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EXCLUSIVE Justin Bieber fans who are angry about their refunds from expensive VIP packages can take it up with: Scooter Braun, Justin’s manager.
Scooter is one of a handful of big ticket investors who helped raise $20 million last year to launch Bktsg, the firm that is now handling Justin’s meet and greets. Among the other investors are One Direction’s management company, as well Ken Lerer and Eric Hippeau (formerly the funders of the Huffington Post), Live Nation, and Russian oligarch Roman Abramovitch. Bkstg’s principals are two former AOL execs.
It’s unclear how much Braun has invested in Bkstg, and whether his investment includes Bieber. But Bieber has shilled for the new company on social media. And he also promoted the predecessor company, called Fahlo (get it– ‘follow’) which was running his fan club and offering VIP packages before the name was changed to Bkstg. Braun’s company was also investor in Fahlo, which only raised $3 million. (It’s listed on their LinkedIn profile.) In January 2015, Bieber posted his so called “apology video” to fans on Fahlo.
To raise $20 million, Bkstg certainly required large amounts of money from investors. This means that money charged by Bkstg for Bieber appearances with fans not only cuts in the artists but the investors want their money back. Braun and other artists’ managers who invest are in effect “double dipping.” Not a bad take.
Justin Bieber fans are mad. Their cancelled “Meet and Greet” VIP package tickets have been accompanied by the promise of either no refund (if you keep the ticket) or a partial refund, maybe, that is still an outrageous overcharge.
VIP packages ran from $995 to $2000 and included a good seat in your local stadium and a backstage selfie with pop’s puny prince. But Bieber decided to cancel all those packages because he said they were too “draining.” (In reality, he may not have been getting a big enough cut of the proceeds. A boy who spits on people from afar or continues to get speeding tickets can’t be all that “zen.”)
Fans went crazy. If they turned back their tickets, they’d get refunded and lose that good seat (face value $150). In the last day or so, after a week of PR catastrophe, word is that a turned back VIP ticket might fetch up to $500 in refunds. This means that the good seat wound up costing $1,500.
Now 2,467 supporters have signed a petition on Change.org. They’ve also posted dozens of complaints about the way they’ve been treated thus far.
Here are just two of the complaints:
Me and my daughter attended the Las Vegas concert. We were already in Las Vegas when we got the email about the M&G cancellation and were already out of money for the trip from Los Angeles. The Ultimate VIP Experience was a joke. No host, no organization, no welcome. Just security guards being rude and no one to help us. We didn’t even have seats in the hospitality room after the so-called backstage tour. All the tables were full. Pathetic!!
Anita lominac, Los Angeles, CA
I think is terrible what Justin has done this to all the fans that made him what he is today. They should let the kids keep their seats and just pay face value .My daughter paid 1,000.00 dollars for each ticket with face value is 150.00. I think they are breaking the law too .These kids paid extra money for the meet and greet which Justin cancelled.Give the money back to these kids. These fans have stuck by his side through thick and thin.I’m degusted to think the won’t give partial refunds. I thought Justin was different ,but this isn’t right. I’m a mom who stuck up for him through his bad times. My daughter is heartbroken and many other fans are as well. Just not right. Justin needs to fix this now. If your not doing meet and greets then damand partial refunds to be given to all your loyal fans.
At the HBO premiere of “Confirmation,” Oprah Winfrey, a surprise guest who was ushered in from the back and waited til the audience was seated before anyone knew she was there.
“Confirmation” is the story of the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation, and Anita Hill’s testimony in 1991, that held the country spellbound in front of TV sets for days. Believe it not, this happened 25 years ago.
Kerry Washington, who plays Hill, might find herself the winner of two Emmys this year, as she hasn’t won for “Scandal” yet, and she is a shoo in for a nomination for her exquisite work in this. She plays Hill with a steely reserve weaved in with integrity and honor. Hill was in the audience, and Oprah was the first to stand up and lead the standing ovation when HBO’s Film President Len Amato introduced her to the audience prior to the screening. The standing ovation was right on, the film is just brilliant and captivating
I asked Oprah after the screening what she thought of it, right after Kerry, who was sitting two rows in front of her, blew a kiss her way. “Just great, the movie said everything it needed too and everyone in it was just terrific.” Kerry told me that, “I was so honored to play Anita Hill. It’s exciting and it takes courage like she had, to go up against the forces that are more powerful than you.”
