Paint it green: Rolling Stones tickets in Newark reach 'insane' $600K online
By Peggy McGlone/The Star-Ledger
on October 25, 2012 at 7:30 AM
'The primary on-sale will be mad ... the market will be flooded.'
Getty Images NEWARK —When it comes to buying tickets to the upcoming Rolling Stones concerts in Newark, you can’t always get what you want — unless you have a lot of money.
That’s bad news for long-time fans like Joe Della Ferra, a Belleville resident who has seen shows on every Rolling Stones tour since 1972, when he was 15 and admission was $6.50.
Della Ferra doesn’t have $750 to shell out for good seat to the Dec. 13 and 15 concerts at the Prudential Center — the only North American shows on the band’s four-date 50th anniversary tour.
And he certainly does the have an extra $600,000 for a spot in the general admission floor area — no seat included — for the first show, as listed on StubHub on Wednesday."That’s insane," Della Ferra, 55, said of the tickets prices. "I’m very disappointed. I paid $150 for the last tour. I don’t see myself paying more than that."
Pre-sales for VIPs and American Express cardholders were held this week, which is why secondary marketplace sites like StubHub are flooded with thousands of tickets. Prices start at $380 on StubHub, which Wednesday listed 4,624 available tickets for the Newark shows.
More than 300 were listed for $10,000 or more. Tickets for the general public go on sale at noon Friday, when Ticketmaster releases the rest of the inventory. Prices are $95, $150, $250, $450 and $750 (or $114.80 to $813 when you include service fees).
"The primary on-sale will be mad," ticket broker Andrea Pedersen said. "The market will be flooded."
The legendary band is celebrating its 50th anniversary with four concert dates: Nov. 25 and 29 at the O2 Arena in London and the two December shows at the Prudential Center. The final show in Newark will be a live pay per view TV special, "One More Shot."
Industry officials expect additional concert dates to be announced for next year.
Few acts can capture the kind of frenzy the Rolling Stones have generated on ticket sites this week. One-quarter of the visitors to her online ticket exchange, QueenBeeTickets. com, are interested in the Stones concerts, which places them on par with the Super Bowl and Barbra Streisand, Pedersen said.
"And this is just the beginning," she said. "There is a lot of interest."
While demand is high, the supply remains a mystery. A Prudential Center spokesman referred all questions about the concert to a Rolling Stones representative, who would not disclose the total capacity for the two concerts, or how many tickets will be available Friday, after all the pre-sales have closed. Bruce Springsteen holds the record for attendance at the Newark arena with more than 19,000 at his concert last November, an arena official said. But Springsteen played in the round, and the Ticketmaster schematic for the Rolling Stones concerts suggests they will not sell tickets in sections behind the stage.
Ticketmaster is ready for what it believes will be extraordinary demand Friday.
"When you get something that is this high profile, this level of beloved artist, it is special," a spokeswoman said. "But it is something we do every day."
Promoter John Scher said only two or three acts can pull this off: Streisand and Springsteen in the northeast, and the Rolling Stones.
"You can count them on one hand, the artists who can ask for anything they want," Scher said. "The Stones are big, they can charge a lot of money and they are.
"We are in a very affluent area, the metro New York, New Jersey area, and there’s an airport 10 minutes away so the crazy rich just can fly in," he said.
In fact, Michael Davidson of the Greater Newark Convention and Visitors Bureau reports the 500 downtown hotel rooms in downtown Newark are booked for the four days around the Stones’ shows.
"This is going to be a big boom for the city," Davidson said. "With 36,000 tickets available, we’re expecting this could mean 12,000 room nights over the four-day period."
Ticket brokers agree.
A StubHub spokeswoman said the two Newark shows "will definitely end up being one of the top-selling concerts for us in company history, and that’s huge considering it’s not in a stadium."
Pedersen said visitors aren’t buying the tickets listed on her site yet because the primary sale isn’t over. But after Friday, she said she can’t predict what will happen.
But she won’t be surprised.
"They may not play again," she said of the aging rockers. "So really the sky’s the limit."
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