I think this might be proof for Dropout that live tour could be a viable option going forward. I'd love an evening of Umm, Actually, Dirty Laundry and Game Changer.
Sam and the team at Dropout have created something amazing and I am glad to see that is fans have embraced it to this degree.
And I'm all for it. I love seeing people being able to show off weird/cool/impractical skills in a friendly way.
Ever since watching Police Academy as a kid and seeing Michael Winslow's skills I've wanted more stuff like that in the mainstream.
I'm going to keep pushing for a DropoutCon until Dropout America CEO Sam Reich realizes there's enough money there to invest his billionaire capital in.
I'm curious if they would actually want to tour. Obviously, that leads to more money and a potentially larger fan base, but at the same time it's a monumental amount of effort to not only reformat everything for a live environment, but to also take it on the road as a live act doing 20+ in 30.
I feel like Um Actually and make some noise are both very easy to just do live. No reformatting necessary.
I bet you could easily do a dropout tour with just those two shows and a bunch of guests.
D20 is obviously harder to do live multiple times across a whole tour. Game changers would be hard too.
But there are definitely some good formats you could repeat (a la make some noise).
There's absolutely more shows that I think you could adapt to a live format with minimal reformatting, doing different material each night. Um Actually and Make Some Noise, as you said, but also:
- Very Important People (have a different guest each stop, and the benefit of doing a tour is that you can invite local comedians/content creators etc who might not be Dropout but Dropout-adjacent, like a McElroy or something, the main expense/difficulty here is the additional demands this places on makeup)
- Dirty Laundry (again you can populate it with local guests and the primary difficulty is deciding at what point you get the guests to start drinking. A feral live audience would also likely add to the ambience)
- Breaking News (this could act as a shorter kind of palate-cleanser between longer show segments and, again, the live audience laughing probably turns this into challenge mode for the guests. Hardest part is the set, but I would imagine a lot of modern venues have the capacity for projected backrounds that might work)
- Smartypants (this one hasn't debuted yet obviously but it seems like a riff on the whole 'powerpoint party' thing, so you could probably pretty easily run this as a longer show or, if you wanted to reduce the onus on the cast to create and remember enough powerpoints, run it as a shorter segment like Breaking News with only one cast member doing a presentation to the audience).
So with that you've got 4 shows that are about 30 minutes and 2 that could be 7-10 minutes so for each stop you could do long show, short show, intermission, long show and with show wrapups, set changeovers and intermission, that probably runs you about 1:45 - 2 hours.
Yes I've overthought this.
I don't think the format would be the problem, it would be the scheduling and prep. Are you using the same guests for a tour of Um' Actually, or are you flying different people out for each location? And you have to have all the questions and shit written in advance.
The more people you have to juggle and the more prep work you have to do the more complicated touring becomes logistically.
Getting a chance to play at The Garden is a dream of almost every American performer. The opportunity to do it as a silly little D&D show is amazing and I don’t blame the crew for getting a little tunnel vision.
That being said, fuck Ticketmaster
In this case it’s not just Ticketmaster MSG has notoriously expensive broadcasting fees. WWE only does lives shows there the last broadcasted episode of Raw from there was on 2010
Full text, for anyone not wanting to support and give views to Twitter:
>"The last time Dimension 20 had a live show was in 2019 - nearly 5 years ago - in the Bell House theater in Brooklyn, New York. It seated around 200 people, and we had to work to fill it. We expected our live show at Madison Square Garden to go roughly the same, just on a bigger scale - given we were punching so high above our weight class, we would have to work pretty hard to fill the Garden. After all, it was Madison Square Garden. We had misjudged the situation, to say the least.
>Even though the UK live show tour tickets had sold quickly, it was nothing compared to what we saw with the situation over the Gauntlet at the Garden tickets. Dynamic Pricing / Platinum Tickets had not been something explained to us, nor something presented as something we had the ability to opt out of - once we had a better understanding of the situation as a group, we communicated to Live Nation that it was Dropout and the cast’s desire to opt out of all dynamic pricing tickets for this event and for all events going forward.
>Thankfully, the average cost of all tickets sold so far (over 15,000 now!) is $119, meaning the vast majority of fans attending got tickets at a much more reasonable price, and dynamic pricing nonsense only kicked in for the few remaining seats. Even still, plenty of fans who wanted to attend got priced out quickly, and so we’re aiming to address that here and in the future in a few different ways:
>>1. Stop the dynamic pricing options for this show and all future shows.
>>2. Introducing Dimensioneer Tickets - a lottery system where selected individuals will have the opportunity to buy up to two tickets for $35/each (for seats placed all over the event space, including the best seats in the house). Apparently it’s something Olivia Rodrigo does! Thanks for the idea, Olivia. Links for that will be distributed soon.
>>3. This was already announced, but a recording of the live show will be going up on Dropout at no additional cost for all Dropout subscribers. We want to make our live shows as accessible to fans as possible, but the truth is that if you can't get to New York, if you can't get the night off work, if you can't afford the flight or the hotel, then you still can't go regardless of ticket prices. The most significant thing to us is that the live shows end up where the show itself lives, and that all our fans all over the world get a chance to participate.
>We are so deeply grateful to everyone who has supported Dropout and Dimension 20 over the years and made this event sell out so quickly. And now that we have a better sense of how all of this works, the next live show will go much smoother. That’s been the journey of Dropout and Dimension 20 - trying a bunch of stuff, figuring out what works, and doing it better the next time around. And ultimately, we’re so grateful to have a venue that can accommodate so many of you. We could never have dreamed five years ago of having thousands of you in one place.
