my letter to Coalition concerning olp.net

[faninor]

I am mailing this letter about ourladypeace.net to Eric Lawrence, OLP's manager, at Coalition Entertainment on Monday.

Please read this. If you catch any sentences that don't make sense, simple typos, or have any suggestions at all please reply here. Any changes I am going to make need to be made by Sunday.

Also, I highly encourage every single one of you who agrees that there is a problem to write your own letter to Eric. It doesn't need to be long, just a simple "I read the letter which Josh Day wrote to you about OLP's fan club, and I just wanted to let you know that I share his concerns" or something like that would be great.

Eric Lawrence
Coalition Entertainment Management
10271 Yonge Street, Suite 202
Richmond Hill, ON L4C 3B5
Canada

Okay, here's my letter.



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Dear Mr. Lawrence,

On the afternoon of July 29, 2005, before a “secret” Our Lady Peace concert at the Drake Hotel in Toronto, Stacy McNeil and Devi Ekanand from Coalition invited eight fans (Melissa, Nikki, Soozy, Matt, Miro, Kruno, Rich, and Shelley) to meet with them to discuss ourladypeace.net, the official OLP fan club. Each person was given a questionnaire to fill out, with questions such as what other fan clubs they were members of, how much they would pay to be a fan club member, and what type of content they would want from a fan club.

Recently I asked each of those 8 fans a question. “Would you pay to renew your membership for another year with the fan club as it currently is?”

Melissa’s response: “No. I can get a blog and post on a messageboard for free!”

Nikki’s response: “Hah, I probably would because I’m stupid. Plus, at least one of us has to so everyone can see the few things they put up!” I should note here, that in October of 2005, when the site launched, Nikki refused to share any exclusive ourladypeace.net material with people who were not members of the site. But now she will, because in her opinion the fan club in its current state is not worth the membership fee.

Soozy’s response: “No flipping way. Well, unless it’s a free renewal in which case why not.”

Matt’s response: “No. I don’t feel that the amount of exclusive content justifies the fee. There is nothing on there now that couldn’t have been supported on the old .net. The message board, blogs, and video would have all worked on Stace’s site. The video content would have been fine too. It’s no higher quality than what she encoded, in fact it may be worse.”

To this I replied: “It certainly is worse than the Fear of the Trailer Park tour clips.” I will go into more detail about this later. It is a fact, the quality of the encoded video is worse.

To this, Matt replied: “Also, I think a forum would have been easy to add [to Stace’s site]. I don’t think she had time to moderate though. And it appears no one else moderates the current one, except to delete contact info.”

Miro’s response: “Nope. What was wrong with the original PPU anyways? Given all Ive seen and heard, ourladypeace.net doesnt bring the fans closer to the band, it gets in between them. I dont particularly feel the services provided by the site justify the price. Seeing how virtually everything you get is either available for free elsewhere, and pretty much everything offered is confined to your computer monitor. Message boards? What about the CC and the CM? Pictures? What about virtually every OLP fan site out there? Exclusive messages, etc from the band? Why should people pay for this? True fans are the ones who find such things interesting to read. Do you really believe non-olp fans go out of their way to read blogs written by the band? I feel cheated. Sounds like You have to pay to hear us talk. Are we forgetting that the band is in fact human? Band chats and messages were free for years! Pre-sales? The only redeeming quality of the site, which apparently is only useful for small venues that will sell out.”

Kruno’s response: “No. They didn’t listen to a word we said. I’m thankful that they paid for our pizza (we had to pay for our beer) but if I paid for a membership I’d feel pretty ripped off. Stacy is a great person, and I’m sure it’s not her fault… the content on the site, the irresponsibility when it comes to mailing packages is just not worth it. Fans were betrayed when they were asked to pay $170 for tickets and soundcheck passes… oh, and some merch.”

Rich and Shelley discussed my question and declined to respond.

These are the same eight people who filled out the questionnaires for Coalition in July. They told Coalition what they wanted from the fan club, and what they were willing to pay for that. Now, seven months after the fan club launched, at least six of them feel that the fan club is not worth the fee. I’m writing this letter to tell you precisely why. In the following 23 pages, I will discuss their reasons why along with other reasons people may not be happy with the way the fan club is right now. Nearly everything here has been mentioned on the ourladypeace.net forums already. Very little has been addressed.

I can only hope that this critique will be read and carefully considered, and that the situation will be turned around so that in March 2007 when fans’ memberships begin running out, perhaps more people will feel that the fan club is worth the membership fee and decide to renew it for another year.
I think a huge portion of the problems that the fan club has right now boils down to the fact that UltraStar was contracted to run the fan club. Stacy McNeil gave ourladypeace.net a very personal feel. I don’t know who ran the Pied Piper’s Union, but looking over what they offered to the fans, one thing is obvious. Whoever ran that fan club, they cared. They cared about the fans. They provided many different opportunities for fan club members to enjoy the band. Our Lady Peace is the last band on the client list on UltraStar’s website. It seems clear that UltraStar is not willing to devote enough attention to a client that doesn’t bring in the amount of business that some of their other clients such as The Rolling Stones and David Bowie can manage. While the Pied Piper’s Union and the old ourladypeace.net made fans happy to be members of the fan club, and made them feel closer to the band, UltraStar makes the fan club members feel like precisely what we are to their company. A dollar sign. I hope Our Lady Peace and UltraStar part ways soon.

Sincerely,



Josh Day




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Benefits of Membership

First, let’s look specifically at those things that ourladypeace.net offers on the website’s signup page. According to https://signup.ourladypeace.net/

Human membership ($25 US) includes:
• Priority ticketing before the general public
• Exclusive behind-the-scenes video
• Exclusive on-the-road video
• Online chats with OLP band members and special guests
• Member-only limited edition merchandise offers
• Wallpapers
• Buddy icons
• Exclusive galleries
• Fan interaction
• Some surprises

Transparent Human membership ($35 US) includes everything included in Human membership, and also:
• OLP package (welcome letter, exclusive tour laminate and lanyard)
• Contests for VIP passes and opportunities to meet the band

This is specifically what fans are paying for when they give their money to UltraStar, and every single thing on these lists should be available on the site sometime within the membership year. I have been a member so far for the first seven months the site was up. This is what I have seen.
Priority Ticketing Before the General Public

Ourladypeace.net has had presales for most of the concerts on the April/May 2006 Canadian tour. However, there were a few issues which should be pointed out and avoided in the future.

Problem 1: “Before General Public”

The ourladypeace.net member-only presales started at the same time on the same days as Hot Seat sales for the same shows. Hot Seat sales were open to the general public.

Solution: Start fan club presale before any public sales, including Hot Seat sales.

Problem 2: “Priority Ticketing”

The definition of priority:
1. Precedence, especially established by order of importance or urgency.
2. a. An established right to precedence
b. An authoritative rating that establishes such precedence.
The definition of precedence:
1. The fact, state, or right of preceding
The definition of precede:
1. To come, exist, or occur before in time
2. To come before in order or rank; surpass or outrank
3. To be in a position in front of; go in advance of.

The definitions seem to go in two directions. The first deals with time: something with priority happens before something without priority. This could be what was meant, although the description of the .net presales said it was priority ticketing before the general public, and if the intention was to simply tell fan club members that the fan club presales happened first, they could have simply said “priority ticketing” or “ticketing before the general public” – I see no need to say the same thing twice in the same phrase.

