My letter to the fan club

[jeffs]

I replied to a Fan club group e-mail that discussed the Knoxville concert. I was replying because they mis-spelled Knoxville - Knoxsville several times. Now I could really care less about the spelling of Knoxville, but I have been so upset by this fan club that I took a pot shot. Well I actually heard back from a Kelly, who defended the fan club and said how there are thousands of grateful and happy members and that she wanted to hear my story. Well - at this point it was hard to go back and remember my 'story' but I replied with the below message...

Kelly,

The thousands of letter of support you recieved was because you ran a contest asking for people to right in for a chance to win tickets. It was a sneaky way for Jonathan to accumulate positive feedback during a time that he was under alot of heat from alot of places, including the California District Attorney's Office - this was discussed heavily on several of the largest FM fan based forums. Please do not insult my intelligence by telling me that Mr. Todd hasn't hurt me or anyone else who joined the Fleetwood Mac Fanclub. I spent $70 and have recieved next to nothing for that money - I am not in a position to just throw out $70. The photos are not what I joined a fan club for, I can get and see photos of Fleetwood Mac from the Say You Will Concert Tour for free that are better than the ones on the Fan Club site. The fan club has been involved in what is known as a top down ticket sale, unloading a large number of further back, premium priced seats to the most eager and anxious people, while throwing in a few front seats just to show that there are happy and successful people. I attended the Continental Arena show on May 25th and bought my tickets through the fan club pre-sale, the one that was all screwed up do to the timezone thing. If I had waited for the general sale I would have done MUCH better. I was furious - I spent $70 for the fan club and than $300 for tickets that were not that good. This go around I have decided not to use the fan club and sure enough the Madison Garden pre-sale was a debacle, with no password required to enter the pre-sale. If I decide to give FM another $300 (2 tickets) I will wait til a few days before the concert and hope that the same thing happens that has happened for nearly every other FM concert - that excellent front seats will suddenly pop up that were being held back. There was nothing to prevent scalpers from joining the fan club pre-sale and just moments after each pre-sale the tickets were appearing all over E-Bay. Jonathan promised that he had anti-scalper software that would be used. Now, with almost all pre-sales over he has the audacity to send that e-mail about scalpers and not being able to sell pre-sale tickets. Well what about the honest fan club members who got stuck with less than great seats and than through general sales land better seats and they want to honestly recover the costs of the first tickets? How can you try to prevent this? You should have done what many 'more on the ball' bands and fan clubs do and require fan club tickets to be picked up at will call no less than 1 hour before the concert begins. How many fan club tickets for any given concert are actually sold - not enough that it would overwhelm the will call window. Jonathan Todd is a fraud, and by working for him I question your integrity. I do not know you and I am fairly confident that you are a really nice person - I can tell by your demeaner in your e-mails, but do not insult me further by trying to tell me that the Fleetwood Mac Fan Club has been anything other than a bad experience for a large percentage of honest FM fans that are in it. How many fan clubs have petitions with 400 signatures on it that have been submitted to State District Attorneys and Better Business Agencies? Anyway - that is kind of my story. I would like to hear back from you. Like I said, I am sure you are a very nice person - this is not a personal attack, but I have been hurt by Jonathan Todd and so have hundreds of other FM fans. You can write back and call me Jeff - I am only 37 and haven't gotten use to being called Mr. Stern yet - maybe when I hit 40!

Regards,

Jeff