

Would be particularly appropriate if you did it here:

If you get arrested just blame Cananda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxPRHXgYVlk

[talia]

I was following this whole debacle on SongKick. I can't believe how badly it has been handled.
I was really hoping I could get tickets for my husband's birthday this month, but there was just no chance in hell.

What I think was really cheeky, is how they made people buy the new album in order to be eligible to preorder tickets, especially as that did not guarentee you could preorder tickets. This has seemed just a really blatant abuse of the fanbase to get a lot of extra album sales in.

I think the whole thing is quite disgusting. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

[blue banana]

get real - what more do you have a right to expect?

sold out or so sold short by the arcade fire's secret gig? ho hum

wake up its an industry dickheads - the AF are too removed to help you whether new fans old fans loyal fans or any fans with the secret gig ? - so who you gonna blame ? ghostbusters? doh!!

[blue banana]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb38SyLBZXw&feature=related

[talia]

It's the fact that you had to buy the album in order to have a "chance" to go which makes me sick. Just seems very selfish and greedy, especially seeing they were charging 40 a ticket on top

[bob falconscotch]

It's the fact that you had to buy the album in order to have a "chance" to go which makes me sick. Just seems very selfish and greedy, especially seeing they were charging 40 a ticket on top

Surely, talia, anyone wanting to go to a gig by a band,('secret' or otherwise), would presumably be a fan already,and would be buying the album anyway?
I agree with the bananaman on this - bands have been pulling marketing stunts like this since time began,yet suddenly folk get all irate when a band they like do it.
If people feel that strongly about it,then don't go to the gig,or buy the album.

[kevo]

Disagree. Why shouldn't people complain about it? It's definitely one of the worst example I have come across of cynical marketing in the record industry. What can we do to get our band to number one? I know - tempt fans into thinking they *may* have a *chance* of attending a secret gig if they pre-order the album. But just make sure that not everyone even gets the opportunity. F**ks sake, what a bunch of c**ts. They didn't even send people who'd bought the album the link for tickets for the general sale - despite promising to do so. As long as the suckers had purchased the album, they didn't give a sh*t - it's gonna get us in the charts so who cares?

[bob falconscotch]

I understand how pissed off you are over this,kevo,and by all means complain,as is your right.
But to expect moral scruples from marketing men working for a major record label is about as naive as leaping into a bear pit and then moaning about getting mauled.
The bottom line for these reprehensible scumbags will,at the end of the day,always be 'how many units did we shift'?
You are,sadly,not a fan to these people,kevo.
You are a 'consumer' of the 'product' that they are flogging you - in this case an album.
They don't give a flying one how they achieve massive sales figures,just so long as they do,and it pays for their next line of charlie.
I too am a fan of the band,and it doesn't sit comfortably with me,but bands with supposedly much bigger moral consciences have let me down before,and after a while it no longer has the power to surprise.

[de lacey]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO7ZWfvCjBE

Incredibly Live Nation came through with tickets for Kevo and De Lacey!

My hat's off to AF and LN

[rover]

I've always been slightly bemused by the concept of a 'secret gig' anyway.
I mean if it's a proper secret gig they should just turn up somewhere unannounced.

[icehaven]

Back up there for a moment, £40 a ticket?? That's incredible. I know ticket pricing is a dark art, but surely this gig will, by it's nature, be fairly small and mainly made up of fans who've followed and supported them for years, so that's just inexcusably expensive. It's a band's own choice to sign with labels and agencies who want to fleece the fans, and plenty of bands manage not to (my last BSP ticket, in May this year, cost £12.50, and I'd have happily paid twice that but I doubt I'd ever have to). I'm not implying any attempt to make a living from art is selling out maaan, but I hate this tactic of recently big bands stringently rationing themselves in order to create intense demand for tickets, then charging the earth for the privilege of seeing them a month or two before they probably tour their album to death anyway.

[de lacey]

Nobody's forced to buy tickets...

i think £40 is completely reasonable in the light of the size of the band

[icehaven]

Maybe I'm out of touch then, as I think £40 is an awful lot for a gig ticket.