p2pnet - rss feed: Elton John ticket row in Northern Ontario
p2pnet news | Music:- Big star performing in a small(ish) Canadian city!
Wow! Big News!
Elton John is slated to perform in Sudbury, northern Ontario, this weekend.
But a crew of self-serving councillors scarfed up 120 choice tickets before the general public had a chance.
“Now 71 of the tickets have been returned to the promoter, at the request of Mayor John Rodriguez,” says the CBC.
Rodriguez apparently seemed surprised at the outrage which broke when local councillors got their hands on the tickets.
“We wanted the public and we wanted the media to focus on the good news - the good news is the concert,” he told the CBC. “And we wanted you the media to focus on the concert.
“And as long as the tickets were out there in the hands of the councillors, that was the news and you kept pursuing that.”
No. Really!?
It’s now up to the promoter to decide whether the returned tickets will be sold or given away, Rodriguez said, adds the story.
Tickets are going for between $87.50 and $129.50, says House of Blues.
Also See:
CBC - Councillors who jumped queue return some Elton John tickets, February 27, 2008
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March 1st, 2008 at 10:56 am
Just out of curiosity, whose money paid for those tickets, the councilers or the taxpayers?
March 1st, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Likely the taxpayers, but we don’t know for sure.
March 1st, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Good question. I would think that probably they got a pool of tickets to resell to the other councillors and over estimated how many would take them up on it. Of course the real question what has been outlined. Where did the money come from? On the face of it is the possibility that it came from public funds. Could be that isn’t the case but then the article doesn’t really lay that out.
If it came out of an individual’s pockets or from an interoffice pool from the employees, then there is nothing wrong with this beyond appearance. If it came from the taxpayers, they should be having someones a$$ over it.
March 1st, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Under usual circumstances this is pretty normal stuff… the politicos, and the moneyed well connected elite who live up on Snob Hill; these are the people who normally score tickets from their comfy wing-back sofas, Chivas in one hand, and with little more than a phone call to the “right people” they generally score however many tickets they need to whatever event they want to attend.
This, while the rest of you common plebeians freeze your collective a$$es off standing in line for hours, if not days.
It’s all about old money, power, connections and privilege in our elitist society. Normally there are quite a few “perks” that go with holding public office…everything from the free rubber chicken service club luncheons to those week-long “fact finding” conference retreats at a some 5 star resort hotel… of course all paid for by you and I. It goes with the territory. Don’t forget that most politicos are generally type A ego driven “community leaders”; the movers and shakers of your local business elite who consider their unfettered access to such events a forgone conclusion.
If you don’t like how they operate, quit voting them in based on the number of lawn signs they can afford to scatter across the community come election time.
Richard
March 2nd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Probably wasn’t too hard to get people to give them back. “This is an Elton John concert.” “Oh! Oops. I thought it was someone good. Here you go.”