The second direction that the definition can take refers to rank or position. In the case of concert tickets, this would mean better tickets, closer to the stage. When I joined ourladypeace.net, I assumed that this was what was intended by the term priority.

I don’t have the facts about precisely what tickets were allocated to the fan club presales, the hot seats, other presales, the main sale, and radio contests. That should definitely be looked into, in detail, and the question needs to be asked: Did the fan club really receive priority?

One thing in particular suggests that the fan club did not receive priority: several members of the fan club who bought tickets through the fan club presale as soon as it started, and later were able to find tickets that were closer to the stage. At multiple points after the main sale began, even more good seats became available. Many of them ended up buying multiple tickets, some of them up to three times the number of tickets they actually needed for the show. Some of them weren’t even able to find people to buy their extra tickets, or ended up selling their extra tickets for significantly less than what they paid. This was unfortunate. Some fan club members received very good tickets through the fan club presale. I know of a few people who got tickets for within the first few rows to shows on the east coast. But I know of more who ended up buying extra tickets after finding better ones through other sales.

Solution: More seats near the front could go to the fan club. Maybe one of the first 4 or 5 rows could be allotted to the fan club. Since the fan club presale should also happen before Hot Seat sales, any leftover tickets from the fan club’s allotment near the front could even be redistributed into the Hot Seat allotment after the fan club presale ends.

Exclusive Behind-the-Scenes Video

The videos that qualify as behind-the-scenes that have been available on ourladypeace.net so far include: “OLP website welcome,” “Our Lady Peace 2005 Holiday Greeting,” “Making of Angels/Losing/Sleep video” parts 1 through 3, and “Duncan’s First Ride!”

Problem: “Exclusive”

All of these videos except for “Making of Angels/Losing/Sleep video pt. 3” were initially available to non-members as well as members. Anyone who visited the site could watch them without logging in. Those can hardly be considered exclusive to paying members, since anyone could watch them, so the only truly exclusive video in the site’s first seven months has been “Making of Angels/Losing/Sleep video pt. 3.”

Solution: It makes sense to have one or two videos accessible to non-members as a preview of what they get with membership. It does not make sense to use each video that is put up for this purpose. With the right software and knowledge, anyone with access to a streaming video can save it to their computer, so giving non-members access to most of the videos, even for a limited time, could mean that non-members have saved the streaming videos and can access them forever or share them with others. When new videos are added to the site, make sure they’re accessible to members only. Only pick a few videos out to be previews for non-members. Another idea is to only use the first 30 seconds or first half of videos as previews. This way people may watch the free preview and want to join to see the rest.

Exclusive On-the-Road Video

The videos that qualify as on-the-road that have been available on ourladypeace.net so far include: “Where Is Duncan?” “Soundcheck,” “Steve’s Tea Time,” “OLP Crew,” “Kiss on the Mouth,” and “Backstage with OLP.”

Problem: “Exclusive”

Again, all of these have been accessible to non-members at some point and thus can hardly be considered exclusive to paying members except for “OLP Crew” and “Backstage with OLP.”

Solution: It makes sense to have one or two videos accessible to non-members as a preview of what they get with membership. It does not make sense to use each video that is put up for this purpose. With the right software and knowledge, anyone with access to a streaming video can save it to their computer, so giving non-members access to most of the videos, even for a limited time, could mean that non-members have saved the streaming videos and can access them forever or share them with others. When new videos are added to the site, make sure they’re accessible to members only. Only pick a few videos out to be previews for non-members.

Online Chats with OLP Band Members and Special Guests

Problem:

There have been none.

Solution: Have some.

Member-Only Limited Edition Merchandise Offers

Problem:

There have been none.

Solution: Add some. There have been suggestions made by fans as to what types of stuff could be added. Fan club member mattseattleusa has mentioned to Duncan that he would love to see an OLP hockey jersey type shirt, perhaps a limited number could be made for the fan club. Many members have mentioned that they would love fan club only CD’s, which may be difficult because it would probably require a lot of cooperation with Sony instead of just the band, Coalition, and UltraStar. But if it is possible, fans would like that. Clips of two different demo versions of Will the Future Blame Us have been made available by the band. It is clear that song went through many changes, and if the band were willing to let fans listen to the transitions the song went through by putting out a fan club only CD with a few demo versions and the final version, I think that would be very neat. There are other songs that the band seems to like but didn’t use on the album, such as Kiss on the Mouth and Vampires. And then there’s Talk Is Cheap, which many fans loved from hearing live audience recordings of. Perhaps those could be put onto a fan club only CD. I am sure there is a ton of other material which I don’t know about that could be used instead of those.

Wallpapers

Problem:

There have been none.

Solution: Add some.

Buddy Icons

Problem:

There have been none.

Solution: Add some.

Exclusive Galleries

There have been four photo sets in the Exclusives section, and Steve Mazur has posted six “photo blogs” in his blog on the website. However, all of the photo blogs are accessible by non-members, and three of the sets in the Exclusives section are accessible by non-members, so these nine sets can hardly be considered exclusive to paying members.

There is only one truly exclusive photo gallery. It contains a total of 14 images. I have no major concerns about the number of galleries that are accessible to non-members. Stacy McNeil said that the type of stuff that was on the old free ourladypeace.net would still be free here, so this seems fine.
Suggestion:

The free ourladypeace.net had at least 39 concert photo sets. Recover those photo sets and add them to the new ourladypeace.net – 43 photo sets is much more impressive than 4.
Fan Interaction

The fans have been able to interact, using a message board which has bugs that UltraStar employee Jeff said they will not fix, private messages, a blog feature which also has bugs, and a chat which initially was extremely buggy, but has been improved. Fans can also submit artwork and things they’ve written to be viewable on the site. These are all things that can be done elsewhere for free. But it is listed in the benefits of membership, and it is provided. Good job on one.

Some surprises

Steve posts blogs every once in a while. Raine wrote one article (“Will the Future Blame Us”) and Jeremy wrote three (“Jeremy Taggart in New York”, “What Ever Happened to the Greats!?!” and “Evil Man of Earth”). There is also the “Ask OLP Asks” section where the band has answered nine questions that fan club members have asked. All of these require you to be logged in, except for Steve’s blog. However, Jeremy’s first article was available for free on the old ourladypeace.net website and is probably still available for free on www.archive.org’s Internet Archive. So there have only been three articles that were truly exclusive to fan club members, and answers to nine questions from fans. This is good. More surprises would be great.

OLP Package

This is a benefit of Transparent Human membership only. I’ve spoken to Maria and she says the packages are being put together so perhaps these will be sent out to members soon.

Note:

The OLP Package information says it include an exclusive tour laminate and lanyard. The Hot Seat packages also include a tour laminate and lanyard. If they turn out to be the same tour laminate and lanyard, then it is not exclusive to Transparent Human members (though maybe exclusive to the Paranoid Times tour).

Contests for VIP Passes and Opportunities to Meet the Band

This is a benefit of Transparent Human membership only.

Problem:

There have been no contests open to Transparent Human members only. There have been no opportunities to meet the band. There have been contests for one pair of front row tickets to each seated show on the Canadian tour. It was open to all fan club members, and therefore this contest was certainly not a benefit of the Transparent Human membership.

