Review- Another Sold-Out "Fitz and the Tantrums" Show at the Metro in Chicago

We are so happy to have our famous blogger back writing posts for us here at Fricket.  Ellie Brzezenski, wrote some fantastic posts for us on last year's Lollapalooza Music Fest.  She has since graduated from the U. of Illinois and one of things she'll be doing us now is covering some of the great events in Chicago, and elsewhere.  Here's her first-hand report on a recent concert at the Metro.

Fitz and the Tantrums played their second sold-out show Wednesday night at the Metro. Though the band mates are no strangers to Chicago (their last stint through Chicago also sold out) they enthusiastically expressed their love for the crowd.  “It’s great to have such genuine people and real music lovers here tonight,” beamed “Fitz”, aka lead singer Michael Fitzpatrick.  The admiration was no doubt mutual.

The night opened with a short performance by Ivy Levan.  I had no idea what to expect when the singer approached the stage with a platinum blonde “up do” and bedazzled pants, but I was pleasantly surprised.  Though I didn’t understand why the band chose to wear ski masks the entire performance, I hardly paid much attention once they got into their groove.  If you, like me, had never heard of "Ivy" before, the best two words to describe her would be “Bad Bitch.”  Her powerful and melodic vocals pairs well with her "get up" and her lyrics about drinking, friendship, and not taking crap from anyone.  One adoring fan in the crowd held up a sign that read “I’ll hold your hair back while you drink vodka—Chicago loves Ivy!” which she obviously enjoyed.

The second opener was an indie rock band called Saints of Vallory from Austin, Texas.  They also seemed relatively unknown, minus the cheering crowd of high school girls in the upstairs seating area.  Their performance was pretty underwhelming, and they left very little impression on the crowd.  Maybe it was the growing anticipation for Fitz, but their performance left something to be desired.

Finally, the main act took the stage around 11pm. They opened with “Keeping Our Eyes Shut” and this got the crowd instantly dancing.  Though they have just released their sophomore album “More Than Just a Dream”, they played a handful of songs from their 2010 release “Picking up the Pieces” including “Dear Mr. President” and “Winds of Change”.  Vocalist Noelle Scaggs rocked her vocals and kept the crowd going with her dance moves and the occasional scream of “Chicago, where you at??”

I have to say, if there was ever a band that loves their fans as much as they enjoy performing, Fitz and the Tantrums is that band.  Their love for what they do, and each other, is obvious in every song.  They’re a band you want to stick around for after the show, not only because they’re great musicians, but because you want to be friends with them - and they want to be friends with you too!  After finishing their set, Fitz came back on stage for the encore wearing a Blackhawks jersey.  Having seen audience members stream the game on their phones during the set breaks, I knew the gesture was appreciated.  No doubt, Fitz and the Tantrums had a great run at the Metro and have a second home here in the Windy City any time they want to come back. -E.B.

Remember, when you need tickets to any great concert, sporting event or theater show, just go Fricket it! http://www.fricket.com/

Game 7: Who Will Be Sitting in Your Seat?

Game 7 of the NBA Finals is tonight in Miami.  The Heat vs Spurs has been a great series, featuring  some of the best, if not the best, basketball players and teams for quite some time.  Your favorite team playing in a Game 7 of the finals of any sport is pretty rare for most of us, and would, you would think, be a great opportunity to have tickets to the big game, so you could go see it, right?  Or, would you be tempted to sell them?  If the price is right, do you care who will be sitting in your seat?

Owning season tickets to a pro sports team is not an inexpensive hobby.  You must hand over a significant amount of money, up-front, before each season and playoff series to secure your seats.  What if you could sell your seats for tonight's Game 7 and recoup a significant amount of what you've spent?  As of this writing, the cheapest tickets for a seat are available around $500 in the upper deck, while court side seats are being offered at $60,000 each.  If you don't want a seat, SRO is around $400.

What if you did sell your tickets to someone who gets photographed telling the other team that they're the opposite of "number one" , as we've seen a few times recently.  Would that matter to you?  The CEO of Ticketmaster, Nathan Hubbard, said on Twitter that 45-50% of the people with tickets to tonight's game are not the original owners.  Does that explain why so many of the Heat's 'fans" left Game 6 early when their team fell behind by 5 points with 28.2 seconds to go in regulation?

Tonight's Game 7 should be a great game, and, if it is, will be touted as one of the greatest ever by those who have to call every great Game 7 the greatest ever.  The NHL Stanley Cup Finals are also in progress and very well could go to a Game 7 too, which would be played in Chicago.  Will the loyal Blackhawks season tickets holders be there, or will they be tempted by an offer to good to refuse?

