The Berkshire Beat is set to shake things up

Proposed cover design by Kaitlyn Squires.
The first issue isn't even printed yet,and already the dream of an alternative to traditional arts coverage has caught fire.

Berkshire Beat has surfaced, via Facebook, and it has already turned people on to art and performance events that escape the attention of traditional media like the Berkshire Eagle. It is shaping up as the place to find out about the local, the truly experimental and exceptional that capture the attention of the younger demographic from high school and college to twenty-somethings.

What is amazing about the development, is that you can watch it happening in real time by visiting their Facebook page, largely fueled by the efforts of Caleb Hiliadis, a Waconah High School Senior with a journalistic career in mind. But he is the first to tell you that he is nothing more than one of many people - some 1500 to date - that are pushing this concept ahead.

As anyone who toils in the arts and cultural reporting scene can tell you, one person can not possibly keep up with everything that is happening in the ever expanding Berkshire cultural world. We have splendid coverage of the BSO and other "top" arts institutions, but the local scene, where the creative ferment really takes place, barely rates a mention in the weekly Advocate which has rested on its laurels for years. It could have been an alternative in the spirit of the Boston Phoenix, but instead tends to play it safe, with a fuzzy focus that results in half its coverage being spaghetti suppers and face painting, and half listings in type so small as to be unreadable. The only redeeming features are their writers Peter Bergman and Judith Fairweather.

Proposed cover design by Kathryn Collins.
Of the local media, Berkshire Living, Rural Intelligence and Berkshire Fine Arts do the best job of covering all the arts, including classical, jazz and rock yet they miss much of what is happening right under our noses. Too many events, too few reporters. (Disclosure: I've written some one hundred articles for Berkshire Fine Arts in the past couple of years and - until I began my blogs - was part of the problem.)

There are dozens of other outlets that specialize in various niches. Foremost among these is Gail Sez, written by Gail Burns who covers theatre not only in the Berkshires, but adjoining states, and rarely misses even the smallest theatre company.

With Berkshire Beat, in essence everyone becomes a reporter, the readers will also be out there looking for new things going on. The key here is that at some point mediocrity will have to be weeded out, and a really sharp editor is going to have to watch the spelling, syntax and personal pronouns.

The major force behind this publication, which will also have a strong online presence, is Philip LaPointe, Jr. of Lee, an Iraq war veteran with a vision. There is an active advisory board, and others involved include Brad Steele. It is their hope to launch a prototype edition in the next month or so to test the waters. Ultimately they foresee a controlled circulation distribution plan, with biweekly issues being sent to 15,000 readers.

Because they will focus on a lot of the newer, emerging bands, artists and writers - they have a niche for poetry and visual arts in their plans - their vision is wide ranging. Since the cost of print is high, and requires major advertiser support, it is likely that the magazine will be a tool that will bring even more people to their website and the content there.

There is a board which is doing the planning, but at this point it is all open concept.

I submitted a cover design as well.
For a peek at the ongoing birthing pains, drop in to their Facebook page or sign up for their newsletter.

Boston's Theatre Scene - Then and Now

The Publick Theatre's Entertaining Mr. Sloane at the Boston Center for the Arts is wonderful. It stars an all-British cast. Pictured are the great Sandra Shipley with newcomer Jack Cutmore-Scott.
When I arrived in Boston in 1960 after an adolescence in the New York City area, I was shocked to find there wasn't very much in the way of a Boston theatre scene. The Colonial, Shubert and Wilbur Theatres were often lit with pre-Broadway tryouts and national touring companies fresh from Broadway, but the experimental, the daring and the surprising little companies were nowhere to be seen.

For a long time there was just the Charles Playhouse which made a valiant effort, and soon after that the Theatre Company of Boston which provided brief, brilliant flashes of creativity in the midst of an otherwise non-existent theatre community.

Al Pacino at last year's Norton Awards accepting a posthumous award for the late Paul Benedict. Photo Bill Brett from the Boston Globe Story.

Some of the luminaries were actors like Olympia Dukakis, Paul Benedict and Al Pacino. Because of the scarcity of real theatres, Pacino ended up performing Richard III in the sanctuary of the Church of the Covenant on Newbury Street.

