Tabernacle Debacle

On Friday, September 9th, as part of a Samsung/AT&T promotional event, the Avett Brothers were playing a free show at the Tabernacle. N & I are big fans of the Avett Brothers, and we’ve been a little down on our luck lately, so when N read about the event on Pollstar the week before, he immediately checked to see if he could get tickets, figuring there probably weren’t any more available, but we lucked out and he got a ticket in his name that admitted two people. When he filled out the form to request tickets, it asked for a promotional code, which he didn’t have, but it was optional so he didn’t think twice about it.

Later in the week, I saw the Avett Brothers posted on Facebook that 200 more tickets had been released for the show, and they shared the promotional code. I reposted the information on my Facebook wall in case any of my friends wanted to check it out.

The day of the show, N & I debated what time we should get there. N picked me up from work at 5:30, we grabbed a quick bite to eat, hit up an ATM, and made it to the Tabernacle by 6:30 (doors were at 8:00). When we showed up there were already people lined around the block. We were confused about getting in line because there were multiple lines facing different directions. It turned out that anyone who entered the promotional code wound up with “priority” tickets, which guaranteed entrance to the show. We found our way to the back of the regular-folk line and waited patiently while more and more people continued to show up.

I’m not sure what time they started to admit people to the building. There was no opening act and the Avett Brothers were supposed to go on at 9:00 and only play an hour set. It was well after 8:30 before our line ever started to move, and when we were getting closer the front, we were told the concert was full. It was just after 9:00 and we could hear the band playing.

N & I weren’t the only ones who were turned away. Hundreds, if not thousands, of others were turned away too. I don’t know whether or not this is true, but the word circulating through the line was that they issued 4,500 tickets for a place that only holds 2,500 people. Many of the people in line had been drinking and were irate at getting turned away. I’m really surprised that people left as peaceably as they did. Even though a lot of people were extremely angry (a lot of yelling, swearing, and some throwing of beer cans, etc.), no fights or vandalism broke out, as far as I saw. When N & I got back to our car, some angry fans asked us, “Did you wait in line for three fucking hours too?”

(I feel like I have to take a quick moment to explain the janky promoter.) In the music industry, the janky promoter is known far & wide. Recently N was reading Bob Mould’s autobiography and told me about a promoter threatening him with a gun over some money that was owed the band. N works in the music industry and has many stories about janky promoters across this great nation of ours, and through some past journalism work I’ve done, I’ve been privy to many stories from other people, whether it was involving small time promoters ripping off local acts, or refusing to pay their hired help, or skipping out early on events, or just lying about the event (On FB last week, Talib Kweli had a post that read: Mos Def will not be performing with me today. Any promoter who says otherwise is a liar). In fact, both N & I were supposed to work at a music festival the next day, but the entire thing had been cancelled at the last minute because the person organizing the event had gotten in way over his head.

When I left the Tabernacle that night, I was disappointed and angry and it topped off an especially bad week. N felt bad because he had wanted to do something nice for me since he knew how bad things had been. However, neither one of us were mad at the Avett Brothers. We were sure the band had no idea what was going on. No, we were mad at Samsung/AT&T for creating the situation--not just for us, who looked forward to an event only to be disappointed, and who also had to wait for two and a half hours to be disappointed (clearly the workers could tell way too many people were there; couldn’t they just have cut the line off and sent us on our way early?)—but I felt mad on behalf of the band too, because there were sure to be people who misdirected their anger at the situation onto the band instead of at Samsung/AT&T.

I hadn’t followed the fallout from the event, until I saw a note from the Avett Brothers addressed to “our Atlanta friends who were not admitted to the Tabernacle show” on Facebook. They wrote, “Please know that as a band we would never knowingly turn away who wanted to see us perform.” And as an apology they are granting those who were turned away free admission to a show in Tennessee in October.

The stipulations in getting the tickets will prevent me from going (the ticket, though it admitted two, was in N’s name, and N will be on away for work the date of the show—also the venue is 4 hours from Atlanta, whereas the Tabernacle is one mile from where I live). However, I think it was extremely generous of the band to work out this arrangement for their fans. They were not obligated to do anything because what happened in Atlanta was not their fault. However, they probably felt like they had to do something because of the disappointment/anger of the turned away fans. This was a pretty long explanation to get to a simple point: The Avett Brothers=good, upstanding guys. Samsung/AT&T=janky promoters.