This brought them into direct conflict with Ticketmaster, whose standard service charges in the US at that time ranged from $4 to $8. They also insisted ticket-distributor charges – the notorious “service charges” tacked onto each sale – were $1.80 or less. As Pearl Jam prepared to head out on the road once more in 1994, they declared they would once again only play venues that went along with the $18 ticket price. By cutting their charges, the band personally sacrificed an estimated $2m in revenue.Īll of this led to tensions with Ticketmaster over service charges. They also lowered the cost of their T-shirt prices from $23 to $18.

For their US tour, they set a limit of $18 for concert tickets, over the objections of promoters, who told the band they could have charged three times that price. Twelve months later, the group took an even more hardline stance. Vedder and his bandmates put their feet down, and distributed the tickets themselves. Particularly undesirable was the nightmare of having to organise the toilets. Boycotting it soon devolved into a waking nightmare, in which Pearl Jam had to personally handle the excruciating minutiae of putting on a live concert.

But Ticketmaster had 90 per cent of the US touring circuit locked down. Going out on the road to promote Vitalogy that summer, Pearl Jam had pledged that their North American tour would skip venues that worked with Ticketmaster. Yet, far from revelling in their status, Vedder and his bandmates had picked a fight with one of the biggest conglomerates in music – ticket sales behemoth Ticketmaster. With their recent third album Vitalogy having sold nearly 900,000 units in its first week, Pearl Jam could at that moment claim to be the biggest rock group in the world. Not for the first time in 1995, Eddie Vedder was taking a phone call about portable toilets.

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