A decade later I would be doing the marketing for the Pocket Mime Theatre in a little candy box of a theatre in the chapel of that same church, at a desk in Pacino's old dressing room. The little mime theatre even enticed Marcel Marceau to attend a performance and had a nice five year run until the fire inspectors discovered it.

They closed it down.

The late 60's and early 70's saw the birth of several additional resident theatres . Smaller companies like Lyric Stage (then on Charles Street) and the Publick Theatre struggled, and amazingly, survived.

But the Boston Repertory Theatre, The Proposition and Boston Shakespeare Company were brief shooting stars that burned out. They made valiant attempts to sink their roots into the cultural soil only to be rebuffed by the cultural elite who shoveled buckets of money to the BSO and MFA. Even the fledgeling Boston Ballet and ICA were treated like foundlings. It was a hardscrabble existence.

Arts Boston sells tickets in person and increasingly, on line too. Their second Bostix booth, designed by Graham Gund has become as much of a landmark as Copley Square itself.

But from this hardy bunch of pioneers grew Boston's first theatre league, which over time morphed into StageSource. Arts Service Organizations began to emerge, to help develop the management and financial expertise that artists needed. The Artists Foundation, Massachusetts Cultural Alliance are long gone, but Arts Boston remains. Perhaps that organization - which I ultimately headed for a decade in the 80's - knew that the most important thing for an artist is an audience. And the money ticket buyers bring. It's director, Catherine Peterson continues the Sisyphean task of finding warm paying bodies to fill otherwise cold, empty seats.

Soon Boston's two major colleges established the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard and the Huntington Theatre at BU. ART formed a resident company of actors who stayed with Robert Brustein (artistic director) for decades. Eventually he left and the brilliant Diane Paulus prefers rotating casts to fill the roles as needed. Meanwhile, Peter Altman played it safe at the Huntington, which mostly cast its productions from the New York pool of actors. His successors have drawn from both Boston and New York auditions.

Nicholas Martin was the Huntington Company's gift to Williamstown Theatre Festival. Here he is seen with actor Victor Garber.
Today there is a deep and significant reservoir of top talent which lives and works in Boston, although who can say "no" to an offer to go to Broadway, or even off-Broadway. Indeed, many of the ART and Huntington shows, especially under NIcholas Martin, made the transistion to New York. Martin left the Huntington and currently is planning the Williamstown Theatre Festival's summer season.

To my way of thinking, quite a few of what we used to call Boston's small theatres have grown to become mid-sized ones, with million dollar budgets to match. Foremost among them is Lyric Stage which, under the guidance of Spiro Veloudos, has cannily chosen shows with wide appeal and interest and kept its prices affordable. As my interview with him a year ago revealed, he is both creative and cautious.

The Adding Machine: The Musical from Speakeasy Stage is riveting.

On a recent trip to Boston I had the pleasure of seeing the latest work of the Publick Theatre, Entertaining Mr. Sloane (Review here), and the New England premiere of The Adding Machine: A Musical (Review here) at Speakeasy Stage Company. The quality of the productions was uniformly excellent, a testament to the growing strength of both these companies and our local talent pool.

Speakeasy follows The Adding Machine with Trailer Park: The Musical beginning April 3.

Lyric Stage opens Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill March 26, and closes its season with Blithe Spirit starting May 7.

Other companies that have continued to impress are the New Rep which opens Opus on March 28 and will follow with The Hot Mikado beginning May 2.

The Nora Theatre Company opens From Orchids to Octopi on March 31.

Zeitgeist Stage Company has their final production of the season, Farragut North slated to open on April 30 .

Le Cabaret Grimm from The Performance Lab.
And even as these companies continue to grow and develop their own theatrical locovore following, new companies are born with startling frequency. Among the most interesting of the new crop is The Performance LAB, an experimental theatre company. It will present the world premier of Le Cabaret Grimm, a punk-cabaret musical April 8-24 at the Boston Center for the Arts. The show is written and directed by Artistic Director Jason Slavick, with original music by Cassandra Marsh and choreography by Michelle Chasse. It will be their first show.

