Louis C.K. continues to give a giant middle finger to middlemen, networks, and anyone who would attempt to make you pay any more than is reasonable or necessary for his product. And the awesome thing is that it continues to work.
Earlier this week we told you that Louis C.K. had decided to forgo Ticketmaster and sell tickets for his upcoming standup tour himself – directly from his website.
Here’s what he said about the venture in an email to fans:
We are selling tickets to this tour exclusively here on louisck.com. I only wanted to do this if there was a way, like with LIVE AT THE BEACON, that it could bring the price of tickets down and make them easier and less complicated to buy. We figured out a way.
Making my shows affordable has always been my goal but two things have always worked against that. High ticket charges and ticket re-sellers marking up the prices. Some ticketing services charge more than 40% over the ticket price and, ironically, the lower I’ve made my ticket prices, the more scalpers have bought them up, so the more fans have paid for a lot of my tickets.
By selling the tickets exclusively on my site, I’ve cut the ticket charges way down and absorbed them into the ticket price. To buy a ticket, you join NOTHING. Just use your credit card and buy the damn thing. opt in to the email list if you want, and you’ll only get emails from me.
The tickets are going for $45 – a flat rate for all shows across the country.
Now, a few days in, it appears that Louis C.K.’s direct ticket sale move is paying off. Apparently, fans have paid over 4.5 million dollars in just 45 hours of the sale being live:
well. after 45 hours, my tour has sold 100K tickets, box office gross of 4.5 mil $ (not all mine). I guess it was a good idea.
That tweet came Wednesday evening, so we can assume the numbers are even better now.
If you remember, this isn’t the first time Louis C.K. has found success in bucking the trend. Last year, he distributed his standup special “Live at the Beacon” on his site, free of DRM, for $5. In just one week, proceeds hit the $1 million mark (of which he gave about 75% of to charity).
Other big-name comedians like Aziz Ansari and Jim Gaffigan followed suit, relasing their new standup specials direct to fans.
I can only express happiness and enthusiasm about this trend. And the more success “cutting out the middleman” finds, the more likely we are to see other content producers trying it out in the future. Of course, like I’ve said before, Louis C.K. is a huge star, and many think that he’s the best living comedian. It will be interesting to see if others who are maybe not at star-powered can find success following the Louis C.K. model.
And just for good measure, here’s why this funny son of a bitch is succeeding in all of his ventures: