Bleachers’ Jack Antonoff Is Furious With StubHub — ‘Never Sell My Band’s Tickets’
Jack Antonoff is the frontman of Bleachers and, unofficially, the artist behind an anti-StubHub Twitter account. In 2022, this songwriter took to social media, asking the ticket resale website to kindly never sell Bleachers tickets again.
Jack Antonoff and Bleachers announced the ‘How Dare You Want Tour’
Hot off the heels of their Saturday Night Live performance, Bleachers announced their 2022 tour, presumably performing songs from their recent release, Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night.
Unofficially titled the “How Dare You Want Tour” (a reference to “How Dare You Want More” coined by Bleachers’ ex-drummer), these live performances will feature Beabadoobee, Wolf Alice, and other opening acts.
To give fans first dibs on these tickets, Bleachers sent a presale code via text. The message, of course, included a tomato emoji and a link to the list of tour dates.
Even with several presales listed on Ticketmaster, the purchasing process was stressful for some fans. Almost as soon as the presale tickets went live, some seats became available on StubHub, being sold for twice, or sometimes three times, the regular price.
Jack Antonoff called out StubHub for price gouging
Once the “limited number of presale tickets” came and went, Antonoff took to social media, calling out StubHub for allowing tickets to be marked up so much.
“StubHub,” Antonoff began his Twitter thread. “Is there any way I could get you to go f*** yourselves and never sell my band’s tickets?”
This Twitter rant wouldn’t be the first time Antonoff shared his disapproval of the ticket resale website. In 2021, the artist learned about fans’ difficulty securing tickets. As a result, he asked StubHub to donate to Ally Coalition based on their profits. A year later, the artist had the same request.
“Question [StubHub] – a dollar from every Bleachers ticket goes to the @allycoalition the least you could do is donate the correct amount based on the gouging? If you sell one of my tickets for 10 times value, donate 10 dollars? Yes? Preferably shut down your entire operation,” he tweeted.
“The difference between ‘can’ and ‘should,’ huh,” he added, earning thousands of likes in the process. StubHub has not responded to the call out from Antonoff.
Bleachers often partners with the nonprofit organization mentioned by Antonoff, especially during the Shadow of the City music festival in Asbury Park. According to their website, The Ally Coalition “provides critical support for grassroots non-profit organizations dedicated to bettering the lives of LGBTQ youth.”
Several artists shared their disapproval at ticket re-sale websites like StubHub
Antonoff wouldn’t be the first artist to call out StubHub and other re-sale websites for their price gouging. According to Yahoo, Jamie Webster, a singer-songwriter from Liverpool, went viral on social media for his rant about Viagogo. (That’s a website selling his concert tickets for more than three times as much as the original ticket price.)
Some bands, including Radiohead, limit ticket sales to individuals, requiring concert-goers to match tickets with identification. The result has been a limited number of ticket scalpers for live performance.