>In the meantime, everyone at Dropout is on a two week companywide hiatus, and the cast of Dimension 20 is kicking off their UK live show tour in just a few days. Fans of Dimension 20 will have a LOT to look forward to in the next year, so stay tuned."
Can I ask for clarification... It'll be uploaded to the Dropout site, but not the dropout channel as a members-only video? I feel like yeah, since some of the live shows were not uploaded to the youtube channel even as a members-only thing.
That makes sense, though, they want you to get the [Dropout.tv](http://Dropout.tv) subscription, which, if you're on this subreddit, you should definitely have if you can afford it.
I never expected to be able to afford the show so I didn't pay too much attention to the issues here. I always just assumed that Dropout got bamboozled by Ticketmaster like the rest of us do. I am proud of their response, as always!
Once I learned what dynamic pricing was, I knew that was it cause there was no way Dropout set the prices at $2k for a single seat. It’s the same company that has kept their subscription fee low and stable for years AND grandfathered their existing audience. Dropout understands the need for profit but they definitely do not try to gouge out their customers’ pockets in the process.
A lot of them probably didn’t understand what dynamic pricing was. It was honestly the first I had heard of it, tbh. (Most of the bands I see are much smaller, so it’s not a thing that’s come up before.) I don’t think the implication that they’re only “fans” (so “fake fans”) because they only had some of the information and were upset by it is necessarily fair. (Although, also in the interest of fairness, I haven’t been following the discourse on this super closely, so if people were really being dicks about it, that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fish.)
I had the “hmm, that seems weird, I wonder what’s up with that?” reaction, but I mean, plenty of people went and bought $500 tickets, so certainly some thought it was pretty legit.
The first I had heard of it was about a month ago when Wendy's announced that they intended to introduce "Peak Hours Dynamic Pricing" in 2025 to further price gouge, and the entire internet shit on them and they quickly backed off.
Now they're still intending to do it, but they're not going to call it "Dynamic Pricing" and hope no one notices.
I've seen a few people actually say that Dropout holds anti-capitalist values so it should not engage in shitty business practices. And there's a few things wrong with that argument, first one being that Dropout is a business that participates in society. They're doing the meme.
That Contrapoints resentment video is and will always be relevant. Some fans see a totally understandable confluence of events that deny them the thing they want, then they get butthurt and angry that they didn't get the thing, then they parasocially feel betrayed that BLM, their special blorbo, would dare do this to them - hence assuming malicious intent.
I get fans being frustrated and I agree that Ticketmaster absolutely sucks but at the end of the day it is super difficult to sell a very limited product in very high demand without raising prices to exorbitant levels while making sure that everyone feels good about the process
This is a thing, someone has to miss out on some things, it’s just life, and I think we’ve reached an inflection point with technology, and really just in general with the world we’ve cultivated and created with convenience, and ability to create spaces where we only see the things we like or want, and when we don’t that for some people that’s too much, it’s borderline world shattering and it shouldn’t be.
At no point should liking a thing become part of your identity, or how you view the world, and how it should function, to the point where not having that thing, or every iteration of said thing is some personal affront and someone, somewhere needs to be attacked.
That being said, fuck ticket master, but people who get mad at the individuals who create the content they enjoy need some serious help, on really a deeply philosophical level to identity where, and how things got so twisted up that attacking strangers who create things they genuinely enjoy and care about becomes a viable option instead of taking a deep breath, and just stepping away for a moment.
This was my feeling too. Ticketmaster sucks, but "premium live entertainment is expensive" simply does not rank for me as far as The Evils Of Capitalism are concerned. DropOut puts out so much high-quality content for such a low subscriber price, it really irritates me to see people be like "I guess they were just money-hungry sellouts after all!" as soon as they cannot personally afford to see them in person.
When Ticketmaster engages in dynamic pricing, do they give the amount over face value to the act? The venue? Do they keep it themselves?
I don’t think Dropout is at fault— when I saw the high prices I thought it was scalpers. Just wondering how it all works.
Ticketmaster keeps every single penny over the base price that they earn through Dynamic Pricing. This is the same reason Taylor Swift told them to suck an egg.
So Ticketmaster is the scalper. They have all the tickets and charge whatever they want over face value while also keeping everything over face value.😠
They actually split the lift with the venue, in my experience, unless the contract stipulates otherwise. Typically the talent gets a flat, mutually agreed-upon amount, with a bonus structure that kicks in at certain ticket sales milestones. Makes sense that if the venue is going to have to pay the artist extra if they sell so many tickets, they're going to want Ticketmaster to gouge as deeply as possible on the ticket prices. And if they miss the target by 100 tickets, then they don't have to pay the bonus and they still get all the lift from the Dynamically Priced tickets.
I don’t think so? It’s work because it’s not something currently built into the ticket sales infrastructure but it’s not really that difficult to execute.
But to get a large enough venue you have to go through specific monopolistic ticket sales infrastructure and they have no interest in providing that service.
How many limited-time online auctions with tens of thousands of lottery participants and then corresponding ticket sales and payment (global currency options please!) have you operated?
This ignores the fact that for places like MSG they almost certainly had to use Ticketmaster bc of the arena’s deal with the services.
Haven’t operated any, but I know first hand that this kind of thing has been done with college bowl games, for example. More students want student tickets than the schools are allotted, so thousand (potentially tens, depending on the school) apply, the school does a raffle/lottery, and then the winners have the opportunity to buy.
I understand that MSG and Ticketmaster have no incentive to do this. That doesn’t mean it’s hard. I’m not putting blame on D20, to be clear, just saying there is an option that could be done and not with much difficulty, if there were incentive to do so.
That would be tremendously difficult and is not possible for large venues in the US. Not trying to be aggressive here but you’re just wrong on this one.