Solution: next tour, have some contests for Transparent Humans only for soundcheck passes. This gives fans an opportunity to see the band set things up and practice a few songs and meet band members after they’re finished.

Conclusion

The only benefits of membership that we have seen, as they were described to us on the signup page, have been a single exclusive behind-the-scenes video, two exclusive on-the-road videos, a single exclusive photo gallery, fan interaction, and some surprises (this would include the ticket contest which was open to Human and Transparent Human members, as well as the three exclusive articles and nine answers to questions from fans).

There is a major problem. Many things listed in the site’s signup page simply have not been realized, and I am not sure why this problem exists. It was clear when the site first opened that many of the pages were copied from inxs.com, the website for another band UltraStar works with, and only had a different style applied to them for ourladypeace.net. Looking at the signup page for INXS at https://signup.inxs.com/ it is easy to see that the benefits of membership are nearly identical. Perhaps ourladypeace.net wasn’t supposed to have exclusive wallpapers, buddy icons, chats with the band, or member-only limited merchandise offers, and those were accidentally left in the list when it was initially copied from the INXS website? Perhaps it was intended to be a part of membership, but UltraStar has not made the effort to make wallpapers and buddy icons, or set up a chat with a band member, or suggest possibilities for member-only merchandise to the band? Possibly it isn’t even UltraStar’s responsibility to come up with this stuff – maybe they’re waiting on Coalition to provide them with wallpapers and buddy icons? UltraStar was in charge of filming material from the recent tour to use on the site, so I would assume they are the ones who are supposed to come up with wallpapers and buddy icons, and perhaps try to set up a time to have an online chat with band members or give them suggestions for merchandise.

It seems pretty clear to me that someone isn’t doing their job. Perhaps it is a lack of communication, perhaps it is just laziness. You should know who is responsible for every single one of the problems I’ve listed above. Talk to them, make sure all the benefits of membership are actually implemented on the site. If this doesn’t happen, I can guarantee that there will be members who decide not to renew for a 2nd year of membership. Over the years, I think Our Lady Peace fans have come to expect more from the fan club than something that doesn’t even live up to the benefits of membership that are advertised.






Comparison to Past Fan Clubs

Following is a detailed comparison between all official Our Lady Peace fan clubs: the Pied Piper’s Union, the free ourladypeace.net website, and the seven month old paid membership ourladypeace.net website. In the past, Our Lady Peace fans have always received more attention through the fan club than they receive on this new ourladypeace.net. Many of them were willing to shell out $25 or $35 based on past experiences with the band’s fan clubs, and I know of no person who feels the current ourladypeace.net matches the quality of the old ourladypeace.net or the Pied Piper’s Union.

Price

The price of ourladypeace.net is the highest of any official OLP fan club. The Pied Piper’s Union (from 1995ish to early 2002) cost $26 Canadian or $21 US per year. The ourladypeace.net fan club from 2002 to early 2005 was free. The current ourladypeace.net fan club costs $25 or $35 US depending on which membership option is selected.

Comment:

I have no problem with paying $25 or $35 for membership to a fan club. However, at the meeting concerning the fan club last summer, the fee was explained as being a way to allow the fan club to provide new types of content that the free ourladypeace.net simply could not afford to do. Many people do not feel that the differences between the new ourladypeace.net and the old ourladypeace.net warrant the fee. This is unfortunate. I think there is some expectation for a paid fan club to have more content and better content than a free fan club. With a free fan club, there are no obligations. But once you start asking people for a membership fee, they need to be given value for their money.

Solution: Make sure there is more content, and higher quality content, than the old free fan club. Fans will be more likely to feel that their money was well spent.

Audio and Video Content for Fan Club Members

The PPU mailed out several gifts to members: Live 1995 CD, Julia (piano version) CD, 1998 Holiday Greeting VHS, Imagine CD, Right Behind You CD, and Gravity Sampler CD.

The free ourladypeace.net website offered about 23 downloadable videos. Most of these were live clips from the Fear of the Trailer Park tour in early 2003. These Fear of the Trailer Park videos were encoded as 720x480 mpeg-2 with an average bitrate around 5000kbps. The audio was encoded as 44.1kHz mpeg-1 audio layer-2 with a bitrate of 256kbps. This video encoding is within the standards for NTSC DVDs, and the audio encoding, if it had been 48kHz instead of 44.1kHz, would also be within DVD standards.

The current ourladypeace.net website has only offered streaming media. From a technical perspective, it is lower quality than what was available through either of the previous fan clubs. Fan club members are also not able to save audio and video content to their computers. PPU members received physical CD’s and VHS tapes, and the free ourladypeace.net had downloadable media, but members of the current ourladypeace.net fan club must continue to pay a yearly membership fee in order to have continued access to audio and video content that the fan club put out. Once you stop giving UltraStar money, members lose everything that the fan club ever gave them.

When asked about one of the particular videos on the site, UltraStar employee Maria said, “If there comes a time when we have videos that the band means to be shared, we'll make the videos downloadable for your ease.”

Problem 1: Paying Twice for One Video

I can appreciate the mentality behind using streaming media rather than downloadable media. With the mail-based PPU fan club, members had to renew their membership each year in order to assure they received all of the member only CD’s. With an online fan club, it is conceivable that some people would simply wait a couple of years for the amount of available material to build up, then join and download all the content from the past few years. They would forever have access to years’ worth of videos from the fan club, for the price of one year membership. The solution to this, of course, is use streaming media. Make it difficult for members to download video content to their computers. Then, when the membership year is up, if they want to continue watching the videos, they’d better renew their membership.

That is a possible justification for using streaming media. However, over this last tour, Raine Maida has stated on a number of occasions that the band supports the Canadian Music Creators Coalition (CMCC). Raine is a CMCC member. Let’s take a look at what the CMCC stands for. Specifically, their second principle:

2. Digital Locks are Risky and Counterproductive
Artists do not support using digital locks to increase the labels’ control over the distribution, use and enjoyment of music or laws that prohibit circumvention of such technological measures. The government should not blindly implement decade-old treaties designed to give control to major labels and take choices away from artists and consumers. Laws should protect artists and consumers, not restrictive technologies. Consumers should be able to transfer the music they buy to other formats under a right of fair use, without having to pay twice.

I understand that the CMCC is against labels’ power, and in the case of ourladypeace.net, it is controlled by the band, their management, and UltraStar. Sony is not involved, and thus the CMCC is not entirely relevant. However, using streaming media instead of downloadable media, just like digital locks on CDs, controls distribution. It stops fans from being able to save the videos they pay to access to their own personal computers. And, if users want to watch it again a year later, they have to pay twice. “Consumers should be able to transfer the music they buy to other formats under a right of fair use, without having to pay twice.” Straight from the CMCC. So, am I to believe that Raine doesn’t want his fans to have to buy the music on an OLP CD twice, but when it comes to videos they release through the fan club, Raine feels that I should pay year after year even if there is only one video that I really want to be able to watch? This feels hypocritical.

Solution: Make video content downloadable. That way, if I decide to quit the fan club, I will still be able to watch the videos that were on the fan club when I was a member.

Problem 2: Poor Encoding

This is a result of using streaming media on the site. Videos must be encoded to very small file sizes in order to be streamed. They are lower quality than what was made available through the old free ourladypeace.net fan club, and when Stacy McNeil and Devi Ekanand first brought up the paid fan club concept they justified it by saying it would mean a better site where there could be more, better quality content.

