[griojw id=”6F8sILH8″ playerid=”x9J2bwvH”]
Right now, “Becoming: An Intimate Conversation with Michelle Obama” book tour is the hottest ticket in town—if you can get one.
—Drugs that look like bags of candy spooks Atlanta parents ahead of Halloween—
We previously reported that the pre-sale tickets for the former First Lady’s Becoming 12-city book tour went on sale last week and no doubt they were Rockstar, Beyonce-level concert prices. However, once the general public tickets were released, scalpers got their claws on and jacked up the price to an unheard-of cost, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
Raise your hand if you’re willing to cough up $6,700 a piece for a stadium seat.
While we’re sure $6,700 is just a drop in the bucket for celebrities like Oprah and Diddy, the price point may be out of reach for the average Joe who would want to go. Black market ticket sellers are to blame for the outrageous markup after buying up tickets and then posting them for resale.
Before the markup tickets were already high and ranged from $500, up to $1,795 without a photo op, autographed book, or even a “collectible laminate and lanyard.”
The ticket prices, however are expected to fluctuate based on demand. So if no one grabs the expensive tickets, expect the price to go down. But don’t bet on it since the tickets have been selling like hot cakes.
Just for the scale of its venues, there has never been a rollout quite like the one for Obama’s memoir “Becoming,” with stops including the Pepsi Center in Denver and American Airlines Center in Dallas. While popular authors have been likened to rock stars for years, Obama is the first to promote her book on a scale common for top musical performers, even using the entertainment company Live Nation.
—Nicki Minaj cancels North American leg of tour because ticket sales are ‘in the toilet’—
“Mrs. Obama wanted to make her tour as accessible as possible,” Tara Traub, senior vice president of Live Nation Touring, said in a statement Friday. “The Live Nation team also knew the demand for her tour would be extraordinary. For these reasons, we knew an arena tour would maximize the number of people who will be able to join this unforgettable conversation with Mrs. Obama.”