James Blake vows to avoid “the monopolies” for touring: “I’m not having my fans ripped off by people who don’t care the way we do about live music”
James Blake has vowed to avoid the “monopolies” that come with touring and ticket sales for artists, outlining a proposed new approach for his fans going forward.
The electronic producer and musician voiced his views around the numerous issues that prevent tickets from getting into the hands of fans – including mailing lists controlled by external companies, hidden fees and social media algorithms.
In a lengthy post shared to Instagram, the artist wrote that this was something “me and other artists have been noticing for a long time, not just today”.
The ‘Retrograde’ singer expressed frustrations over external companies owning mailing lists who “won’t let us use them to reach our fans”, and said he was “not having my fans and myself ripped off by people who don’t care the way do about live music”.
He encouraged fans to sign up for free at the Vault platform link in his bio – which invites fans to “join the inner circle” – adding that “otherwise you might never hear about any of my shows”.
He also claimed that Instagram was “restricting all my posts about my shows”, wondering why he was only seeing 3000 views on a Story when he has 691,000 followers.
“Why can’t I promote a show to people who follow me? How else am I supposed to let people know I’m playing?” he asked.
In an attempt to tackle the problem, Blake explained that he’d be working with a new platform called bside – which describes itself as a “more transparent and artist-centric model” – for his upcoming piano shows in North America.
“Every show l’ve ever done for 13 years a company has taken the ‘data’ – I.e email addresses/phone numbers of my fans,” he explained. “I didn’t know how important that was at the time.”
Blake also outlined the “ridiculous amounts of unexplainable hidden fees” for fans, including “more than we even know about, buried in countless deals we artists never see”.
“I’m sick of the control over every single aspect of the live experience meaning that means everyone who actually works on the show can be squeezed until a career in live music being a rigger, tech, sound, lighting, producer, tour manager, all of the amazing people who make it possible for us to be in a room together playing live music safely, is harder and harder to justify as a career path.”
He continued: For so long artists and fans have been kept in separate rooms, and prevented from talking to each other about how bad it’s been getting. I wanna be in the same room as you, figuratively and literally. And while they kept us in different rooms they were robbing you and robbing the artists.”
He concluded by sharing screenshots of direct messages from fans who claimed they were not seeing his Instagram Stories anymore. His caption also highlighted that he was “beginning the long road” of this new approach because “pretty song we are gonna be screaming into a void and for most, touring won’t be viable”.
Earlier this year, Blake revealed that he’s now an independent artist, speaking at the time about wanting to “take things into my own hands” while adding that he was looking forward to working more “directly” with his fans.
He also shared his proposed solution to streaming issues back in March, dropping previously unheard tracks on a new platform called Vault.
It came after he went viral for a series of posts, criticising the lack of royalties artists can make by streaming their music or sharing it on TikTok.
Among other issues the musician has drawn focus to in the industry, Blake also recently said major labels “should be required to provide a therapist to their artists”.
These comments come as ticketing practises have been pulled into sharp focus once again following controversy around the dynamic pricing structures for Oasis’ reunion tour next year.
Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras Tour’ also came with much controversy, with fans joining forces to organise a campaign against Ticketmaster after many reporting lengthy wait times and website outages.
The Cure’s Robert Smith also said he was “sickened” by high Ticketmaster fees for the band’s North American tour after they vowed to keep prices affordable for fans. He was later able to convince the ticketing giant to issue small reimbursements to verified ticket buyers to compensate for “unduly high” fees.
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Hollie Geraghty
NME