Solution: If the above problem is solved by making video content downloadable, then this problem could be solved simply by encoding videos at a better quality.

Picture Content for Fan Club Members

The PPU included pictures in its newsletters. It also sent autographed promo photos to its members.

The free ourladypeace.net had photo sets of at least 39 OLP concerts. Fans could download these pictures and save them to their computer.

The current ourladypeace.net has one exclusive photo set. It uses javascript to keep fans from saving pictures to their computers. For picture content, once again, members must continue to pay every year or else lose everything that the fan club offered.

Suggestion:

As I suggested earlier, it would be nice to see the photo galleries from the old ourladypeace.net added here. Additionally, visitors to the old free ourladypeace.net website were able to right click images in the photo sets and save them to their personal computers. UltraStar blocks this ability with javascript. It would be nice to remove that javascript block and allow paying members to save pictures to their own personal computers.

Other Content from the Band

The PPU sent out newsletters which included poetry by band members and lyrics to unreleased songs, and letters from the band.

The free ourladypeace.net included articles by the band and interviews with band members.

The current ourladypeace.net includes articles by the band, the band’s answers to some questions from fans, and blogs from Steve. This is alright. More is always welcomed.

Suggestion:

Someone, I think possibly fan club member Soozy, pointed out that if each band member takes 15 or 20 minutes once a month to make some sort of post, record an audio message or video clip, send in some pictures, have a planned chat with fan club members, or participate in any other way they can think of, that would add up to 4 posts per month, or almost 1 per week. I think fans would be more than happy by that amount of participation, and it only requires a small amount of each band member’s time once a month. Steve’s participation by posting blogs has been excellent.

Contests, Concert Opportunities, and Chances to Meet the Band

The PPU gave away many tickets to club shows. It also gave all fan club members access to soundchecks for the 1998 Clumsy and 2000 Happiness Canadian tour. In 1998, and possibly 2000 as well, it didn’t even require winning a contest. There was a fan club members and radio contest winners only concert on February 13, 1997.

The free ourladypeace.net had a contest for tickets and soundcheck passes to all shows on the Fear of the Trailer Park tour.

The current ourladypeace.net had a contest for tickets to all of the seated shows on the latest Canadian tour. No soundcheck passes, though. And there were no contests for any of the general admission shows on the tour. Sony had its own contests for front row tickets, and for general admission shows instead of having no contests, they gave away three sets of tickets to those shows instead of just one set of front row tickets. The paying members are getting less now than people got from ourladypeace.net for free in 2003.

Suggestion 1: Contests

The old Transparent Humans mailing list used to have contests for rare or autographed OLP items. I think having an occasional contest for rare or unique OLP items would make a great surprise for fan club members. Also, as mentioned earlier in this letter, the fan club needs contests for Transparent Human members for VIP passes or chances to meet the band. Also, in the future, rather than having no contests for general admission shows, have contests and include a wristband that will allow the winner early entry, similar to what Hot Seat buyers got for general admission shows.

Suggestion 2: Chances to Meet the Band

In addition to contests, it would be awesome to see the fan club give members other opportunities to meet the band. As I stated just above, the PPU allowed members into soundchecks on the large Canadian tours in 1998 and 2000. Perhaps something like this could be done for shows outside of Canada, where the number of fan club members at any given show would be lower than it is at shows in Canada.

Problem: Illegal Lotteries

It seems to me that the way ourladypeace.net contests earlier this year were set up was not legal in the US and possibly Canada as well. They required a paid membership to enter, and they were based on chance. Most chance based contests always say “no purchase necessary” and provide an alternate way of entering. However, ourladypeace.net contests should be for members only and thus a “no purchase necessary” clause won’t help you. Check with your lawyers about illegal lotteries to confirm if this is true or not.

Solution: Make future contests be skill-based instead of chance-based.

Other

The PPU gave members free t-shirts, stickers, discounted rates on merchandise, posters, and opportunities to mail in OLP items to have the band autograph them and mail them back.

The current ourladypeace.net fan club has nothing like this.

Conclusion

In many ways, the current ourladypeace.net fails to live up to what Our Lady Peace fans have experienced in the past with the free ourladypeace.net and the Pied Piper’s Union. While there is certainly no obligation for the band, Coalition, or UltraStar to go beyond the things listed as benefits of membership, fans would certainly love for the current fan club to be as great as the PPU was. The price has gone up, the value has gone down, and many fans aren’t happy about it.





Problems Relating To UltraStar Staff

Both Jeff and Maria, the two UltraStar staff members who post on the ourladypeace.net forums, have neglected what I feel are their duties as staff members. On many occasions they have failed to follow through on things that they specifically said they would do or that they would try to do.

Content Accessible To Non-Members

On several occasions, when new video content has been added to the site, it was accessible without logging in. With the on-the-road “Kiss on the Mouth” video, Maria admitted that it was accessible to non-members due to a mistake she made while adding the video. Most videos have been accessible for some time to non-members, so it seems that this mistake happens often. UltraStar staff needs to take more care when adding member only content.

Town Hall Meeting

On March 11, 2006, Jeff started a forum on the website, “Town Hall meeting for OLP members,” in which he asked fan club members to post all concerns they had about the fan club, and he said he would be happy to address our concerns as best he can. Maybe he wasn’t obligated to do this, but he did start the thread, and he did say that he would answer our concerns. The moment an UltraStar employee says that they will do something, fan club members should expect them to follow through. Many members had concerns and questions, such as the following, which I have listed followed by the members who brought up the concerns in brackets.:

• There was initially no information about what the Hot Seat packages were and fans didn’t know which they should buy. More communication would be great. [Deborah]
• A little more notice when presales are going to start would be great. [Deborah, crustine]
• A lot of things promised when signing up for the membership don’t seem to be realized. [korczyk, xjsb125, Soozy]
• There have been no contests for VIP passes or to meet the band, and that is the main reason I chose the more expensive membership [korczyk]
• Virtual Ticket devalues the fan club membership. [korczyk]
• The most important and effective thing to offer in fan clubs are exclusive music CD’s, either of live shows, B-side collections, or demo tracks. Anything like that. [korczyk]
• Fan club members are going the extra mile. Don’t reward them with taking more money away for concert tickets [hot seat packages], give us a row or two up front [in the fan club presales] where we can be seen by the band and we can see them. [xjsb125, crustine]
• Give us a chance to see them in soundcheck without having to shell out 4x the ticket price. [xjsb125]
• Multimedia content. Quality multimedia content. We like high quality video files and audio encoded at a high bitrate or in a lossless format, too. [xjsb125]
• Talk with Stace. She has been the backbone of the site for the last 3 or 4 years. She can tell you exactly what the fans will want or what we probably won’t like, mostly because we’ve begged her for a lot of it. [xjsb125]
• Fix the technical issues with the site. [nikki4982, Soozy]
• The site had a malfunction. I had third row tickets for Kitchener on the presale but was forced to give them up due to this site’s malfunction. On top of this, I was unable to purchase other tickets to the two other shows I will be attending because the system only allows for one venue purchase at a time. This issue resulted in me being locked up in this error rentry loop for 35 minutes. The same problem occurred when I tried to purchase Ottawa tickets. [crustine]
• Ourladypeace.net doesn’t offer as much as other plenty of other fan clubs out there. [korczyk]
• I am a $35 Transparent Human and will receive an OLP package (welcome letter and tour laminate). If I renew my membership for a second year, will it be at the $35 price, and if so will I receive a different gift in the mail each year? [faninor]
• Ourladypeace.net did nothing with regards to tickets for the Live @ Much special that OLP did. It would have taken barely any effort to run a competition and put a member and their guest on the guestlist, and yet that did not happen. [Soozy]
• I would like to know how to contact someone at UltraStar to report any issues with the site that need to be looked into or fixed, as our best efforts on here to report problems have been ignored for the most part, and when I tried to contact UltraStar through their website’s contact form I received no reply. [faninor]
• Many fan club members have purchased two or three sets of tickets in order to finally get good seats, for example I purchased fan club presale seats. When the public sale started there were better seats available, which some people decided to buy and try selling their original seats. Then at multiple times after the public presale started, better seats than were initially available in the public presale became available, and then better seats than those became available. Any other fan club tickets I’ve gotten for bands have been the best seats and I couldn’t have gotten better elsewhere. [kathy14]