Anita Hill told me, “I am grateful for the media. It was a reporter from People magazine and two reporters from San Diego that changed the conversation immediately to sexual harassment rather than the Washington political circus it was. So I’m thankful to the media for that. “ I asked her if she was happy now in Oklahoma. “I am happy. I have to work at it, we all do, but I’m happy.”
Greg Kinnear gives one of his career stand out performances as Senator Joe Biden, now Vice President. Biden comes off not nearly as badly as the facts bear out by his inept handling of it all. He is seen as over his head and too protective of the old boy network, appalling as it was.
I asked Greg if he knows if Joe Biden had seen it, “Barbara Boxer, (she was also there) just told me that Joe Biden would definitely see it. So I’m hoping that means she’ll make him watch it.” Wendell Pierce is pitch perfect as Thomas, portraying his anger and denial to the hilt. As Hill, Kinnear said: “It’s hard for me not to believe her, so I do.”
The always terrific Jeffrey Wright, Grace Gummer, Bill Irwin, Zoe Lister Jones, Peter McRobbie, Eric Stonestreet, all give spot on performances. Besides Boxer, other guests included noted political consultant/producer Tammy Haddad (she consults for “Veep”). Written by Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich) and deftly directed by Rick Famuyiwa (“Dope”) and shot beautifully by Rachel Morrison, “Confirmation” is one of HBO’s best. Anita was justly feted for her courage, honor and class. As it should be.
Mort Zuckerman is stepping down as chairman of Boston Properties, the massive corporate real estate company that made him rich and famous.
Zuckerman’s vast real estate holdings– reports are he’s worth $2.7 billion– made it possible for him to buy US News and World, the Atlantic Monthly, Atlantic Monthly Press, and the New York Daily News. He sold off the Atlantic Monthly properties years ago. US News is online only now. The Daily News is run largely by his nephews.
The 78 year old publisher helped reshape the Citicorp Center area on Lexington and 53rd St in Manhattan, and Times Square. In Washington DC he helped build a city out of a largely forgotten area between Dupont Circle and Georgetown.
But Zuckerman, once a presence on TV shows like the McLaughlin Report, is in a retirement mode now. He will become chairman emeritus of Boston Properties.
Meantime, the Daily News is kicking ass with great covers as editor in chief Jim Rich plays every day like it’s going to be the paper’s last. I criticized the News last year for off loading a lot of well known bylines as they tried to shrink themselves ahead of a sale. But somehow they’ve managed to resuscitate, which is a good thing. New York needs the Daily News now more than ever.
I’ve known Mort personally since 1986, when he owned the Atlantic Monthly Press, and I was the publicity director. I worked for Harold Evans, who used to write Mort’s US News editorials in those days. It’s hard to imagine him not running the show after all this time, but I’m happy to say he’s still on the social scene, and is more relaxed and friendlier than ever. This semi-retirement suits him.
Tonight “Batman v Superman” crosses the $600 million mark worldwide. In the US, through Sunday the total is around $250 million.
This is way ahead day to day of “Man of Steel,” Zack Snyder’s recent Superman movie. It’s just around $18 mil less than “Dark Knight Rises” after 10 days of release.
All I keep seeing though are idiotic reports “BvS” box office dropping, or ending, or some snafu that will prove the naysayers were right.
They are wrong. “BvS” is a hit. A big one. This is all after just 10 days in release. The $700 mil mark is not far away. What has the fanboys’ capes in a twist? Do they want it to fail so there will be no more movies? Give it a rest.
Zayn, Zayn, Zayn. The big push for the former One Directioner turned out to be so much hype. Zayn Malik’s debut album, “Mind of Mine,” sold a mere 115,000 copies in its debut. There was another 46,000 in streams. Even though it finished at number 1, “MoM” did pretty poorly compared to One Direction itself or other recent pop idols. The album looks like another hot first week, then a big drop.
