On Friday, February 23, my dad and I sat at our kitchen table, laptop open and credit card ready, to purchase tickets to the “No Values” Punk Rock Festival set for June 8 at the Pomona Fairplex. The festival is organized by Coachella promoter Goldenvoice with headliners The Misfits and Social Distortion, and the lineup of the concert includes Bad Religion, Black Flag, and more. The current state of concert ticket sales is a mess with Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour TicketMaster fiasco still fresh in the minds of many concertgoers. It is getting harder and harder for regular fans to see their favorite bands. We were not able to get tickets for “No Values.” The website crashed, and kicked us out twice. For old punk rockers like my dad, the “No Values” Festival is already a huge disappointment and as he would say “goes against everything punk rock stands for.”
The ticket sale for “No Values” opposes some of the major values of the punk rock ethos like anti-corporatism, anti-consumerism, and anti-corporate greed. This is especially disheartening considering that the promoter Goldenvoice was originally founded by “Gary Tovar in 1981 and promoted Los Angeles punk rock bands throughout Southern California.” The ticket sale for “No Values” was hosted by AXS who claims on their website that “AXS fuels epic experiences giving fans the opportunity to make memories that will last a lifetime.” This is what most ticketing companies boast today, that the fans are at the center of their job. This is hardly true— profits are. The “No Values” ticket sale is a prime example of a poorly organized and not well thought-out sale process. All tickets went on sale at the same time, and the website seemed to have no way to distinguish who were real fans, and who were bots. I got kicked out twice because the website said I was a bot. The ticket sale did not protect fans or cultivate the best experience possible.
The lineup consisted of 41 bands total and is one day long. If you look at the quantity of bands divided by the ticket price it may seem like a good deal on the surface. However, most of the bands are no longer the original members, and with such a large number of groups how many sets will festival-goers actually be able to see? With this many bands and such a short amount of festival time, it is likely multiple groups will be playing at the same time, forcing fans to choose. This is of course the nature of a music festival, but cramming 41 bands into a one day festival that does not open until 11am is not conducive to giving the fans the most bang for their buck. The cheapest ticket is $199 plus additional fees, for a four-pack the total cost is $796 plus additional fees.
My dad and I stayed on the website for an hour attempting to get tickets. The “No Values” instagram did not give an update until about forty minutes into the sale, and the update came with little advice or recourse for fans to take. The update was flooded by fans commenting about the horrible experience with multiple commiserating in the comment section about the website being extremely slow, or having the tickets in their cart and then getting kicked out. The update was especially disappointing because it promised fans, “you will get tickets.” The update was insincere and as one fan wrote, “this is a legit mess.”
The process to get “No Values” tickets speaks to many larger problems within the music and ticketing industry. One of the best examples of a modern-day monopoly that stops competition and causes prices to soar is Ticketmaster and Live Nation. The two companies “merged in 2010 and now control an estimated 70% of ticketing and live event venues market.” Monopolies are bad for consumers because they drive prices higher, lower production, and stop innovation. For the ticketing industry, this means less tickets available and extremely high prices. Not to mention that online ticket sales are extremely susceptible to bots and being resold on other sites for even higher prices. AXS is not owned by the monopoly that is Live Nation, it is owned by Anschutz Entertainment Group, the world’s second largest entertainment promoter. This is why in the context of the “No Values” ticket sale, AXS and Goldenvoice had no incentive to make the experience the best it could be. They know fans really only have two choices, them or Ticketmaster, and as such they do not feel the need to enhance their product or the customer experience because fans have no other choice.
In conversation with my dad about what it is like to witness the changing nature of the ticketing industry he said this: “it is better to support new bands and ideas than to spend a fortune on this corporate takeover. Shame on these people. I know a few punks who would be rolling over in their graves with stuff like this.” In the end the “No Values” festival was aptly named, as it seems that the promoters truly have no values.