Msg Poster Debacle

MackeySasser

i got there at like 4:45, saw the giant line (or herd of 10 clubbers and a few homeless guys) and threw in the towel - if i really need an msg poster it'll be worth the extra 50 bucks on ebay not to have had to get involved in that whole cattle system - congrats to those who survived - posters should be made available online from now on - too stressful

msg staff must just LOVE when PJ comes to town !

evenflowman

Man sounds like complete madness. Seems liek nowadays it is easier to just get them from the 10c or ebay allmost worth the money.

PearlJamOnToast

It sucked...but I actually met some cool people through the whole debacle....and I got a poster.

Sanford Koufax

thats a lot of work and trouble for that ugly piece of shit poster. what a hidious chud of an ames brothers mess. i wouldnt hang that thing in a prison cell. someone please revoke ames bros artistic license? haha

Uncle Neil

swallowedwords wrote:

If they made 5000, what would be special about them? The thing that makes these posters more than just posters, is that they are limited.

I don't care how limited they are, they can print 10,000 per show and it makes no difference to me. I just want them to hang up in my apartment as a souvenir from the show and a cool piece of art.

In short, I agree, print more posters.

sky08

The Director of Merchandising at MSG, Brian Holt just received the following email from me. (FYI, here's the address: brian.holt@thegarden.com). Hopefully they will consider making some changes ...

Dear Brian,

This is to request that the Garden consider revising the way posters are sold. The bracelet system is a good one, but the operation should be moved inside. Having attended both the 6/24 and 6/25 Pearl Jam shows, I was unable to get a bracelet for either one.

If the Garden chooses to make posters/bracelets available to anyone who wants them, regardless of whether they have tickets or not, then MSG should ensure that there are enough posters available inside for ticket holders. If there are not, then the posters should only be sold inside. Further, it was disappointing to see some MSG employees outside the Garden before the show holding their own rolled up posters before fans were even permitted to get them.

Most importantly, the crowd situation in the mall was dangerous. It caused unnecessary pushing, and set up a generally unpleasant atmosphere before what should have been a fun event. Please find a way to address this matter for the future. Thank you for your consideration.

tombellanca

henchman wrote:

This might be a stupid question (and probably asked before) but ..

¿Why don't they print 5000 posters?

I love posters but I would never fight or cry for one.

I agree. I could care less they are "limited". They are momentos of the concert. That obviously TONS of people are interested in buying.
10c/Ames Bros. is shooting themselves in the feet on this one two-fold - there's a lot of missed income from folks not being able to buy posters and in addition, a lot of bad-will generated.

I might have emailed 10c about it in the past, I think I'll try again.

Danimal

sky08 wrote:

The Director of Merchandising at MSG, Brian Holt just received the following email from me. (FYI, here's the address: brian.holt@thegarden.com). Hopefully they will consider making some changes ...

Dear Brian,

This is to request that the Garden consider revising the way posters are sold. The bracelet system is a good one, but the operation should be moved inside. Having attended both the 6/24 and 6/25 Pearl Jam shows, I was unable to get a bracelet for either one.

If the Garden chooses to make posters/bracelets available to anyone who wants them, regardless of whether they have tickets or not, then MSG should ensure that there are enough posters available inside for ticket holders. If there are not, then the posters should only be sold inside. Further, it was disappointing to see some MSG employees outside the Garden before the show holding their own rolled up posters before fans were even permitted to get them.

Most importantly, the crowd situation in the mall was dangerous. It caused unnecessary pushing, and set up a generally unpleasant atmosphere before what should have been a fun event. Please find a way to address this matter for the future. Thank you for your consideration.

Ummm I could be wrong here but.....what does MSG have to do with posters?

tombellanca

here's my email to 10c:

Heynow!

I may have written about this in the past, but hearing about the nightly debacles related to the poster sales encouraged me to write again.

There are too few posters being made. Plain and simple. The "limited" nature causes people to spend hours in line to get one wasting time that could be much better spent doing more entertaining things. And even if you wait in line, you are not guaranteed a poster. If enough posters were made for everyone who wanted one, the fever and all related angst would vanish. They are a great concert momento that even the casual fan would enjoy, but in the current state only the most dedicated are given the opportunity to buy.

