Rock-tober 04, 2023

Earlier this summer, my buddy Trevor and I were the "plus 1's" for our wives at a blowout celebration. Naturally, the two Level 1 introverts in the gathering gravitated toward each other in a mutual defense pact against the huggers in the crowd. A regular reader of and guest star in these missives, Trevor has a vested interest in the subject matter.

"Hey, Wayne, this year's Rock-tober will be covering the juggernaut event of the decade, right?"

I honestly wasn't sure what he was talking about and gave him a "What do you mean?" shoulder shrug.

"Dude! The Taylor Swift's Eras Tour!"

The eye roll coming off me set off tsunami monitoring buoys up and down the Atlantic coast.

Back at home a few days later, I walk into the room and Andrea is streaming a documentary - a biopic of Taylor Swift. The eye roll was less pronounced this time, and I figured I'd distract myself on my phone until I went to bed. Surprisingly, it eventually caught my attention and I got sucked into the show.

Later that same week, Andrea bursts into the dining room/home office, giddy with excitement. "Hon! Guess what has an October release date in theaters!"

I'm going through possibilities for DC, Marvel, and Gal Godot and came up blank. I just looked at her.

"Taylor Swift is releasing concert footage to theaters on Friday, October 13th!"

I couldn't tell if she was winding me up or if a new date night had just been marked on the calendar. Clearly, though, the universe was trying to make itself heard. So, here we are, having a one-sided conversation during Rock-tober about the cultural phenomenon that is Taylor Swift.

Here's the thing, though. In my recent, unsolicited exposure to all things Swifty, I found she has an immense amount of clout. Between her innate talent, business acumen, and the juggernaut of her social media followers, she wields a heavy hammer. And she's not afraid to use it.

TicketMaster is the poster child of why monopolies are bad. Since coming onto the scene, the ticket purchasing experience has dropped while ticket prices soared. What's earned Ticketmaster villain status, however, are their bloody service fees. Back in 1995, these added 27% to ticket prices. By some reports, that's now as high as 78% as of last fall. Unfortunately, because they hold exclusive contracts with 70 - 80% of mainstream concert venues, their near monopoly gives them a formidable shield. Want to complain about crap customer service? Pfft. They're the only game in town. You either take your tickets and eat your complaint or miss the show.

In the mid-'90s, Pearl Jam was at the peak of its popularity and influence. They famously used their celebrity in a classy "good guy" attempt to rein in Ticketmaster and its high service fees with a boycott of their venues. Unfortunately, the band couldn't break the monopoly and eventually had to return to Ticketmaster locales.

Fast forward to the fall of 2022. Ticketmaster assured the Taylor Swift camp that providing accessible tickets would not be an issue. Their failure was spectacular in its completeness. Now, Ticketmaster finds itself in the crosshairs of multiple lawsuits as well as legislators willing to dust off the old anti-trust regulations.

In her own "good guy" moves, Swift has done two things. She restricted Ticketmaster from releasing tickets to the secondary market (i.e. scalpers). This cut deeply into Ticketmaster's revenue stream and ensured more seats were available for her actual fans. Second,  she recorded concert footage for theater release. Here's where she earned street cred with me.

If the movie studios were salivating at the thought of having a seat at the table of the Eras tour cash buffet, Swift dashed their hopes in a major flex of her personal clout. She made distribution deals directly with the theater, bypassing all the studios.

Normally, theaters are utterly dependent on the Hollywood machine for marketing and publicity of anything shown on their screens. They simply don't have the infrastructure to generate that necessary buzz with the public. Pfft. But we're talking about Taylor Swift - she's her own marketing behemoth, and she just tweaked the noses of the big guys.

Standing up to the establishment and sticking it to the man - these are heavy-duty rock and roll traits. And they're found in spades in this tall, slender crooner out of West Reading, PA.

So here's the thing - normally I'd now drop a vid of one of her songs that had personal meaning for me. But I'm no Swifty, and I know nothing of her discography. However, she did an exceptional cover of Train's "Drops of Jupiter".

Taylor Swift - Drops of Jupiter