What is unusual is that it seems to be hip to the newest trends of younger audiences to mix their media. Slavick promises "a wickedly ironic sensibility" in a show that incorporates Cabaret, Steam Punk, Burlesque and old fashioned theatricality. The music reflects such influences as Tom Waits, Ska, R&B and the Dresden Dolls. “We’re using these fun, contemporary styles to draw in the audience” says Slavick, “but we’re combining them with classic tales that have a universal quality and resonate deeply.”

Interviewing Jack Cutmore-Scott about "Entertaining Mr. Sloane"

An Actor Prepares.
When young actor Jack Cutmore-Scott, 22, strides onto the stage at the Boston Center for the Arts on March 11 in Entertaining Mr. Sloane, it's going to be a magical moment.

Bostonians will finally get to see this promising performer, a Harvard Senior, in the flesh. For all his theatrical credentials, this is really his first public professional appearance in the USA. The Publick Theatre is known for its crafty casting, and Cutmore-Scott not only looks the role of Mr. Sloane, he promises to follow in the footsteps of others who have used the role (Maxwell Caulfield and Chris Camack) to make lasting impressions on audiences.

Only 22 and already Jack Cutmore-Scott is a triple threat: actor, writer, director.
We talked with Jack via phone a few days ago as the rehearsal process got underway, and he is clearly excited about the professionals he is working with - director Eric Engel, and a superb group of actors which includes Nigel Gore (Ed), Dafydd Rees (Kemp), and the renowned Sandra Shipley (Kath).

Jack grew up in the Chelsea section of London, not far from Sloane Square. Perhaps it was a prescient sign that the role of Mr. Sloane in Joe Orton's comedy would one day be his.

He arrived at Harvard in 2006 to begin his studies and has undertaken a whirlwind slate of extracurricular activities - not just theatre, but film and television too. In a few short years he has performed in a dozen plays, directed or assisted in six others, and written (or helped to write) four original scripts. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Jack Cutmore Scott has racked up a lot of time on stage, and off. Here he gets drenched for a film.
About a year ago, he took on the title role in Shakespeare's Hamlet, following his earlier outing as Henry V. 2007 is remembered for his Max in Martin Sherman's Bent about the fate of gays in the holocaust. Most recently he appeared in Sartre's The Flies as Orestes.

But Cutmore-Scott is far more than just an actor. Last summer he wrote, directed and appeared in Breaking Up at the Loeb Experimental Theatre. It is clear that it is not just acting and applause that appeals to him, but the whole concept of theatre as a collaborative craft.

As a Senior, he is looking forward to graduating this year, and while his studies have concentrated on English and American Literature and Language, it is the theatrical side of his Harvard education that appeals.

Jack Cutmore-Scott as Mr. Sloane is irresistible. Susanne Nitter photo.
"Once I graduate I would like to continue doing what I have been doing here. Acting of course, but also directing and writing. I will likely head to New York City to try my luck there. But for me it is as much about making shows happen as actually being on the stage," he said. With this sort of wider view in mind, Jack is unlikely to remain available for long.

Jack's C.V. is already chock-a-block full of amazing credentials. After training with the British National Youth Theatre, he did a year-long stint at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts before taking his original play, Making a Scene, to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It was well received.

But, we wondered, how did this all start.

"My first audition was almost by accident, and I ended up with a walk-on, walk-off role. But it introduced me to the world of theatre. Just watching the rehearsal process was the most amazing experience for me. Observing how the director worked with the actors revealed what interesting people they were," he said. Indeed, for many people seeing theatre people at work picking at the words, looking beneath the surface of things opens the mind to an expository way of looking at life, reading between the lines and seeing what is really going on. It is addictive.

"You pull it all apart, and then put it back together when you finally do it for real on stage...it's exciting," noted the actor. "And I find that often you get more out of the rehearsal process than you do onstage. You learn about yourself."