One possible solution would be to offer the poster at the time of ticket purchase from the 10c. When you pick up your ticket, you get a voucher for poster to pick up after the show. Boom, the majority of big fans are taken care of and the artist will have a pretty good idea of demand and know how many posters to produce.

I think you're shooting yourself in the foot in the current state two-fold - there's a lot of missed income from folks not being able to buy posters and in addition, a lot of bad-will generated.

I think the wristbands are a great idea. Not having to carry around and potential have the poster damaged is a big plus - thank you for that!
Now if we can just get the posters to everyone who wants one, we'll be really rolling.

Thank again for all your great services!
Can't wait for a west coast tour.

Tom

PS - Please don't play Cox Arena in San Diego, the sound is horrible. The Sports Arena is much better suited for Pearl Jam, IMO. Or how about, the SDSU Open Air Ampitheater. One can dream!

sky08

This is the reply from the MSG merchandise director, who seems to have done the best he could (I left off from this post the list of other MSG people to whom he cc'd my email and his reply). So perhaps it's up to the band ... (But I still know I saw MSG staffers with posters.)


Let me start by saying thank you, for taking the time to make your
concerns known to us here at the Garden. I have forwarded your email to
our guest relations department, so that they too can be aware of your
concerns.

Unfortunately concert merchandise is not owned by the Garden and is
provided to us by the band or the bands merchandising group on a
consignment basis. Likewise we are obligated contractually to adhere to
the wishes of the group with regard to how certain pieces of merchandise
are to be sold, which was the case with the poster. The bands
merchandising group only brought 466 posters for each night, and
mandated that they be sold via the wristband system.

I am in agreement with you that the wristband system is quite difficult
to deal with, and I made my concerns known to the group. However they
insisted that the poster be sold in this fashion due to some concerns
they had with the possibility of the product ending up on Ebay.

With regard to where the posters were sold, again a decision the was
made directly by the groups merchandiser. As they were adamant about
using the wristband system, and that the poster only be given out at the
end of the event, The Mall area was the only option for distribution as
it is the only point in the arena that everyone would have to walk by on
the way out of the building. Moving the posters inside would have only
caused confusion, and possibly more problems with regard to
distribution.

Lastly, I can personally guarantee that no one on the MSG Staff got a
Poster before the event. In fact only 3 MSG Staff in total were allowed
to purchase the poster as they had to check with me before they could
make the purchase, and they were given there posters after the last
guest had been helped at the end of the event.

I can appreciate your irritation and frustration at this situation. In
an effort to curb future occurrences of similar instances, I will speak
to security, and guest services to hopefully come up with a better plan
for these type of merchandise sales. Unfortunately in most of these
cases we are at the mercy of the group, as we can not dictate what
quantities to bring or ultimately how to sell those quantities.

My thanks again to you for expressing your concern to me on this matter.

Best
Brian

hopethatuchoke

That was very cool of Brian to write back to you, and such an in depth response at that. It's ashame to see this is the bands doing and not MSG. The MSG employees looked completely overwhelmed. I wasn't really thrilled with them yelling at us for pushing when no one really was. People would push when someone would get up to the counter and have to leave the corwd. it was just to get out of the way.

Laura in NJ

BustedDownThePretext wrote:

DAMN! so glad i'm over the whole poster thing.

I am SOOO with you, Pretext. I walked past that line to the Will Call to pick up my 10C tix, walked back past the MSG merch people (who wouldn't even speak to me, let alone show me the poster so I could at least see what I would be waiting for...they literally would not even look at me when I said, "Excuse me..." ROYAL DICKHEADS!), again walked past the now even-longer line, and busted a move out of there. It literally could have been the line for new The Dark Knight coaster at Great Adventure; it was that long and snaked around and around and around.

Plus, I heard the poster was essentially the same as the night before (with the hunter on it, but different colors, I guess?), and since I didn't really care for the design, I saved myself $25 and, evidently, a huge hassle. My time and sanity are worth a lot more more than $200.

Laura in NJ

henchman wrote:

This might be a stupid question (and probably asked before) but ..

¿Why don't they print 5000 posters?

Answer: Because they want to create demand.