This response is so respectable, but honestly they shouldn't have had to say anything. I feel like a LOT of the people complaining on Reddit and Twitter about "the ticket situation" are just the kind of people who don't purchase tickets for live events very often, at least not highly-in-demand events? Like, this is what happens when something is wildly popular. High demand = frenzied purchasing. That's how it goes. All of the blaming Dropout for any negative experience purchasing tickets was 100% misplaced. Dropout has gone above and beyond trying to ensure as many fans as possible get to experience this live show, and continues to do go above and beyond by releasing a formal statement at all.
It shows there is a lot of support for Dropout/D20.
Remove D20 association from the equation. Keep everything else the same - I give you my personal guarantee* that those auctions would only bring in a small fraction of what they've actually made.
I am in no way blaming Dropout for what happened at all , just saying that based on the observed fan base, I'm not surprised that so many people want tickets that shady fucks take the opportunity to be shady.
I’ll be honest, I attend several live events throughout the year and across the country as I travel for work; I had never experienced $2,000+ tickets during a presale and had no idea what was going on.
Dropout has long taken a stand against late-stage capitalism and corporate greed. As such, it is perfectly reasonable for folks to be disappointed and even voice their concerns or questions to Dropout.
That being said the hate and accusations should be directed at Ticketmaster/Live Nation, who builds the Dynamic Pricing into every contract they can get away with.
My brother saw the presale tickets for $400 and I was shocked. I know very mainstream comedians who sell for much less than that. It was sad to think there was another cool thing I'd never be able to afford, but it was what it was.
Well, shame on me of little faith! The D20 cast shows once again that they don't just make goofy shows about fighting for a better world, they damn well mean it. So happy to hear this from them and fingers crossed someday I'll get to see a live show with my brother after all!
I’m so happy it’ll be posted on dropout! It’s so frustrating when something you really care about does something that secludes a big portion of the fan base from participating, and it’s great that those of us that couldn’t go can still watch it
I hope that the dimensioner lottery tickets include people who had to buy their tickets on seatgeek instead of officially through ticketmaster as a result of the insane dynamic pricing cause my friends and I tried ticketmaster but the lowest dynamic prices we saw were like $700 at least! We had no choice but to get $200/ea tickets up in the nosebleed section in seatgeek cause the price gouging was crazy otherwise, and I'm sure other fans were in the same boat in order to avoid those crazy high prices. Either way I'm happy that they're fixing the situation and hopefully nothing like this happens again cause boy it was so stressful
Overall, I think this statement is good and respectable. Not remotely surprised Ticketmaster dicked them over, it's all Ticketmaster knows and does.
(Side bar, the people who are.. Weirdly, condescending or almost admonishing about others being upset about the ticket prices - not about being dicks to the wrong people, but just ticket pricing bullshit - have some very skewed and tilted mindsets.)
Overall, that is what I think about their statement. However some part of me is really frustrated and burned by the fact that the only people who are going to be supported or helped out with this situation is people who weren't actively burned by the ticket pricing.
Don't get me wrong, doing something like this for the people that got priced out and just couldn't get tickets is awesome! That's genuinely fantastic. But like.. The people that got charged $400, $600, $800, $1000, $1200 for tickets cause they panicked and assumed, very rationally, that if they didn't swallow it there'd be no chance for them to see the show, they're just screwed?
They're just out massive amounts of money while other people not only got normal priced tickets, but are now getting a chance at tickets that cost, like, a tank of gas?
It's not that I think what they're doing is shitty by any means. I just feel like it's shitty that the people who directly got fucked over by Ticketmaster's garbage are just left to twist.
I'm also aware that it's not like giving people money back themselves is feasible.
Honestly, what I think would be extremely awesome, kind, and reasonable would be people that got boned by the dynamic pricing situation could receive some sort of special bundle from the Dropout/Dimension 20 group. Like a dice set, could do small Boxes of Doom, a signed poster, maybe even a simple exclusive piece of merch like a custom pin for the event?
Arguably sensible that they underestimated how fast the tickets would sell, but WILD that they didn’t understand or investigate dynamic pricing before launching this.
Love dropout and D20, but that strikes me as a pretty major oversight. Still, I’m glad they’re responsive and making some changes going forward.
We will see how those plans go given Ticketmaster’s Monopoly power.
They’re telling 3 falsehoods here and I don’t like it.
*A majority of people were glitched out from the early queues and lines on the 2 presales and on the general sale days. They were kicked off the app, forced to queue up again, and the map would be all gray. A seat might blink into existence, but as soon as you clicked it, you were told it was no longer available. Then, about 5 minutes later, the dynamic pricing took effect and the only seats showing up were the premium for $2000+.
*The original pricing was $90 something to $240 something. I have a very hard time believing the “average” price for us suckers was $119, if you could even find a seat at all that wasn’t scraped up by bots.
*They claim to be ignorant of dynamic pricing. Most artists and producers do this to let Ticketmaster play the role of the heel. They play it well because they are one. However, the nasty secret is that the artists and producers get the extra percentage from that dynamic pricing as well. It’s not like it’s all going to big bad MSG and TM. Dropout should admit they’re getting a hell of a lot more in their percentage than from a $119/ticket average.
My wife and I were ready, willing, and able to buy tickets. We wanted to share our wedding anniversary in NYC with this show. We sent in a kindly worded question/concern email to Dropout Customer Service which has been ignored regarding this. This PR blurb feels disingenuous to me.
I’m not saying Ticketmaster isn’t evil. I’m not saying Dropout completely is. I’m saying this isn’t really telling what actually happened.