A rare moment to himself.
We turned to the Joe Orton play. Directed by Eric Engel, Entertaining Mr. Sloane  revolves around the charming, enigmatic Sloane as he arrives to rent a room from Kath (Sandra Shipley), a lonely, delusional landlady, in the junkyard house she shares with her declining father, Kemp (Dafydd Rees). A handsome opportunist, Sloane quickly ingratiates himself, entering into seductions offered by both Kath, and her estranged brother Ed (Nigel Gore), who soon employs Sloane as his driver. Sloane’s past misdeeds and the dueling affections within the family soon collide, leading to a desperate act that proves the limit of his charms, and reveals the ruthless and cunning strategies that Sloane’s victims will engage in to preserve their unique arrangement.

The delusional landlady Kath (Sandra Shipley) and cunning yet charming new tenant Mr. Sloane (Jack Cutmore-Scott) test all boundaries at their first meeting in Joe Orton’s dark comedy Entertaining Mr. Sloane. Susanne Nitter photo.
I wondered if the play, first performed in 1964 has stood the test of time. "It's still very contemporary, and still speaks to us," said Cutmore-Scott. "Nevertheless," he says, "I am still grappling with the role of Mr. Sloane. He is a very fascinating and bombastic character. As we work through it scene to scene I keep discovering something new. I try to remember it all, and Eric (Engel) has been terrific in helping me resolve the motivations behind his actions. They are, after all, pretty crazy characters and they do some pretty crazy things."

According to Engel, “The play is almost a farce, in which all four characters, because they are desperately lonely, allow their domestic, social and animal instincts to become irrevocably intertwined.” He adds, “Orton eliminates the line between the obvious and the Freudian, making things all the more confusing and delightful. Entertaining Mr. Sloane is a perfect play for today's audiences, who can explore sexuality with intrigue and open minds, rather than fear and judgment.”

The young actor seems to balance his demanding studies and extracurricular activities pretty well, though there can be an element of surrealism to them. "There are moments I feel a bit like a sponge, and others when people look at me like I am nuts. When I am riding the T for example, I am usually immersed deeply in my studies, and I tend to mumble absent-mindedly as I am stuffing material into my brain. If I glance up, the looks I get from the other passengers can be quite unexpected," he laughs.

"Sometimes I will take out my cellphone to cover, but when you are actually underground, and the phones won't work I just have to live with the looks."

Three different moods in one day.
"During my freshman year, I had a different problem. I would talk to people and they would look at me blankly because of my accent. But after four years, things are getting better, and I can pretty well understand American, too," he chortles. Cutmore-Scott once told the Harvard Crimson that the english accent is "my unfortunate and totally incurable speech impediment which I’ve had since I was a baby. But it is also my sexiest physical trait."

Entertaining Mr. Sloane is set in England, so his accent should come in quite handy in the months ahead.

Who knows, he might even write a play about it someday.

THE PUBLICK THEATRE
Under the leadership of Producing Director Susanne Nitter and Artistic Director Diego Arciniegas, The Publick Theatre has experienced a renaissance, garnering critical acclaim, including for last fall's Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf with Tina Packer, Founding Artistic Director of the Berkshire's own Shakespeare & Company in Lenox.

Others involved in the production of Entertaining Mr. Sloane include Dahlia Al-Habieli (Sets), Kenneth Helvig (Lights), Molly Trainer (Costumes), and John Doerschuk (Sound).

Entertaining Mr. Sloane runs from March 11 to April 3, 2010 at the Plaza Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont Street in Boston's South End. Performances are Wednesdays at 7:30pm, Thursdays at 7:30pm, Fridays at 8:00 pm, Saturdays at 3:00 pm and 8:00 pm and Sundays at 3:00pm. Tickets: $33.00 - $37.50. For tickets contact the BostonTheatreScene.com box office at 617.933.8600 or order online at www.bostontheatrescene.com.

iPhone and Blackberry Ticket Buying - Emerging Technologies

Theatres and concert halls pay huge fees to credit card processors and banks.
Many theatres and concert halls sell tickets online but only from PC's and laptops. The technology has not yet enabled mobile devices like iPhones, Blackberries and other smart phones to be incorporated into most small and mid sized operations ticketing operations. But it is coming. The biggest problem is handling the payments.

Our evolving internet world is working on payment systems that avoid the need for credit cards. Imagine, just person to person or person to business transfers activated on cell phones and other portable devices, and verified at the businesses themselves.