Next week, Kanye West’s “The Life of Pablo” could over take it depending on streaming and sales on Kanye’s website– and how they’re all reported. Kanye could have had a Number 1 already, but he depended on Tidal and no CDs. It’s not working out.
Adele hangs in there at number 3 after almost five months with another 40,000 copies sold of “25.” She and Zayn, by the way, share a publicist. Zayn still has no single climbing the charts, and that’s part of what’s hurt his sales. “Pillow talk” has already waxed and waned.
LOL. Poor George Clooney. Are we surprised by this? Most of the newsstand stories about celebrities is fiction. Apparently, Hello Magazine tried it with Clooney. The sad part is that no one checks, everyone just picks these things up and reprints them.
I’m not even going to see what Hello printed and reprint it here, since it never happened. Probably Amal is pregnant with an alien child or George is running for vice president with Hillary. Good grief.
George says in an email:
“Hello Magazine has printed an “EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW ” with me that has been widely picked up and reprinted.
Outlets like Vanity Fair, Marie Claire, The Sun, and The Evening Standard have all printed my exclusive interview and credited Hello Magazine.
The problem is that I have not given an interview to Hello Magazine and the quotes attributed to me are not accurate.
In my experience, being misquoted is not unusual but to have an “exclusive interview” completely fabricated is something new.
And a very disturbing trend.”
A little PS I see what happened– George gave this interview to Ellen DeGeneres on her show. Hello, maybe learning from a certain Hollywood trade magazine, just took the interview and made it seem like their own. Oy vey.
Brandy, you’re a fine girl. But maybe not a good litigant. The pop/R&B/BET star has filed a lawsuit against Chameleon Entertainment, the production company she is signed to, claiming they stopped her from recording a new album and pulled the plug on a multi-album deal at RCA.
But that’s not exactly true. In January Brandy released a single “Begging and Pleading” on her own label (it’s available on iTunes) with no interference from Chameleon. It dropped on the night her new BET sitcom debuted. And RCA? She was dropped by them after the one album she made there, “Two Eleven,” sold just 180,000 copies in 2012. (Her name was removed from their website in 2013.)
Here’s some history: Brandy had huge multi million selling hits on Atlantic Records from 1994 to 2002. But her sales began to decline as tastes changed, downloading cut into sales, and her audience moved on. She went from selling over 1 million copies in 2002 with “Full Moon” to just 400,000 in 2004 for “Afrodisiac.”
Brandy left Atlantic at that point for Epic Records, which is part of Sony Music. Her 2008 album, called “Knockout,” bombed, selling just 214,000 copies. Epic, undergoing a leadership change, dropped her. Brandy’s run as an R&B pop queen was over.
Now without a label deal, Brandy signed a production deal (not a management deal) with Chameleon, run by Breyon Prescott. (Prescott also works with Jamie Foxx, and has been instrumental in his music career.) With no recent hits, Brandy’s career was cool to the touch. But Chameleon got her signed to RCA which was surprising because she’d failed in the Sony Music family already. Under Chameleon-RCA Brandy put out a good new album in 2012, the first of what was supposed to be a six album deal. “Two Eleven” gave her her first top 10 chart single in four years, called “Put it Down,” with Chris Brown.
RCA was not happy. The expense of promoting “Two Eleven” far exceeded money made from the paltry 180,000 copies sold. Plus, sources say, “Brandy was more interested in doing TV, movies and Broadway than in touring for the album.” She made less than a dozen appearances including three or four TV shows and three actual gigs. RCA cut their losses and dropped her. You’d think she was done at Sony Music for good this time.
But Brandy was still signed to Chameleon. In that time, Prescott had joined her old label, Epic Records — under the same Sony corporate banner — as RCA an A&R exec for black, or urban, music. Prescott, I’m told, managed to get Brandy a new contract at Epic. Only this time, the label asked for a 360 deal– one in which they would get a cut of her other businesses like tours and merchandise. That way, if a new album bombed, they’d be protected to some extent. (As touring has overtaken record sales in revenue, 360 deals are common nowadays.)