Remember, for all you sports, concerts and theater tickets, compare all the best ticket sites with one search! Just Fricket it!  http://fricket.com/

WSJ: U.S. Workers Are Becoming More Risk Averse. Really? Well, We're Still Fricket All In.

This Fricket blog usually focuses on interesting subjects (at least we think so) about the world of live entertainment.  However, today we want take a step back and talk about life as a start-up business.  As you probably know, Fricket http://fricket.com/ is a Chicago based start-up company.  Our web-based app helps everyone shop for tickets to sports, concerts and theater events.  We operate in the secondary, or "resale," ticket market and have been called the "Kayak" of event tickets because we aggregate the best ticketing sites into one location.  We save you time and money, and that's important because tickets are expensive.  There's no need to pay more than you have to, and, if you want to sit in the front row, you should have a way to get those seats too, and not just settle for what's leftover at the box office.

There are a lot of risks to starting this business; we're working full-time on this and bootstrapping, the ticket market is mature and competition is fierce, co-founders have left and new team members have come on board and it's been a continuing struggle to get the v1.1 of Fricket.com developed, to name just a few, but we think it's a great idea, the market opportunity is huge and it's worth the risks.  As the title of this blog suggests, we're Fricket all in.

The reason we're describing all this is because of what we see as an increasing change of attitude towards start-up companies and risk taking, in general.  While start-up founders know the odds are stacked against them, and failure is likely, this is often glossed over by many who want to focus on the "big winners", or dressing like Mark Zuckerberg everyday, or the great food in the company's cafeteria, or all the stock options.  Recently, however, we've seen more written about, and more start-up people we know,  returning to the "normal, 9-5" job.  Some will still work on their ideas part-time and some will not.  Maybe our sample size is too small, but even the "main-stream media" is catching wind of it.  On the front page of Monday's WSJ, "Risk-Averse Culture Infects U.S. Workers, Entrepreneurs." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324031404578481162903760052.html?mod=ITP_pageone_0#articleTabs%3Darticle You definitely hear and read more stories about "zombie" companies who just won't die, and previously active seed-stage to Series A type of investors/VC's who haven't made an investment in years.

What's also interesting too, is the amount of praise we still heap on the risk-takers.  You can't go too far today without hearing about how the very successful founder of an electric car company, is "All-In" on his car venture http://www.thestreet.com/story/11925781/1/elon-musk-going-all-in-on-tesla.html (BTW he also wants to eventually send us all to Mars too.) He's seems to be perceived as someone who "can do almost anything." He made a good chunk of change on his previous ventures, but he still continues to risk it on bigger and bigger ideas.  He's seen as a "hero" by most, and even as a role-mode for a popular fictional super-hero character in several big-budget movies

Have U.S. workers really lost their risk taking "mojo" ?  We think one of the big reasons outside capital invests, and talented workers flow into, the U.S. is because we've made it a habit over the years of generating a ROI greater, and safer, than anywhere else.  We're risk takers by nature and it would take a lot (time, especially) for that to change.  We've studied and seen a lot economic cycles over the years, and that's what this feels like.  We think we're still taking risks, it's just that those risks might be a bit different.

Statistics seem to say we're staying in our jobs longer, not moving around geographically as much, not starting as many new businesses, which is because more workers are getting older and would rather take the relative safety of a larger, more established company, over a risky start-up  i.e. enjoy the 2+ weeks vacation and weekends off.  Most people have, and will, continue to work for somebody else.  Not everyone can, or should, be a leader and the founder of a company. On the other hand, everyone understands no job is completely safe today either, and that their position could be eliminated overnight.  I'm sure it was just a coincidence, but Zynga also announced today it was cutting 18% of its workforce.  Perhaps, this is a different type of risk workers now build into their decisions?  Are there more risks today from having little or no job security?...from more government regulation?...from your bonus being eliminated because another department had a "bad" year?...from your 401k being wiped-out in another market "correction" ?...from all us planning like we're going to be working till we're 80+?...from all of us being able to pay for healthcare, not only for ourselves but maybe also our parents and kids?..from our state government possibly going bankrupt?  There's only so much risk we can take!

Take away or mitigate some of these risks, and we think we'll see another wave of entrepreneurial risk taking and the financing to back it.  Until then, the start-up numbers might be discouraging, but many, like us, will still take the "start-up plunge" anyway.   Don't call us risk averse because we are ALL Fricket all in there!