Merging social networking and payments between friends, businesses.
Not only cultural organizations, but the public itself would love to be able to cut out the middle man. Imagine holding on to that pound of flesh extracted by the rapacious banks and credit card companies which charge both buyer and seller unconscionable fees to transfer money around.

Ask the treasurer of any 501 (c) 3. The fees extracted by banks and credit card companies is excessive, and often passed along to consumers with through the dreaded "handling charges" for online and transactions over voice phone lines. (The iPhone and other mobile devices are not yet in the mix.)

And those processing fees can add up. For a smaller company with low ticket prices, this can amount to 10% of the cost of the ticket. When I was at the Boston Ballet, credit card processing fees amounted to $200,000 for The Nutcracker alone. And that was 30 years ago.

The new services are being spearheaded - believe it or not - at Twitter, which is where the young code warriors mostly gather. Twitpay is up to 15,000 users who link their Twitter account to Paypal. Paypal does the money moving, person to person.

Twitpay is actually up and running with 15,000 users so far.
]ack Dorsey created an app that accepts payments with an iPhone. Obopay is another service that enables mobile devices, but it seems more traditional in its link to MasterCard and major banks.

Wired magazine has a good baseline article on it:

"Last summer, PayPal began giving a small group of developers access to its code, allowing them to work with its super-sophisticated transaction framework. Michael Ivey immediately used it to link users’ Twitter accounts to their PayPal accounts, and his new company, Twitpay, took off. " - Wired

The eggheads at the Atlantic Monthly see these fledgeling attempts to use mobile devices to move money around as the beginning of a wave that might well crest into a movement to cut the expensive credit card companies out of the equation.

Nothing could make me happier.

With new technology it may be possible to retain almost all the proceeds of electronic payments.
Writing in The Futurist, Thomas Frey calls it a "fractal payment." Frey says that, instead of routing money through an expensive and slow banking system, you could simply use your phone or other wireless device to transmit the payment directly to the seller's wireless device. He says the reason it would circumvent the banking system is by allowing the user to automatically divide up the payment between the necessary recipients.

"For example, when you buy a book from Amazon.com, your payment is instantly divided four ways in a split between the author, the publisher, Amazon, and the shipping company." - Thomas Frey, The Futurist

Yet it is not that clean and separate from the traditional methods. Even Paypal now charges almost 3% on transfers designated as payments for goods or services.

Naysayers abound. The Awl's Choire Sicha isn't buying it. Sicha sees Twitpay as nothing more than Paypal for cellphones, which isn't so different from a credit card. And tools that allow you to use your iPhone like a credit card reader still require you to go through the credit card system.

Paypal is an innovator and already set up for mobile transactions without credit cards, using my account balance, like a debit card. I lived through the birth of Paypal - and the efforts of the establishment banking industry to undermine and destroy them.

(Long ago, between gigs, I became an eBay Power Seller three times over.) Paypal not only evolved, but prospered. They had huge issues in their early days, but solved them and currently are used by over 150 Million people and 100,000 merchants. Frankly, I do not understand why more cultural organizations don't take advantage of this low cost alternative to traditional credit card processing arrangements.

Making phone and texting devices compatible with ticket buying is essential.
To me, the main thing is that lots of people are thinking about the problem of our dependence on a banking and credit card system that is out to fleece the public. And ways around it. It's great to have people working on solutions that we can all benefit from.

Everyone needs to keep their costs down, and millions still can be made a few cents at a time. It is the million dollar salaries and bonuses to greedy executives who add no value to transactions that have caused the money industry to become fat, lazy and irresponsible.

The moment a logical alternative emerges, the pent up demand for an alternative to the current credit card stranglehold will cause millions to give up their plastic and return the economy to one in which people earn money by creating value, not by fiat and monopoly.

"Please turn off your cellphones..."

It all started in 1999 when Brian Dennehy, performing in Death of a Salesman couldn't bear the chirping phone. "Please, just answer it," he pleaded. And it has gotten progressively worse. You would think that people might have learned to turn them off upon reaching the theatre. Without reminders.