The deal, I’m told, was worth $600,000 with a $75,000 advance. Brandy balked, and never signed the contract. But there were no other offers. No other label wanted her, and so she did not make a new record.
That was two years ago. The Epic offer remains. (As for ‘double dipping’ — which Brandy accuses Prescott of– I can’t make sense of it myself. She’s still signed to Chameleon, and they’ve just managed to take her from one dead deal at Sony to a live one.)
In her lawsuit, Brandy accuses Prescott of blocking her from recording anything. But I found two recent releases that seem to negate that claim: in January 2016 she released the very retro “Begging and Pleading,” on her own label. (I found it on iTunes.) Chameleon didn’t protest or stop her from releasing it, sources say. They didn’t even know about it in advance.
In 2015, Brandy also re-recorded her vocals for a new version of one of her old hits (“The Girl is Mine”) which was released in the U.K. Again, Chameleon let it pass rather than raise a ruckus. “No one stopped her,” says an observer.
So far I haven’t seen mention of Brandy being dropped by RCA, snubbing a new Epic contract, or releasing new records without Chameleon’s permission, in any of the stories published this week. What I was able to find were Brandy’s tributes to Chameleon and RCA– as shown in the feature photo with this story.
What’s complicated the story is that Brandy, critics say, uses her music as a tool to promote her acting career. Her critics say she doesn’t seem to get that the majors are not knocking her door down. In the environment of the record business now, she’s lucky to have a deal. (I can think of dozens of former pop stars who don’t have any label.)
“When she got the new show on BET”– a sitcom called “Zoe Ever After”– “she wanted to put out a single. She just put out Begging and Pleading without asking anyone at Chameleon. And no one objected. But look, it just sat there. It didn’t do a thing. All she had to do was sign her Epic contract and start making records. That’s all she has to do. No one is stopping her.”
So you want to buy a digital download of Kanye West’s “Life of Pablo”? If it were available on iTunes or Amazon, it might cost $11.99 at most. On amazon, his older albums are priced around five, six and seven dollars.
But Kanye isn’t selling it there. He’s selling it on his own website, kanyewest.com, for 20 bucks. That’s it. You want it, Kanye’s saying, then pay up.
Otherwise, “Pablo” is only available on streaming services through a subscription.
It’s a new way of doing business. At first, “Pablo” was only on Tidal, and pretty messy as a draft of an album.
For this new iteration, the album has been cleaned up and made to sound like an actual release. It’s a very good album, too. Kanye says it’s a masterpiece and probably will demand a Grammy award for it. All that aside, it’s an interesting record. I wish it were on CD so it could be played on a proper stereo system.
“Pablo” is a collage of Kanye’s rants, lots of guest cameos, and samples of other music. The white Motown group of the late 60s, Rare Earth, is revived, for example. Rihanna sings better on “Famous” than she does on her own album. All the songs have long lists of composers and collaborators.
But if you want “Pablo,” so far there are no discounts. Twenty bucks. And Kanye says there will be updates. Unclear if you have to pay for them too. But it’s likely.
You do remember when Kanye West Tweeted that his new album, “The Life of Pablo,” would “never ever” be on Apple Music? Or for that matter, Spotify?
Alas, that’s where it will be after midnight tonight. After sinking into obscurity on Tidal, Jay Z’s service, “Pablo” is about to have a life. And apparently, this is a more finished version. This week Kanye already released a track to Spotify called “Famous.” I told you yesterday the song has 17 credited writers.
Tidal is all but done at this point. A valiant idea, the service could not cross over for the mainstream acts that signed up as “partners” or investors or whatever. Rihanna gave in right away. If she hadn’t, her “Anti” album would have remained MIA.
Now Jay Z is suing the people he bought Tidal from, saying they lied about the number of subscribers they had. Well, of course they did. They’re in Sweden. How many people are in Sweden? Who listen to streaming music?
“The Life of Pablo” meanwhile should be downloadable imminently, too, and probably issued as a CD. This means Kanye– who has already Tweeted dozens of times today– will be in his own spotlight for weeks to come.
This news certainly puts a crimp in the Zayn story for next week. This past week it looks like Zayn sold an anemic 110K copies of his debut album. Hard numbers in the AM.