Over the course of the thread, Jeff did answer a couple questions. Only the still unanswered questions are listed above. On April 3, 2006, Jeff made another reply: “Sorry for the dealy, [sic] folks. I’ll have some of these issues addressed for you very shortly.”

As of May 29, 2006, nearly 2 months after Jeff said some issues would be addressed very shortly, there have been no additional responses by UltraStar staff. None of the questions listed above have yet been addressed. And yet UltraStar staff said they would, and they said they would be very soon, such a long time ago.

Hot Seat Issues

Similarly to the Town Hall Meeting, on April 12, 2006, UltraStar staff Jeff started a thread asking specifically for questions and concerns about Hot Seat packages. He said he would do his best to address specific questions regarding Hot Seats. It has been over 1 month and 2 weeks. He has made no replies. He has not addressed a single question.

Open Site Bugs – Please Post Here

From shortly after the site launched to March of 2006, users started threads in the site related forum to report bugs. These bug reports were mostly left unfixed, and on March 17, 2006, UltraStar staff Jeff started a thread called “Open Site Bugs – Please Post Here” so that users could post all bugs in that thread and he could pass them along to the technical people in order to look into them. He wanted them posted in one place rather than scattered about the forum.

This became a very popular thread, and has 95 posts in it, many of the posts were by fan club member Soozy and myself, telling UltraStar about different site bugs we ran across. Some bugs were fixed, and Jeff posted back to let us know when this happened, but many bugs were not fixed and on April 26, 2006 Jeff locked the thread. Issues that were left unresolved in that thread have still not been looked at, though I posted new thread reporting the same issues and some of them have been addressed. I will not do their work for them and go through the entire Open Site Bugs thread to see what problems are still present. Fans already found and reported these bugs once. It should be UltraStar’s responsibility to browse through this thread and make sure each problem is taken care of. But they still haven’t done that.

Fan of the Week

There is a “fan of the week” which UltraStar staff selects, and by its name you would assume when a person becomes fan of the week, they should be fan of the week for one week. For the first several months the website was up, some members were fan of the week for at least a month. More recently, this has been updated more frequently. One member, Kaegan, was shortchanged and was only fan of the week for 4 days. On the subject of Kaegan, he was made fan of the week for starting a thread called “Dear Ultrastar Staff…” in which he wrote: “Fuck you. Sincerely, Kaegan Donnelly.” UltraStar staff member Maria replied to that saying, “That’s direct and to the point. I’ve just made you fan of the week in honor of your economical use of words.” Was she acting professionally? I didn’t feel that she was. Maria says she has started fresh on Fan of the Week and will update it every Monday. I believe her.

Site of the Month

There is a “site of the month” where fan club members can submit websites and UltraStar staff will select one to be the site of the month. Although there has been at least one submission and usually multiple submissions every month since the site began except for February, UltraStar staff never went through the process of selecting one to be Site of the Month until May 2006. The first six full months, there were none. Similarly to Fan of the Week, Maria is now keeping this one updated as well.

Late Start on Ticket Contest

In the news section, fan club members were told that ticket contests for the Canadian tour would start on April 10, 2006. Many fans checked again and again throughout the day on the 10th but no additional information could be found. The ticket contest went active sometime on April 11. UltraStar staff should have offered an update to fans telling them that the contests were delayed a day, instead of letting them waste their time checking the website for an entire day.

Additional Contests

After the ticket contest began, I sent Maria a private message: “I feel that the contest now offered does not meet the description of what was offered at signup. It appears that this one is a contest for front row, center tickets, open to all members. What was listed during registration was under the details for the more expensive membership only and was half the reason I decided to get that membership instead of the $25 membership. Listed there was ‘contests for vip passes and chances to meet the band.’ Will there be additional contests open to transparent human members only, for this kind of prize?”

Her response was: “Hi, we do anticipate that we'll have more contests, but so far, this is the contest that is confirmed.”

Yes, it was the only contest that was confirmed at that time, and in the end it was the only contest that happened. But she did say that they anticipated more contests, and in fact they need to have more contests in order to meet what is offered for Transparent Human members at signup.

Perhaps it is UltraStar’s responsibility to come up with contest ideas, or perhaps it is Coalition’s. I don’t know. But UltraStar was warned that there were no contests meeting the description at signup, and UltraStar didn’t go through with the necessary steps to set up a 2nd contest which would have met the description of what I am paying for as a Transparent Human member, so they definitely share some responsibility for this shortcoming.

Number of Contest Entrants

The contest winners, according to the rules, were selected by choosing the 50th entry. UltraStar staff Maria, when questioned about how there could possibly be 50 entries to some of the shows, said that there were “much more than 50 entries for every show.” There is no way for me to tell for certain, but I do know that a few days after she said this, there were 448 ourladypeace.net fan club members from all over the world, and 12 shows with contests. Now, some shows were in places such as Kelowna, where it was still easy to find good seats weeks after the show went on sale. Compared to the shows in Ontario, there were many fewer people in the fan club who seemed to be going to the Kelowna show than the shows in Ontario, probably 1/3 as many people compared to the most popular of the other shows. To say that many more than 50 people entered every contest would probably mean that at least 60 or 70 people must have entered for the Kelowna show. In turn, since there seemed to be at least 3 times as many fan club members going to some other shows as there were going to Kelowna, this would mean that possibly 180 to 210 people entered the contests for these shows. There were only 448 fan club members at this point, so this would mean over 40% of the fan club members entered the contest for one specific show. This is absolutely absurd. My numbers here aren’t based in fact, I am only speculating. But I think Maria’s statement here about how many people entered the contest and thus how the winner was actually selected should be questioned. It does not feel like it could possibly be true.

Contest Ended without Warning

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the contest rules stated the winner would be the 50th entry. Many people felt there wouldn’t be very many entries, and thus decided to wait towards the end of the contest. On April 12, one day after the contests started, fan club member mattseattleusa asked when the deadline to enter was. The contest rules stated that the winner would be informed a week before the shows, but didn’t state when precisely the contest would end. UltraStar never answered the question, and the first contest ended without warning 10 days before the show. Members had stated that they wished to wait towards the end so they could be closer to the 50th person to enter, and they asked specifically when the contests would end, but UltraStar staff never answered and as a result I know 2 people personally who wished to enter the contest for the first night of the tour but didn’t get to because the contest ended without any warning.