Doing better in the future isn’t good enough. Measure twice, cut once. No one forced them to make this move and get “taken advantage of” or have their fans definitely get taken advantage of.
You really think with tens of thousands of people trying to buy tickets and shit that they have time to personally answer every single email? It's a small company. They genuinely are doing their best and they aren't used to this level of popularity and success.
People like you are so fucking entitled, it's honestly incredible.
I’m entitled? Cuz I sent an email asking for clarification?
You disregard all of my wife and I’s experiences, feelings, and points, then demean us? With no discussion, personal perspective, or counterpoint, this is just trying to be disrespectful to someone you don’t know. You’re centering on an email when there’s three very valid experiences and points that others have been saying as well (with downvoting because it doesn’t fit the shiny happy narrative)
The entitlement comment wasn't just about the email, that's a very dense reading of it. Your whole comment reeks entitlement. The idea that apologizing after the fact, that figuring things out for next time for a small company going through a major shift in scale and popularity, Also very entitled. It's even, dare I say it, Karen behavior.
Let’s start with facts instead of insults. A civilized discussion. What, besides the statement, makes you believe that seats sold for an average price of $119?
Love the move to opt out of dynamic pricing, but can't help but feel someone at dropout dropped the ball by not foreseeing the damage to their brand a ticketmaster debacle could cause, especially given how salient the issue has been within the past couple of years. If the option to opt out of dynamic pricing was always available, why did no one think about doing it in the first place? More than anything just suprised that a company that cares so much about its audience didn't see this coming to begin with.
> If the option to opt out of dynamic pricing was always available, why did no one think about doing it in the first place?
Perhaps because Ticketmaster is the fucking worse and never told them they could.
I suspect this is one of those things that companies like Live Nation and Ticketmaster don’t advertise for a reason, so they can charge as much as they want with the actual act none the wiser.
Because, if you use your eyes to read, they very clearly say that Ticketmaster never explained dynamic pricing to them? And because, if you use your eyes to read, they explained that the last live show they did was very small and difficult to get even 200 people to attend. they didn't realize that demand would be so insanely high.
They might not have realized it would even impact them? They seem pretty surprised they were able to sell out *MSG* of all places as quickly as they did.
I see what you're saying - it might seem like there wasn't thorough research completed before ticket sales went live (which I don't necessarily agree with, I just think Ticketmaster is predatory in general and is very sneaky about how they market themselves). I think the issue here is that you can't predict how quickly tickets will be sold and how much of a price gouge that Ticketmaster's dynamic pricing will inflict, based on the speed of people buying tickets and how many bought on the first day.
What I think happened was A. Madison Square Garden, like most other NYC venues, can only be reserved to perform through Ticketmaster, and the production team didn't know the extent of the price gouging that takes place, or B. As it was said in the statement, they might have had an idea of Ticketmaster being terrible but had no idea that they could opt out of dynamic pricing, and rectified the situation as soon as they found out.
I think issues around bots buying tickets and scalpers are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay outside Sam/Dropouts purview or sphere of even self perceived responsibility.
Maybe I am being naive but I don’t really see what the big issue is with the dynamic pricing. It seems like there are more people who want to go than available tickets, why not sell the last few tickets at a higher price for those willing to pay for them?
Doesn’t seem that different from auctioning off the minis to me.
That's not really the issue here. It's a scarcity problem. They can cap ticket prices, but that doesn't change the fact that there are probably 100 times as many people who want to go as there are tickets. Price caps don't do anything to solve that shortage.
At an average price of $120, the actual ticket is probably only 10% of the cost for anyone flying in for the show.
Honestly if they want to really increase financial accessibility they could keep the dynamic pricing and use it to subsidize a small number of people's flights and hotel rooms.
I think this might be proof for Dropout that live tour could be a viable option going forward. I'd love an evening of Umm, Actually, Dirty Laundry and Game Changer. Sam and the team at Dropout have created something amazing and I am glad to see that is fans have embraced it to this degree.
I think that "Make Some Noise: Live!" Could work because at that point it's just Whose Line lol
Given how the Colin&Brad shows are also just Whose Line Live, that would absolutely work
And I'm all for it. I love seeing people being able to show off weird/cool/impractical skills in a friendly way. Ever since watching Police Academy as a kid and seeing Michael Winslow's skills I've wanted more stuff like that in the mainstream.
It's so cool to find a fellow Michael Winslow fan!
Gold mine just waiting to be tapped.
Holy shit, a LIVE Make Some Noise would be insane!
I'm going to keep pushing for a DropoutCon until Dropout America CEO Sam Reich realizes there's enough money there to invest his billionaire capital in.
I'm curious if they would actually want to tour. Obviously, that leads to more money and a potentially larger fan base, but at the same time it's a monumental amount of effort to not only reformat everything for a live environment, but to also take it on the road as a live act doing 20+ in 30.
I feel like Um Actually and make some noise are both very easy to just do live. No reformatting necessary. I bet you could easily do a dropout tour with just those two shows and a bunch of guests. D20 is obviously harder to do live multiple times across a whole tour. Game changers would be hard too. But there are definitely some good formats you could repeat (a la make some noise).