However, come on, band...you KNOW if you create a limited-edition product, it's GONNA end up on eBay. If accurately presented by Brian, the MSG merch director, that excuse simply doesn't fly.

Solution: Print enough posters for everyone who wants one and you won't have the "eBay problem" you supposedly claim you are trying to prevent.

Sheesh.

Laura in NJ

swallowedwords wrote:

If they made 5000, what would be special about them? The thing that makes these posters more than just posters, is that they are limited.

Uh...as observed by others above, they would be special because they are a Pearl Jam poster from a show you attended.

I think my 1995 poster from the aborted Sponsored By No One tour is the ugliest thing on my wall, yet I framed it and keep it there because it reminds me of that awesome Red Rocks concert, and how lucky I was to even see the band that year at all.

hrd2imgn

that doesn't include the jerks selling them either. The guy wouldn't even hold one up to show me what it looked like. Then he argued with me assuring me that there were NO people who got more than one wrist band.

To have the door s open to anyone was just plain stupid. I am not shelling out 100 plus for a set of less than stellar posters. It makes you wonder, in the Ames book they mention how much they hated those cartoon character kiddy like posters yet there they were again.

people need to get a grip on some stuff, posters are not worth injuries

the whole demand debate is just incorrect the band or artist see no money by their posters selling for 5 times the original sale price! BK/Ames do not sell these things for more than 60 bucks (well Ames marked some real old ones up, hence them still sitting there). These guys get no proceeds from fucking e-bay. there is no reason to keep supply low when they stand to gain nothing from it.

NothingSound

Laura in NJ wrote:

Answer: Because they want to create demand.

However, come on, band...you KNOW if you create a limited-edition product, it's GONNA end up on eBay. If accurately presented by Brian, the MSG merch director, that excuse simply doesn't fly.

Solution: Print enough posters for everyone who wants one and you won't have the "eBay problem" you supposedly claim you are trying to prevent.

Sheesh.

But that would make sense so of course the marketing firm won't do that.

I wanted to get one last night and they were sold out when I got in the venue at 7. I don't know if they sold out that quick or if the stupid vendors sold them all on N1.

PatrickBateman

Laura in NJ wrote:

Uh...as observed by others above, they would be special because they are a Pearl Jam poster from a show you attended.

I think my 1995 poster from the aborted Sponsored By No One tour is the ugliest thing on my wall, yet I framed it and keep it there because it reminds me of that awesome Red Rocks concert, and how lucky I was to even see the band that year at all.

yup, I could give a crap if everyone in the world had 20 copies each of the same Hartford poster I attended as long as it wouldn't have cost me $100 on ebay which should have only been $25.

Motown322

Laura in NJ wrote:

Answer: Because they want to create demand.

However, come on, band...you KNOW if you create a limited-edition product, it's GONNA end up on eBay. If accurately presented by Brian, the MSG merch director, that excuse simply doesn't fly.

Solution: Print enough posters for everyone who wants one and you won't have the "eBay problem" you supposedly claim you are trying to prevent.

Sheesh.

You're exactly right. If any of you don't think that the Ames Bros. don't get a *little* satisfaction at seeing these things go for stupid fucking money on eBay, you're kidding yourselves. If they were really trying to curb the flipping on eBay, they'd print enough to satisfy the demand. I don't think this holds to the normal thinking of sustaining interest where you "produce one unit less than the market demands"... There's two factors at work here:

-- The "limited-edition" nature of the posters creates the thought that these posters are worth far more than the $25 you pay at the show

-- The people that are paying $500-$600 for them on eBay afterward

Don't get me wrong; if you've got the disposable income and want one that bad, more power to you. I'm not going to begrudge the folks that can do that. But I'd be willing to bet that a good amount of people buying posters these days have nothing more than visions of dollar signs dancing in their heads when they plunked down their $25.

Motown322

hrd2imgn wrote:

there is no reason to keep supply low when they stand to gain nothing from it.

Except an ego boost. I'd imagine it feels pretty good as an artist to see people paying exorbitant prices for your work.

'Course, if they started cranking these things out by the thousands the peeps around here would probably start screaming "SELLOUTS!!!" within 10 seconds.