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Between his devotion to getting tickets away from scalpers and into the hands of legitimate concertgoers, and his determination to give them their money's worth once they're in the venue, there's no denying that country superstar Eric Church knows how to make his fans happy.
Church, the CMA Album of the Year Award winner who surprised members of his "Church Choir" fan club in late 2015 by direct mailing them his new "Mr. Misunderstood" album before it was available to the public, made news again last month by canceling 25,000 ticket sales made by online scalpers for shows on his spring Holdin' My Own Tour and making them available to fans again for purchase.
Now he's bringing the tour to Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City this Saturday. With no openers on the bill, Church hits the stage promptly at 8 p.m. and plays two sets totaling 30-plus songs and running for roughly 3 ½ hours.
"The Chief," as he's known, made it clear in February that he's passionate about making sure fans have access to concert tickets without having to deal with the markups inherent in dealing with online resalers.
"They buy thousands of tickets across the U.S., not just mine, and they end up making a fortune. They use fake credit cards, fake IDs. All of this is fraud," Church said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We're getting better at identifying who the scalpers are. Every artist can do this, but some of them don't. Some of them don't feel the way I feel or are as passionate."
According to the AP, "In a report last year, investigators in New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office cited a single broker that bought 1,012 tickets within one minute to a U2 concert at Madison Square Garden when they went on sale on Dec. 8, 2014, despite the vendor's claim of a four-ticket limit. By day's end, that broker and one other had 15,000 tickets to U2's North American shows."
Fielding Logan, one of Church's managers at Q Prime South, said the singer was devoting significant resources to tracking down such scalpers and canceling their orders.
"It's not easy. It's time-consuming and labor-intensive to comb through nearly 1 million tickets," Logan said in a news release. "Yet Eric is leading the charge, and our team is combating these vultures, one cancellation at a time. Battling scalper efforts isn't just identifying those individuals looming on street corners soliciting or hawking tickets anymore. It's halting digital multimillion-dollar enterprises that are sophisticated and aimed at taking advantage of the fan for profit."
Twitter: @esotericwalden —
The country star plays two sets — totaling 30-plus songs and 3 ½ hours — for his Holdin' My Own Tour. There are no opening acts.
When • Saturday night, doors at 6:30, show at 8
Where • Vivint Smart Home Arena, 300 W. South Temple, Salt Lake City
Tickets • $26-$80; Smith's Tix