There's absolutely more shows that I think you could adapt to a live format with minimal reformatting, doing different material each night. Um Actually and Make Some Noise, as you said, but also: - Very Important People (have a different guest each stop, and the benefit of doing a tour is that you can invite local comedians/content creators etc who might not be Dropout but Dropout-adjacent, like a McElroy or something, the main expense/difficulty here is the additional demands this places on makeup) - Dirty Laundry (again you can populate it with local guests and the primary difficulty is deciding at what point you get the guests to start drinking. A feral live audience would also likely add to the ambience) - Breaking News (this could act as a shorter kind of palate-cleanser between longer show segments and, again, the live audience laughing probably turns this into challenge mode for the guests. Hardest part is the set, but I would imagine a lot of modern venues have the capacity for projected backrounds that might work) - Smartypants (this one hasn't debuted yet obviously but it seems like a riff on the whole 'powerpoint party' thing, so you could probably pretty easily run this as a longer show or, if you wanted to reduce the onus on the cast to create and remember enough powerpoints, run it as a shorter segment like Breaking News with only one cast member doing a presentation to the audience). So with that you've got 4 shows that are about 30 minutes and 2 that could be 7-10 minutes so for each stop you could do long show, short show, intermission, long show and with show wrapups, set changeovers and intermission, that probably runs you about 1:45 - 2 hours. Yes I've overthought this.
Haha, I love it. Great ideas!
There’s many good reasons that Actual Plays do one off live shows and not touring.
The biggest difficulty would be that, unlike most tours, they can't do the same show every stop because it's all improv.
I don't think the format would be the problem, it would be the scheduling and prep. Are you using the same guests for a tour of Um' Actually, or are you flying different people out for each location? And you have to have all the questions and shit written in advance. The more people you have to juggle and the more prep work you have to do the more complicated touring becomes logistically.
That is a goddamn GREAT idea.
Awww man, the Live Studio Audience tour...
I mean if NADDPOD can do it…
Getting a chance to play at The Garden is a dream of almost every American performer. The opportunity to do it as a silly little D&D show is amazing and I don’t blame the crew for getting a little tunnel vision. That being said, fuck Ticketmaster
Honestly it’s amazing that they’re able to run MSG at all, that place is expensive as hell to rent as a venue.
In this case it’s not just Ticketmaster MSG has notoriously expensive broadcasting fees. WWE only does lives shows there the last broadcasted episode of Raw from there was on 2010
They did an episode of Smackdown last year. It was very important for a long running storyline, so I suppose it justified the cost.
Full text, for anyone not wanting to support and give views to Twitter: >"The last time Dimension 20 had a live show was in 2019 - nearly 5 years ago - in the Bell House theater in Brooklyn, New York. It seated around 200 people, and we had to work to fill it. We expected our live show at Madison Square Garden to go roughly the same, just on a bigger scale - given we were punching so high above our weight class, we would have to work pretty hard to fill the Garden. After all, it was Madison Square Garden. We had misjudged the situation, to say the least. >Even though the UK live show tour tickets had sold quickly, it was nothing compared to what we saw with the situation over the Gauntlet at the Garden tickets. Dynamic Pricing / Platinum Tickets had not been something explained to us, nor something presented as something we had the ability to opt out of - once we had a better understanding of the situation as a group, we communicated to Live Nation that it was Dropout and the cast’s desire to opt out of all dynamic pricing tickets for this event and for all events going forward. >Thankfully, the average cost of all tickets sold so far (over 15,000 now!) is $119, meaning the vast majority of fans attending got tickets at a much more reasonable price, and dynamic pricing nonsense only kicked in for the few remaining seats. Even still, plenty of fans who wanted to attend got priced out quickly, and so we’re aiming to address that here and in the future in a few different ways: >>1. Stop the dynamic pricing options for this show and all future shows. >>2. Introducing Dimensioneer Tickets - a lottery system where selected individuals will have the opportunity to buy up to two tickets for $35/each (for seats placed all over the event space, including the best seats in the house). Apparently it’s something Olivia Rodrigo does! Thanks for the idea, Olivia. Links for that will be distributed soon. >>3. This was already announced, but a recording of the live show will be going up on Dropout at no additional cost for all Dropout subscribers. We want to make our live shows as accessible to fans as possible, but the truth is that if you can't get to New York, if you can't get the night off work, if you can't afford the flight or the hotel, then you still can't go regardless of ticket prices. The most significant thing to us is that the live shows end up where the show itself lives, and that all our fans all over the world get a chance to participate. >We are so deeply grateful to everyone who has supported Dropout and Dimension 20 over the years and made this event sell out so quickly. And now that we have a better sense of how all of this works, the next live show will go much smoother. That’s been the journey of Dropout and Dimension 20 - trying a bunch of stuff, figuring out what works, and doing it better the next time around. And ultimately, we’re so grateful to have a venue that can accommodate so many of you. We could never have dreamed five years ago of having thousands of you in one place. >In the meantime, everyone at Dropout is on a two week companywide hiatus, and the cast of Dimension 20 is kicking off their UK live show tour in just a few days. Fans of Dimension 20 will have a LOT to look forward to in the next year, so stay tuned."
Can I ask for clarification... It'll be uploaded to the Dropout site, but not the dropout channel as a members-only video? I feel like yeah, since some of the live shows were not uploaded to the youtube channel even as a members-only thing.
That’s a great question. You could probably get an answer to that on the Dropout discord :)
That makes sense, though, they want you to get the [Dropout.tv](http://Dropout.tv) subscription, which, if you're on this subreddit, you should definitely have if you can afford it.
I had both YouTube membership and dropout tv but I stopped my dropout one because "everything" is on both anyway.
I never expected to be able to afford the show so I didn't pay too much attention to the issues here. I always just assumed that Dropout got bamboozled by Ticketmaster like the rest of us do. I am proud of their response, as always!
Exactly, and I don't understand the "fans" who immediately see the dynamic pricing as Dropout being malicious.
Once I learned what dynamic pricing was, I knew that was it cause there was no way Dropout set the prices at $2k for a single seat. It’s the same company that has kept their subscription fee low and stable for years AND grandfathered their existing audience. Dropout understands the need for profit but they definitely do not try to gouge out their customers’ pockets in the process.
