"On Michael's HIStory Tour (1996/97), he refused to have high priced tickets and picked a price of $14.50 and $15.50 per ticket. This left him with $25 million worth of losses on the first leg of the tour. He wanted his fans to have fun, not to break the bank."
True?
ROFL!!!
I wish! XD
But... no, no, no... and no.
Meaning to say it's wrong in 4 different ways. What a catch of a fact! XD
1) Let's start from the bottom. Did MJ walk away with $25 million worth of losses on the first leg?
Well, I guess that depends a bit on how you look at it, but I'd say, no, he did not. Because technically he couldn't. What people misunderstand is that artists don't own their concerts. Concerts are owned by a concert agency. That's companies like AEG. In Europe and Asia, the concerts belonged to a company called Mama Concerts with their head office in Munich. (Hold on to that piece of information for a moment because there's a funny fact in context with that.) These companies have the stages, the trucks, employ the roadies, the musician. Even the doctors. To make a long story short, they employ everybody and pay everybody. That means Michael Jackson didn't have to pay anybody. He just earned money. The economic risk is with the concert agency. So what would have happened if a concert hadn't sold any tickets? Then MJ would likely not have earned any money, because he most likely got a percentage of the ticket sales and not a fixed salary. But he had no expenses, either. So unless you want to argue that his time would have been employed better elsewhere, it was basically impossible for him to end up with losses from a concert tour.
2) Did MJ refuse to have high priced tickets?
As we've just seen, MJ didn't own the concerts. Consequently, he couldn't decide on the prices of the tickets. Now, before you work up a temper over how unfair that was - it wasn't. Because the same money is worth more in some places and less in others. It depends on how much people earn. For example, in some parts of Africa you can feed, dress and school a child for a whole week for as low as $2. It's hard to buy a chewing gum for that in L.A. MJ didn't and couldn't know what ticket prices people in a certain country could afford to pay. Concert agencies know - it's their everyday business. So it was perfectly fine that they made the prices. (Michael Jackson certainly did have a say in the negotiation concerning how much money he wanted to walk away with in the end, but he had no say in the prices of the individual concert. He could only decide what to do with his share - like, give it to charity, if he wished to do so.)
As I said above, the Asian and European concerts belonged to Mama Concerts - and the boss of Mama Concerts, Marcel Avram, was in prison in Munich while the HIStory Tour passed through - for tax evasion. Doesn't sound like the kind of fellow who'd not take money he could earn, does it? Michael Jackson actually visited him in prison. That must have been a fun day for the fellow inmates and the guards! XD
3) Were HIStory Tour tickets sold for $14.50 and $15,50?
If you've read No. 2, you can probably guess that it's not that simple. But generally, no. I went to the concert in Bremen, Germany, and paid DM 84,50. That were about $40 back in 1996 and convert to $46 today. I've looked up some ticket prices and made a short list. There's a little problem with that list: these are current exchange rates (See Inflation below), not exchange rates from 1996/97, so this is just giving us a general idea.
Germany: DM 84.50 = $46
Netherlands: HLF 75 = $36.48
Great Britain: GBP 26.75 = $33
Czech Republic (Opening Concert): CZK 690 = $27,32
Poland: 50 PLN = $13 – $16
There! We always knew it! Michael Jackson was a racist! He preferred the Poles!
Duh! XD
No, jokes aside. This was back in 1996. The communist East Bloc had dissolved only about 6 years earlier and economies don't catch up that fast. People in the former East Bloc countries simply earned A LOT less than in western Europe. In turn, life there was a lot cheaper, too. But that meant that they simply couldn't (and wouldn't) pay as much for a concert ticket as a Londoner. So why tour countries like Poland at all? Because tours are mainly promotion stunts for record sales and with the open East Bloc there were whole new audiences to be reached.
4) Inflation
What all this doesn't account for is inflation. The HIStory Tour happened 20 years ago! $15 were worth a lot more back in 1996 the they are today. DM 80 were a lot of money to have and spend back then, €40 nowadays... you go to town and come home and you don't know where they went! :/ So, double the prices and you get a better idea of what it meant to actually pay them back in the 1990ies.
Bottom line:
No, Michael Jackson didn't arrange for low ticket prices to let the fans have cheap fun. He couldn't and he wouldn't have. (And we didn't mind, to be honest. The relationship between Michael Jackson and his fans was monetary. We knew that and it was never a problem.) He was pretty much unable to walk away with losses. But there were countries like Poland (or possibly the Philippines) with low per capita gross national product in which concert tickets were available for a low equivalent dollar price. But bear in mind that for the people living in those countries it was factually a lot of money and not cheap fun at all and despite low prices some concerts weren't sold out because of that.
The ticket on the far right above is mine. :)
Kisses and Cookies, Birdie ;)
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Michael Jackson Facts
RandomThere are dozens of Fact Books on Wattpad. Do we really need another one? Yes, we do. Because this one is different. No, I mean it! You'll see. Let the fun begin... :D