A Faraday Cage under construction which prevents unwanted electo-magnetic signals and lightning from interfering with a theatre's electronics equipment. Oh, and it blocks cellphone signals, too.
But despite having paid $50 or more for a ticket, no more than halfway through the first half comes a ring of a cellphone, or the glow and tapping of a texter a few seats from you. What to do.

Just about every theatre makes a pre-show announcement, which like pre-takeoff instructions from the stewardness are pretty roundly ignored. Fortunately here in the Berkshires, we have considerate audiences so that this is not a common problem. But it does happen. So what to do. In cinemas, this particular filmed announcement has been know to make its point with humor:



So what can be done, you ask? Some patrons have taken to buying cellphone jammers which run on batteries and will pretty quickly foul up incoming signals for up to 200'. Jammers are illegal, but blockers are not.

The simplest (and legal) one is called a Faraday cage, which is simply a copper mesh cage around the auditorium. Its primary purpose is lightning protection or to prevent unwanted electrical impulses from impeding a hospital's MRI equipment.

While there are some FCC regulations about jamming signals, if it is the design of the building itself which blocks, but does not jam signals, it is allowed. It has been rumored for some time that some Broadway theatres have retrofitted them. A friend at IATSE tells me the justification is based on the complex electronics used to run many high tech performances today, especially those that use radio control frequencies to manage stage effects. There had also been problems with unwanted outside crosstalk being picked up by wireless remote microphones.



The Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association — a Washington-based cell phone lobby that is also known as CTIA-the Wireless Association — said it would fight any move to block cell phone signals. But the person who spends money on tickets for a show has rights to the peaceful enjoyment of their purchase too. It is a good foundation for a defense against the selfish short-sighted businesses that profit from their products disrupting our activities.

Of course, I would post a notice prominently that stated that the theatre does not have good cell phone reception due to the building's design to cover any legal issues.

The ticket buyer could then make an informed decision about which was more important, spending a couple of hours immersed in a great show, or opting out so they are able to take every inane call that comes their way. They can not be allowed to have it both ways.

The cellphone trade group is, of course, completely against forcing people to stop using their cellphones, but the audience has a right to enjoy the show, too.

TicketMaster sent customers to rapacious scalpers FTC says

"The Boss" was not very happy to see his fans screwed.
How do scalpers get away with not only roasting the public on ticket prices, but also selling tickets that they don't even have? Easy, cut a deal with TicketMaster.

Never content to just make an honest buck, TicketMaster, once an honest ticket selling operation, seems to be on a never ending quest to extract money from the public looking for a little entertainment. Take their selling of tickets for Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band last May and June.

According to the FTC, "Ticketmaster displayed a No Tickets Found message on its Web page to consumers to indicate that no tickets were available at that moment to fulfill their request." The FTC charged that Ticketmaster used this Web page to steer unknowing consumers to TicketsNow, where tickets were offered at much higher prices – in some cases double, triple, or quadruple the face value.

The FTC found that "Ticketmaster displayed the same misleading Web page to consumers looking to buy tickets for many other events." This time not only were they caught doing it, they are being held responsible by an FTC no longer held down by those who talk "free trade" while they mean "rape and pillage."

A popular T-shirt at arenas everywhere.
“Buying tickets should not be a game of chance,” said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz. “Ticketmaster’s refrain is that it sold through TicketsNow to give consumers more choices. But when you steer consumers to your resale Web sites without clear disclosures, and they unknowingly buy tickets at higher prices, they’ll be left with a sour note.”

Compounding this deception, Ticketmaster failed to tell buyers that many of the resale tickets advertised on TicketsNow.com were not “in hand” – in other words, they were not actual tickets secured for sale at the time they were listed and bought. In fact, some tickets were being sold speculatively – that is, they were merely offers to try to find tickets.

In fact, many consumers hoping to go to a Springsteen concert at the Verizon Center in Washington, DC in May 2009 paid for tickets in February that never materialized. Ticketmaster kept the sales proceeds for more than three months without a reasonable basis for believing it could fulfill the orders, the FTC complaint alleged.

Another sore point is the practice of not refunding the service charge when shows get cancelled. This has been the subject on consumer litigation in the past.