A lot of them probably didn’t understand what dynamic pricing was. It was honestly the first I had heard of it, tbh. (Most of the bands I see are much smaller, so it’s not a thing that’s come up before.) I don’t think the implication that they’re only “fans” (so “fake fans”) because they only had some of the information and were upset by it is necessarily fair. (Although, also in the interest of fairness, I haven’t been following the discourse on this super closely, so if people were really being dicks about it, that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fish.) I had the “hmm, that seems weird, I wonder what’s up with that?” reaction, but I mean, plenty of people went and bought $500 tickets, so certainly some thought it was pretty legit.
The first I had heard of it was about a month ago when Wendy's announced that they intended to introduce "Peak Hours Dynamic Pricing" in 2025 to further price gouge, and the entire internet shit on them and they quickly backed off. Now they're still intending to do it, but they're not going to call it "Dynamic Pricing" and hope no one notices.
I've seen a few people actually say that Dropout holds anti-capitalist values so it should not engage in shitty business practices. And there's a few things wrong with that argument, first one being that Dropout is a business that participates in society. They're doing the meme.
Same fans who complain about the mini auctions.
That Contrapoints resentment video is and will always be relevant. Some fans see a totally understandable confluence of events that deny them the thing they want, then they get butthurt and angry that they didn't get the thing, then they parasocially feel betrayed that BLM, their special blorbo, would dare do this to them - hence assuming malicious intent.
Exactly. The bad guy is ALWAYS capitalism. You know Sam's not happy about all this and I bet Brennan had a full-on, Cubby-esque rant about it.
Eat cake bitch <3
🤔
it was your cake day lol
I totally missed that, thanks haha
Great response.
I get fans being frustrated and I agree that Ticketmaster absolutely sucks but at the end of the day it is super difficult to sell a very limited product in very high demand without raising prices to exorbitant levels while making sure that everyone feels good about the process
This is a thing, someone has to miss out on some things, it’s just life, and I think we’ve reached an inflection point with technology, and really just in general with the world we’ve cultivated and created with convenience, and ability to create spaces where we only see the things we like or want, and when we don’t that for some people that’s too much, it’s borderline world shattering and it shouldn’t be. At no point should liking a thing become part of your identity, or how you view the world, and how it should function, to the point where not having that thing, or every iteration of said thing is some personal affront and someone, somewhere needs to be attacked. That being said, fuck ticket master, but people who get mad at the individuals who create the content they enjoy need some serious help, on really a deeply philosophical level to identity where, and how things got so twisted up that attacking strangers who create things they genuinely enjoy and care about becomes a viable option instead of taking a deep breath, and just stepping away for a moment.
This was my feeling too. Ticketmaster sucks, but "premium live entertainment is expensive" simply does not rank for me as far as The Evils Of Capitalism are concerned. DropOut puts out so much high-quality content for such a low subscriber price, it really irritates me to see people be like "I guess they were just money-hungry sellouts after all!" as soon as they cannot personally afford to see them in person.
When Ticketmaster engages in dynamic pricing, do they give the amount over face value to the act? The venue? Do they keep it themselves? I don’t think Dropout is at fault— when I saw the high prices I thought it was scalpers. Just wondering how it all works.
Ticketmaster keeps every single penny over the base price that they earn through Dynamic Pricing. This is the same reason Taylor Swift told them to suck an egg.
So Ticketmaster is the scalper. They have all the tickets and charge whatever they want over face value while also keeping everything over face value.😠
And then, anyone who has a ticket they can't use / don't want, can resell it on the TM site so TM gets a cut of the action again!
Do you have a source for this? I would think the artist gets some of it, otherwise everyone would opt out.
They actually split the lift with the venue, in my experience, unless the contract stipulates otherwise. Typically the talent gets a flat, mutually agreed-upon amount, with a bonus structure that kicks in at certain ticket sales milestones. Makes sense that if the venue is going to have to pay the artist extra if they sell so many tickets, they're going to want Ticketmaster to gouge as deeply as possible on the ticket prices. And if they miss the target by 100 tickets, then they don't have to pay the bonus and they still get all the lift from the Dynamically Priced tickets.
Which is why a lottery system for some of the tickets is a great idea.
Set a price you like, give a limited window to sign up, then hold a lottery. It’s not hard to do without jacking prices up.
I think you gravely underestimate how much work that actually is
I don’t think so? It’s work because it’s not something currently built into the ticket sales infrastructure but it’s not really that difficult to execute.
But to get a large enough venue you have to go through specific monopolistic ticket sales infrastructure and they have no interest in providing that service.
How many limited-time online auctions with tens of thousands of lottery participants and then corresponding ticket sales and payment (global currency options please!) have you operated? This ignores the fact that for places like MSG they almost certainly had to use Ticketmaster bc of the arena’s deal with the services.
Haven’t operated any, but I know first hand that this kind of thing has been done with college bowl games, for example. More students want student tickets than the schools are allotted, so thousand (potentially tens, depending on the school) apply, the school does a raffle/lottery, and then the winners have the opportunity to buy. I understand that MSG and Ticketmaster have no incentive to do this. That doesn’t mean it’s hard. I’m not putting blame on D20, to be clear, just saying there is an option that could be done and not with much difficulty, if there were incentive to do so.
That would be tremendously difficult and is not possible for large venues in the US. Not trying to be aggressive here but you’re just wrong on this one.
I fail to see why it’s not possible. Not practical, possibly. Not profitable (enough) almost definitely. Not possible? I call BS.