Contest Age Requirement

In one place in the contest information, it said entrants must be 16 or older. In another place, it said entrants must be 18 or older. UltraStar staff was asked several times if the age requirement was 16 or 18, and they never provided an answer. Additionally, on the signup page where it mentioned contests it made no mention that not all people who join the fan club will be able to enter contests since some will be too young. UltraStar staff should have made this clear at signup, or if nothing else should have at least let members know if the correct age requirement was 16 or if it was 18.

Contest Winners Will Receive a Phone Call One Week Before the Show

This is what it said in the contest rules and information. Winners did not receive phone calls one week before the show. The first contest winners were actually announced by Stacy McNeil on the ourladypeace.net news 5 days before the first show. If she hadn’t stepped up and done it, I don’t know when UltraStar’s staff would have. I sent a message to the winner of the first night, mattseattleusa, congratulating him.

His response to me said: “That's news to me! No one called me to tell me I won...where did you hear that?!?”

He eventually did receive a phone call, but it was certainly not one week before the show. The winner for the May 2nd show in Edmonton was not announced until May 1st. That is cutting it very close.

Making the Concert Experience Better

Fan club member Soozy wrote an email to Eric Lawrence who forwarded it to UltraStar staff Maria. It contained some of Soozy’s concerns about the fan club. Maria then gave her a phone call and mentioned trying to make Soozy’s concert experience at the show in Victoria better.

Later, Soozy sent a pm to Maria: “On the 'phone you mentioned something about making the concert experience better since I'd taken the trouble to write (or something like that - I was kind of tired) - do you have any more details on what that might be?”

Maria replied: “With regard to the Victoria show, I have been trying to see if there is any way to get a soundcheck pass for you...they are a bit hard to get, so i'm trying, but i don't want to get your hopes up! But you never know what can happen between now and then, so i'm keeping my fingers crossed.”

Maria said she would try to make Soozy’s experience better, and she said she would try to get soundcheck passes. UltraStar had 50 soundcheck passes for their Hot Seat packages to that show. I myself was sitting front row center at that show because fan club member mattseattleusa let me use one of the tickets he won through the fan club contest. I specifically asked everybody sitting around me how they got their tickets, and I could not find a single person who had purchased a Hot Seat package. UltraStar clearly had a good deal of soundcheck passes left over at this concert, and it should not have been difficult for Maria to get a few of these for Soozy after the sale of Hot Seat packages ended. It seems Maria wasn’t trying very hard.

Ticket Allotments for Fan Club and Hot Seats

Many fan club members were concerned that they couldn’t find very good seats in the fan club presale but UltraStar was offering excellent seats to people who were willing to pay $170 for a Hot Seat package. This led to UltraStar staff Maria lying to fan club members and trying to point the blame of why there were not many good seats in the fan club presales away from the Hot Seat packages and away from UltraStar. This is a series of private messages between fan club member nikki4982 and UltraStar staff Maria. It shows her lies and overall stubbornness better than I can explain.






Subject: .net issues and stuff
From: nikki4982
Sent to: peacekitty
Sent: 03/30/06 05:12 PM
Hmm. I don't really know how to go about this. Cos, honestly, I've complained so much about this that I'm starting to feel bad. But I'm very happy about the attention it seems to be getting now. Anyway...

My main issue is with the concert tickets. The lack of updates on the site are disconcerting, but the band's been on a break so there's not much going on, so I understand that. But the fact that we're all members of the fanclub and got completely screwed over by the pre-sale of tickets is just really really... uncool (for lack of a better word).

We've been told time and time again that the Hot Seats aren't all of the first bunch of rows, but it seems that they are most of them... and the remaining seats that weren't stolen away from us by the Hot Seats seemed to mostly be given to the general sale, rather than the fanclub presale.

Having to stay awake through three ticket sales (I work nights) until I could get decent seats was very unpleasant. I lost a lot of much-needed sleep, plus I get absolutely crazy whenever I have to buy concert tickets. My stomach turns to knots and I just have a generally bad time at it. (You'd think after attending about 50 concerts in my lifetime, I'd get used to that... haha.) So, eventually after all three sales, we have good seats at 2 shows, and crappy ones at 2 more. (I should mention that I live in New Jersey but will be travelling to British Columbia for these, so they need to be good otherwise the trip's kind of a waste.) About a week later, better seats show up on Ticketmaster for the two shows we have crappy seats for. We buy them. So now... we have the task of selling the not-great seats.

All of this could have been avoided if this fanclub worked as any good fanclubs do and given its members the best seats, rather than scalping (which is exactly what this feels like) them for $170.

I know countless other fans who are now stuck with crappy presale tickets along with better seats from the general sale. This is a huge mess, and something should really be done to fix it. Though I'm not really sure what could be done aside from somehow getting the ticket brokers to accept returns. Hah. That still wouldn't fix the mess of the biggest fans having not-great seats, though.

Alright, I've rambled on enough. Sorry about that. This is just something that's been eating at me since it happened. I don't make much money, and this trip's gonna cost me nearly all of what I have saved up, so it's a pretty big deal to me.

***

Subject: Re: .net issues and stuff
From: peacekitty
Sent to: nikki4982
Received: 03/30/06 05:25 PM
Hey Niki, thanks for the PM. I wish i could turn back time. The explanation of the allocation of tickets is a very long and boring story that I'll give to you one day if we have a chance to sit and have a glass of wine. In any case, the fan club can never guarantee that we get THE BEST seats. What we do say is that we get an allotmetn of tickets that we secure to offer to our members during a presale window.

So, in seated arenas, you have a chance to participate in our sale, and if you like the tickets offered, you can buy them. if you don't like the tickets offered, you can participate in an american express presale (for example) a venue specific presale, or finally, the public onsale.

Having said that, we obviously try and secure the best tickets, but we are fighting for tickets along with the sponsor, the venue, radio promo holds, etc., and everyone wants front seats. We did have great seats for the seated shows, and we did hold back some great seats for packages. Unfortunately, the people who buy the great seats didn't go on the msg boards yelling "First row, first row"!

in any case, i'm sure i'm not answering you as well as i'd like to...i'm glad we are starting a dialogue, and i'm really glad you took the time to PM me.

I'm going to try and be in Victoria for tour opening. Will you be there?

***

Subject: Re: .net issues and stuff
From: nikki4982
Sent to: peacekitty
Sent: 03/30/06 05:32 PM
I will be at Victoria, actually. You seem nice, hopefully we can meet. Promise I don't complain this much in real life.

I completely understand the competing with the promoter and all that, but I guess it's really the Hot Seats that've got me angry, mostly. I know huge bands do that junk all the time, but OLP isn't one of those bands that thinks the fans with more money should be the ones up front. At least I hope they're not. I'll admit, I'm spoiled when it comes to OLP... I'm almost always in the front row. But that's because I'm dedicated and am willing to stand in line for the entire day before a show. And in this case, I was willing to be online 3 times to try to get the best tickets possible. In the end, I have decent seats. But now because I'm dedicated, I have an extra two I have to try to sell? That just seems incredibly unfair, and I can't help but think it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for those stupid Hot Seats.