“TicketsNow.com sold phantom tickets without letting consumers know that the tickets did not exist. Then, the company held onto consumers’ money, sometimes for months, when it knew those fans weren’t going to see Springsteen,” Leibowitz said. “Clearly consumers deserve better. They deserve to know what they’re buying, including the risk that their tickets won’t materialize.”

The complaint against Ticketmaster Entertainment L.L.C. and TicketsNow.com, Inc. also names Ticketmaster L.L.C., a subsidiary of Ticketmaster Entertainment L.L.C., and TNOW Entertainment Group, Inc., a holding company for TicketsNow.com. The Commission vote to authorize the staff to file the complaint and stipulated final order was 4-0. The FTC filed its complaint and stipulated final order in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division.

Scalping Executives? Live Nation President and CEO Michael Rapino, left, and Ticketmaster Entertainment CEO Irving Azoff are sworn in before testifying to a U.S. Senate committee in February. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

VERY BAD NEWS FOR CONSUMERS: THE TICKETMASTER-LIVE NATION MERGER GETS APPROVED

On another front, the U.S. Department of Justice has approved the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, possibly the worst thing that could be done for consumers. In approving the companies' merger, Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney said it would have the effect of lowering ticket prices.

Yeah, right. Just a little whipped cream on top of a shit sandwich for ticket buyers.

Oh, they did impose some restrictions. Like a 10-year court order prohibiting it from retaliating against venues that choose to sign ticket-selling contracts with competitors.

TicketMaster does things Godfather-style. Sign with us or things will not go well. Imagine a court order forbidding them from retaliating against competition. Before they even do it. That judge knew their reputation for near-illegal business practices.

WalMart to enter ticket selling business with Ticketmaster

Ticketmaster to sell tickets at Wal-Mart, but will the service charges come down? Don't count on it.
News leaked out that "Walmart and Ticketmaster have entered into an agreement for selling event access in Walmart stores in select markets,” according to Irving Azoff at the NBA Technology Summit in Dallas late last week. Walmart shoppers will be able to buy tickets to concerts, sports and other community events at around 500 stores in the coming months. There are more than 7,000 WalMart stores and superstores, not counting Sam's Clubs.

However, just how much they will save at the big retailer is in question. Most likely nothing. The outrageous service charges extracted from ticket buyers is unlikely to change, as the monopolistic Ticketmaster and WalMart become a cartel, and will maintain uniform pricing across its phone and retail operations. And talk about opportunities to grab the best seats by the underpaid associates for their friends. I bet it will help WalMart find more low paid help who in turn could make money on the side selling to scalpers.

WalMart is only committing 500 stores initially, most likely as a test, since Ticketmaster, with one fell swoop, could have outlets in all its stores if wanted. This may be the first product sold by WalMart that is not discounted. And you will have the pleasure of having to go to the store's electronics department and have one of their "associates" pull up and print out the tickets.

The impact on the Berkshires will be minimal since most local venues handle their own ticketing operations, mindful of the effect that service charges have on attendance. The tickets will be available at WalMart's in large cities first, Chicago and Los Angeles for example. Azoff has worked with WalMart before, specifically in pushing the Eagles' Long Road Out of Eden in 2008. The album was a best seller that year.

I worked with TicketMaster in its early days, and was able to watch them grow into a powerhouse that bought out the once dominant TIcketron. They have managed to become the gorilla in the room of ticket selling.

On another front, the Saratoga Performing Arts Center recently announced that they will be creating their own ticket selling operation this coming season. However, I was greeted with total silence when trying to learn if that meant there would be a reduction in service charges. Right now it is looking for SPAC, as for WalMart, as a giant new profit center.

The change is likely necessitated by the destruction of most alternative retail by monoliths like WalMart. For years, TicketMaster relied on Tower Records as its main retail outlet. Since the demise of that chain, they have had less of a presence at street level. Clearly this is about to change, and while it might work for mass market events, I am not so sure it would do the high end arts organizations much good.

Having to visit WalMart for tickets to the BSO, or Jacob's Pillow just sounds like a trip to hell and back. If they had to do a discount chain, it should have been Target.