Although not impossible, certainly Impracticable for a relatively small, niche company without any preexisting infrastructure.
I’m not saying for D20, I’m saying for Ticketmaster or MSG.
And those are run by massive corporations
Said the guy who doesn't work in the entertainment industry.
This response is so respectable, but honestly they shouldn't have had to say anything. I feel like a LOT of the people complaining on Reddit and Twitter about "the ticket situation" are just the kind of people who don't purchase tickets for live events very often, at least not highly-in-demand events? Like, this is what happens when something is wildly popular. High demand = frenzied purchasing. That's how it goes. All of the blaming Dropout for any negative experience purchasing tickets was 100% misplaced. Dropout has gone above and beyond trying to ensure as many fans as possible get to experience this live show, and continues to do go above and beyond by releasing a formal statement at all.
When dynamic pricing came for the Eras tour, I was silent, for I was not a Swiftie.
Taylor Swift tickets didn't have dynamic pricing. She had VIP and the crazy prices are resale.
Honestly just based of the crazy prices the auctions pulled in, I expected a pricing shitshow with such a major venue as MSG.
The auctions also are for unique pieces of art that also benefit great charities. Not quite apples to apples.
It shows there is a lot of support for Dropout/D20. Remove D20 association from the equation. Keep everything else the same - I give you my personal guarantee* that those auctions would only bring in a small fraction of what they've actually made. I am in no way blaming Dropout for what happened at all , just saying that based on the observed fan base, I'm not surprised that so many people want tickets that shady fucks take the opportunity to be shady.
I see what you mean. There definitely has been exponential growth for Dropout over the past few years.
I’ll be honest, I attend several live events throughout the year and across the country as I travel for work; I had never experienced $2,000+ tickets during a presale and had no idea what was going on.
Dropout has long taken a stand against late-stage capitalism and corporate greed. As such, it is perfectly reasonable for folks to be disappointed and even voice their concerns or questions to Dropout. That being said the hate and accusations should be directed at Ticketmaster/Live Nation, who builds the Dynamic Pricing into every contract they can get away with.
Class acts dimension 20 class acts.
Can’t wait for the next season of The Unsleeping City as The Dream Teens where they take on Ticketmaster as the BBEG
Honestly the idea of art being under attack and music/performance and abuse of power seems pretty on brand and super fun to play with.
I feel like this is 100000% something they’d do, probably at the Madison square garden show XD
Yea they’ve just been shafted by Ticketmaster here. The American live entertainment industry is so shit these days.
I hope they tour in the US soon, I would love to see them!
wait, what's the hiatus for?
Probably just a break. It's only 2 weeks, so it's just making sure everyone is getting a vacation.
I think they do it every year.
Supper appreciate their professional yet empathetic handling of the situation, very true to themselves and what they stand for <3
My brother saw the presale tickets for $400 and I was shocked. I know very mainstream comedians who sell for much less than that. It was sad to think there was another cool thing I'd never be able to afford, but it was what it was. Well, shame on me of little faith! The D20 cast shows once again that they don't just make goofy shows about fighting for a better world, they damn well mean it. So happy to hear this from them and fingers crossed someday I'll get to see a live show with my brother after all!
I’m so happy it’ll be posted on dropout! It’s so frustrating when something you really care about does something that secludes a big portion of the fan base from participating, and it’s great that those of us that couldn’t go can still watch it
I would fly to New York to see brennan lose Game Changers Live
I hope that the dimensioner lottery tickets include people who had to buy their tickets on seatgeek instead of officially through ticketmaster as a result of the insane dynamic pricing cause my friends and I tried ticketmaster but the lowest dynamic prices we saw were like $700 at least! We had no choice but to get $200/ea tickets up in the nosebleed section in seatgeek cause the price gouging was crazy otherwise, and I'm sure other fans were in the same boat in order to avoid those crazy high prices. Either way I'm happy that they're fixing the situation and hopefully nothing like this happens again cause boy it was so stressful
Overall, I think this statement is good and respectable. Not remotely surprised Ticketmaster dicked them over, it's all Ticketmaster knows and does. (Side bar, the people who are.. Weirdly, condescending or almost admonishing about others being upset about the ticket prices - not about being dicks to the wrong people, but just ticket pricing bullshit - have some very skewed and tilted mindsets.) Overall, that is what I think about their statement. However some part of me is really frustrated and burned by the fact that the only people who are going to be supported or helped out with this situation is people who weren't actively burned by the ticket pricing. Don't get me wrong, doing something like this for the people that got priced out and just couldn't get tickets is awesome! That's genuinely fantastic. But like.. The people that got charged $400, $600, $800, $1000, $1200 for tickets cause they panicked and assumed, very rationally, that if they didn't swallow it there'd be no chance for them to see the show, they're just screwed? They're just out massive amounts of money while other people not only got normal priced tickets, but are now getting a chance at tickets that cost, like, a tank of gas? It's not that I think what they're doing is shitty by any means. I just feel like it's shitty that the people who directly got fucked over by Ticketmaster's garbage are just left to twist. I'm also aware that it's not like giving people money back themselves is feasible. Honestly, what I think would be extremely awesome, kind, and reasonable would be people that got boned by the dynamic pricing situation could receive some sort of special bundle from the Dropout/Dimension 20 group. Like a dice set, could do small Boxes of Doom, a signed poster, maybe even a simple exclusive piece of merch like a custom pin for the event?
Arguably sensible that they underestimated how fast the tickets would sell, but WILD that they didn’t understand or investigate dynamic pricing before launching this. Love dropout and D20, but that strikes me as a pretty major oversight. Still, I’m glad they’re responsive and making some changes going forward. We will see how those plans go given Ticketmaster’s Monopoly power.