And it's the fact that I'm not the only one in this position that makes me so angry. If I were, I'd be upset, but I would keep it to myself. But I know at LEAST 15 other people in the same situation who now have to try to sell tickets.

***

(No response was received from peacekitty.)

***

Subject: Re: .net issues and stuff
From: nikki4982
Sent to: peacekitty
Sent: 04/09/06 10:20 AM
Hi again. OK, so. Now that the Hot Seats just stopped being available for sale, we check normal tickets on Ticketmaster and second row, third row, and fourth row tickets suddenly magically opened up for both Vancouver shows.

You lied to us about the fanclub not having the best seats. It was bad enough before, but now not only have the best seats been taken away from the people who should have had them, but we were lied to about where they went. Promoters? Radio stations? No. They were Hot Seats.

I was angry. Now I'm angrier. And I know I'm not the only one.

***

Subject: Re: .net issues and stuff
From: peacekitty
Sent to: nikki4982
Received: 04/12/06 03:01 PM
I did not lie to you. The seats held for packages are a completely different allotment. So, if seats held for packages in Kelowna were held, and if packages did not sell out, of course we would release those tickets into the general public onsale.

***

Subject: Re: .net issues and stuff
From: nikki4982
Sent to: peacekitty
Sent: 04/14/06 07:33 AM
And now you're lying to get out of a lie.

"We did have great seats for the seated shows, and we did hold back some great seats for packages."

That is a direct quote from your last PM to me.

Stop lying. Be up front with us. You're just making us more angry. Seriously. I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here. But the more we find out, the worse it gets.

***

Subject: Re: .net issues and stuff
From: peacekitty
Sent to: nikki4982
Received: 04/21/06 03:56 PM
NIkki - what do you want me to tell you? I"m trying to answer your questions, and i'm trying to give you as much info as i can. I'm not sure what you expect. I use "WE" to mean ULtrastar, the band, SLO (the company actually doing the packages). ULtrastar has a set of holds for fan club tix, the band has holds for their own tickets, SLO has holds for packages, the venue has holds for their own venue sales, radio stations have holds for contests, sponsors have holds for their own presales/specials. A lot of people are involved. I'm sorry you're not happy, and i'm not sure what i can do to make you happy. All i can offer is to (a) refund the money you've spent on your membership (b) extend your membership term.

How should i proceed?

***

(My last message to peacekitty seems to have been lost. I remember it was basically me giving up out of frustration, though.)

***

Subject: Re: .net issues and stuff
From: peacekitty
Sent to: nikki4982
Received: 04/22/06 08:34 PM
Hey Niki,

I'm sorry that the whole HotSeat thing didn't work out for you and for other fans. WIth regard to the number of seats and the cost of the packages, you saw that there was some adjustment when we got feedback. We added in a soundcheck pass, and it was for that reason that we cut back the number of packages availalble, so that we could make sure every package got soundcheck access.

You say the gross majority were completely shut out of good seats. As I said to Matt, not everyone who bought tickets posts on the boards, there is a core group of people who post and exchange information. So I'm not sure it's fair to say that fans didn't get good seats because the ones that have good seats may not be posting.

IN any case, it's done now, the packages are sold, the unsold tickets have gone back into the general onsale allotment, and the shows are around the corner. I'm sorry that fans feel like they aren't goign to be able to enjoy the shows because of this. That makes me sad too.

***

Let’s review. Nikki said she was upset that she had to go through the fan club presale, another presale, and the public sale just to get better tickets, and was upset because this would’ve been avoided if the fan club presale had better tickets. She complained about the hot seats possibly taking tickets away from what the fan club presale could have had.

Maria replies, and confirms that UltraStar did hold back some great seats from being used in the fan club presale in order for them to be used in Hot Seat packages.

Later, Maria denies this. She said the Hot Seats were a completely different allotment – and they were, because UltraStar held these tickets back from being used for the fan club presale.

She then claims a company named SLO is actually doing the Hot Seat packages. I can find no such company searching on Google. Furthermore, by going to http://www.ultrastar.com/ and clicking on “services” and then “Hot Seats,” it seems that UltraStar is in charge of the Hot Seat packages. There is no mention of another company, SLO, actually being in charge of the Hot Seat packages. I asked Maria specifically about SLO on the telephone. She would not give me any information about this company, including their full name, but apparently UltraStar contracted them to do the Hot Seat packages. Okay. If the Hot Seat allotment didn’t even go to UltraStar, why did Maria say “we did hold back some great seats for packages?” Shouldn’t she have instead said, “We weren’t able to get some great seats because they were allotted to SLO for Hot Seat packages?” Either this was poor communication, or Nikki caught Maria in another lie.

Contact Us

There is a help section on ourladypeace.net with a form to contact UltraStar with questions about the site. When a user submits a question, they are told that they will receive a reply within a few business days. There have been several instances where users submitted a question and never received a reply. I personally asked a question over a month ago and have received no reply.

Virtual Ticket Memberships

From an article in Chartattack by chartattack.com staff, Marth 7, 2006 concerning the Canadian tour: "Every ticket sold for the tour will include a free virtual ticket membership in the OLP fan club, where people can access exclusive content, information, and special offers.”

From an article in Venues Today by Linda Deckerd, March 1, 2006: "Virtual Ticket means a surcharge on every ticket, 50 cents to $2. That money is dedicated to paying for the Virtual Ticket production costs. Every ticketbuyer for the Rolling Stones tour, for instance, paid a surcharge. The tradeoff is that the ticketbuyer then qualifies for a trial taste of fan club membership, an opportunity that is touted at the arena and with the mailed-out ticket, partnerships permitting."

From UltraStar staff (Jeff): "A virtual ticket is a free membership given to all OLP ticket holders. The main limitation to this free membership is that they do not have access to presale tickets."

From UltraStar staff (Maria): "With regard to the virtual ticket membership, that level of membership is usually only activated after the show. So, what we usually do is get the data feeds of ticket buyers, then send the buyers an email with a promocode and instructions on how to set up the account. We wait until after the show date, cause tickets are available right til show date, so we want to be able to send one blast (efficiency and all that)"

From UltraStar staff (Maria): "We had someone out in Vancouver, and someone else for a few east coast days."

We can gather the following from all of this. The tickets for this OLP tour did in fact come with Virtual Ticket membership, hence there was a surcharge on each ticket of somewhere between $0.50 to $2. I bought seven tickets for concerts on this tour. There was nothing at the venues touting Virtual Ticket. There has been no email with promotional codes. But there has been a total surcharge of somewhere between $3.50 to $14 between my seven tickets for this Virtual Ticket. Since the shows were over, I have inquired again with UltraStar about when people would be getting their passcodes, but they have not answered. In the signup section on ourladypeace.net they recently added a section for virtual ticket memberships. However, this doesn’t change the fact that the Virtual Ticket memberships were not advertised. Most people who bought tickets aren’t aware that they even exist.

Even if the surcharge was only $0.50, and only 2000 tickets were sold to each show (the capacity of some venues was less than this, but many were well over), that would be $1,000 per night in Virtual Ticket surcharges. There were 15 shows, so that is $15,000 in surcharges. Minimum. These surcharges are meant to be used for production costs of Virtual Ticket content. Some of this obviously paid for the people who were contracted to videotape the 2 shows in Vancouver, and a few east coast days, but that's only 5 nights and at least in Vancouver they had a single man with one video camera. Is there any money left over from these surcharges? Will it be used to film additional concerts for Virtual Ticket videos?