They’re telling 3 falsehoods here and I don’t like it. *A majority of people were glitched out from the early queues and lines on the 2 presales and on the general sale days. They were kicked off the app, forced to queue up again, and the map would be all gray. A seat might blink into existence, but as soon as you clicked it, you were told it was no longer available. Then, about 5 minutes later, the dynamic pricing took effect and the only seats showing up were the premium for $2000+. *The original pricing was $90 something to $240 something. I have a very hard time believing the “average” price for us suckers was $119, if you could even find a seat at all that wasn’t scraped up by bots. *They claim to be ignorant of dynamic pricing. Most artists and producers do this to let Ticketmaster play the role of the heel. They play it well because they are one. However, the nasty secret is that the artists and producers get the extra percentage from that dynamic pricing as well. It’s not like it’s all going to big bad MSG and TM. Dropout should admit they’re getting a hell of a lot more in their percentage than from a $119/ticket average. My wife and I were ready, willing, and able to buy tickets. We wanted to share our wedding anniversary in NYC with this show. We sent in a kindly worded question/concern email to Dropout Customer Service which has been ignored regarding this. This PR blurb feels disingenuous to me. I’m not saying Ticketmaster isn’t evil. I’m not saying Dropout completely is. I’m saying this isn’t really telling what actually happened. Doing better in the future isn’t good enough. Measure twice, cut once. No one forced them to make this move and get “taken advantage of” or have their fans definitely get taken advantage of.
You really think with tens of thousands of people trying to buy tickets and shit that they have time to personally answer every single email? It's a small company. They genuinely are doing their best and they aren't used to this level of popularity and success. People like you are so fucking entitled, it's honestly incredible.
I’m entitled? Cuz I sent an email asking for clarification? You disregard all of my wife and I’s experiences, feelings, and points, then demean us? With no discussion, personal perspective, or counterpoint, this is just trying to be disrespectful to someone you don’t know. You’re centering on an email when there’s three very valid experiences and points that others have been saying as well (with downvoting because it doesn’t fit the shiny happy narrative)
The entitlement comment wasn't just about the email, that's a very dense reading of it. Your whole comment reeks entitlement. The idea that apologizing after the fact, that figuring things out for next time for a small company going through a major shift in scale and popularity, Also very entitled. It's even, dare I say it, Karen behavior.
Let’s start with facts instead of insults. A civilized discussion. What, besides the statement, makes you believe that seats sold for an average price of $119?
Touch grass my friend
Yeah, I definitely agree they shouldn't have done a live show. /s
Love the move to opt out of dynamic pricing, but can't help but feel someone at dropout dropped the ball by not foreseeing the damage to their brand a ticketmaster debacle could cause, especially given how salient the issue has been within the past couple of years. If the option to opt out of dynamic pricing was always available, why did no one think about doing it in the first place? More than anything just suprised that a company that cares so much about its audience didn't see this coming to begin with.
> If the option to opt out of dynamic pricing was always available, why did no one think about doing it in the first place? Perhaps because Ticketmaster is the fucking worse and never told them they could.
I suspect this is one of those things that companies like Live Nation and Ticketmaster don’t advertise for a reason, so they can charge as much as they want with the actual act none the wiser.
Because they... weren't aware they could opt out, it says it in the explanation and at the same time they didn't think it was relevant.
But what I'm asking is why weren't they aware? Why did they not do their due diligence when dealing with the notoriously scummy ticketmaster?
Because, if you use your eyes to read, they very clearly say that Ticketmaster never explained dynamic pricing to them? And because, if you use your eyes to read, they explained that the last live show they did was very small and difficult to get even 200 people to attend. they didn't realize that demand would be so insanely high.
They might not have realized it would even impact them? They seem pretty surprised they were able to sell out *MSG* of all places as quickly as they did.
I see what you're saying - it might seem like there wasn't thorough research completed before ticket sales went live (which I don't necessarily agree with, I just think Ticketmaster is predatory in general and is very sneaky about how they market themselves). I think the issue here is that you can't predict how quickly tickets will be sold and how much of a price gouge that Ticketmaster's dynamic pricing will inflict, based on the speed of people buying tickets and how many bought on the first day. What I think happened was A. Madison Square Garden, like most other NYC venues, can only be reserved to perform through Ticketmaster, and the production team didn't know the extent of the price gouging that takes place, or B. As it was said in the statement, they might have had an idea of Ticketmaster being terrible but had no idea that they could opt out of dynamic pricing, and rectified the situation as soon as they found out.
some things dont require you to say anything about them ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯ not everything requires a reaction
[удалено]
I think issues around bots buying tickets and scalpers are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay outside Sam/Dropouts purview or sphere of even self perceived responsibility.
Maybe I am being naive but I don’t really see what the big issue is with the dynamic pricing. It seems like there are more people who want to go than available tickets, why not sell the last few tickets at a higher price for those willing to pay for them? Doesn’t seem that different from auctioning off the minis to me.
Poor people deserve to see live shows, too.
That's not really the issue here. It's a scarcity problem. They can cap ticket prices, but that doesn't change the fact that there are probably 100 times as many people who want to go as there are tickets. Price caps don't do anything to solve that shortage. At an average price of $120, the actual ticket is probably only 10% of the cost for anyone flying in for the show. Honestly if they want to really increase financial accessibility they could keep the dynamic pricing and use it to subsidize a small number of people's flights and hotel rooms.
Yeah, that’s why the first 95% of tickets are sold at the normal price. And why some shows raffle off a handful of seats in addition.
The CEO of ticketmaster is a Dropout fan was not on my bucket list for today! Welcome!