[faninor]

Problem:

According to the website, benefits of a $25 membership include:

• Priority ticketing before the general public
• Exclusive behind-the-scenes video
• Exclusive on-the-road video
• Online chats with OLP band members and special guests
• Member-only limited edition merchandise offers
• Wallpapers
• Buddy icons
• Exclusive galleries
• Fan interaction
• Some surprises

In the website’s FAQ, under the question “Why do I have to pay a membership fee when so much Internet content is free?” we read: “OurLadyPeace.net's annual membership fee is not a charge for a 'website' but rather a subscription for an 'online fan club' which offers interviews, behind-the-scenes videos and stories, live chats, presale tickets and countless other unique privileges.”

This is obvious. What was not obvious at the time that the site was launched was that every part of the site except for presales comes free with the purchase of a concert ticket. The presales are absolutely worthless for anyone who doesn’t attend shows in Canada. In other countries, the shows are always general admission and they don’t usually sell out so quickly that getting tickets is a problem. Many fans paid $25 or $35 for the site’s content, not the presales. They would have been much better off to just find a Canadian fan who would give them a Virtual Ticket code or sell them one for a few dollars.

Requesting Virtual Ticket promo codes

All tickets sold on the recent Canadian tour were supposed to come with a promotional code for a trial Virtual Ticket membership to ourladypeace.net. I bought seven tickets for the tour online and received no such promotional codes. On ourladpeace.net there is a form to request your promotional codes if you didn’t receive any when you purchased tickets. When you fill out the form, it says you will be contacted within a couple business days with your promotional codes. I requested promotional codes over two business days ago for the tickets I purchased, and I have not received a response yet.

Conclusion

It is quite clear that UltraStar staff has neglected their responsibilities in running the website, in answering questions asked by members, and in doing things that they have specifically said that they would do.





Other Concerns

There are a few other concerns which don’t exactly fit into the first three sections of this letter. Here they are.

Hot Seat Packages Missing Items

The Hot Seat packages were advertised as including:
• Premium reserved tickets within the first 8 rows
• Exclusive merchandise
• Collectible laminate
• Soundcheck pass
• Autographed item
• A passcode for one-year “Human” fan club membership

Nobody who bought a Hot Seat package received an autographed item. I spoke to UltraStar staff Maria specifically about this and she said that she could find no record stating that an autographed item was supposed to be included in hot seat packages. Well, here are seven such references:

http://event.etix.com/ticket/online/fro ... rladypeace
http://event.etix.com/ticket/online/fro ... rladypeace
http://event.etix.com/ticket/online/fro ... rladypeace
http://event.etix.com/ticket/online/fro ... rladypeace
http://event.etix.com/ticket/online/fro ... rladypeace
http://event.etix.com/ticket/online/fro ... rladypeace
http://event.etix.com/ticket/online/fro ... rladypeace

These are the actual pages on etix giving the description of hot seat packages when people bought their tickets through etix to the shows in London, Kitchener, Montreal, Halifax, Moncton, Quebec City, and Ottawa. The list I wrote above actually came from Ticketmaster, which sold the tickets for several other shows on the tour. This is the information that was available to people at the time they bought their Hot Seat packages, from the ticket agency they bought their Hot Seat packages through.

This is probably either UltraStar’s problem, or SLO’s problem, but it seems that someone gave out the wrong list to all the ticketing agencies for what would be included in hot seats, or else someone forget to get autographed items and decided to lie about what was supposed to be included rather than solving the problem.

Hot Seat Packages

There has been so much discussion concerning the Hot Seat packages. I think the fan club member Soozy made a few very good posts discussing problems with the Hot Seat packages and asking for answers to questions about them.

Here are a couple of them.


The relevant parts of a post by Soozy in the “Town Hall meeting for OLP members” thread on 03/15/06 12:38 PM:

My first problem with them is on principle alone. Charging inflated prices for those who can afford them is really not in keeping with what has been OLP's constant refrain of how much they love their fans and how we're more like their friends. All fans should be equal - it should not be a case of only those who can afford it getting to sit in the first x rows or whatever (and please don't tell me that there were good seats in the presales too - I'll get on to that later). Even with the extra things being thrown into the packages, they still do not offer value for money - Matt did the maths elsewhere and I think that the $170 packages were actually only worth $90 - so there's a definite profit margin in this for someone.

The next problem. The hot seat packages are being run by the same company as runs the fan club. It would therefore make sense that the hot seat tickets are taken from the fan club allocation given out by the promoter and I would like someone to either confirm or deny this. If this is the case it is entirely wrong. The true fans who have paid $25 or $35 - partially for access to presale tickets - should not have to give up their tickets to people who can afford to pay a lot more for them. It has been said that a small percentage of seats were actually set aside for the hot seat packages and that there should have been access to other good seats for the presales. However, for Vancouver there were no seats ahead of row J (9th row) available on the fan club presale at all - for either show. My guess, given Stace's comment about there being 50 soundcheck passes per show, would be that the same number of seats for each show have been set aside, regardless of the size of venue, so while for some arenas there were 2nd row and other good seats available, for the Vancouver shows the seats on offer were appalling . Even for the two arena shows in BC, merely 5 minutes after the presales started I could only get row 13 seats for one show and row 15 for another. It should not be the case that fan club members should have to wait through 2 presales (the .net one and the HOB one) in order to get the best seats in the general sale. Just to clarify, I'm aware that there are probably commercial reasons, agreements with promoters and such that may mean that the fan club allocation cannot consist of every single one of the best seats in the venue. However, for NO fan club members to be able to get good seats through the presale (as has happened with all the BC shows) is just not on.


The people who join the fan club are going to include the crazy fans who will go to multiple shows and travel distances to do so. After spending over $2000 to go to BC for four shows, there's no way I want to shell out another $500 for the better seats - they'll be left more to the casual fans who will only be attending one show local to them.

As has now been announced, there will be 50 hot seat ticket holders at each soundcheck. Add to that the radio station winners, fan club competition winners (I'm assuming there'll be such a competition), all the other people who attend soundchecks and there will be an awful lot of people there, which would really diminish the experience all around.

OK, so I think that's it. I shall finish with some questions that I think need to be answered.

I have a few merely practical questions:

In my experience (limited, but not THAT limited) bands who play multiple nights at one venue will only do a soundcheck for the first night - I've seen OLP themselves do this before. What does this mean for the people with hot seat packages for the 2nd Vancouver show?

A free Human membership will be offered as part of the hot seat packages, however some fans may prefer to have the Transparent Human membership - will they have the opportunity to upgrade if they so desire?

Then other questions (some of which I asked earlier, but I want all in one place):

Are the hot seats taken from the fan club's allocation of tickets?

Are the band members aware of this (the hot seat packages themselves and the concerns with .net)? In general? In detail? Were they aware of these packages before they went on sale? The answers to these questions will be checked with the band so don't think about fobbing us off with some vague answer!

OK, that's me done for now, though I'm sure there'll be some things I've missed. I have to close by echoing Nikki's comments, I feel more like a dollar sign than a fan at the moment. I am VERY upset about being treated this way by a band that I thought cared for its fans.

A lot of people felt the same way she did here. Here is another post from her, in the same thread, this one from 04/09/06 07:45 AM:

Another day, another problem. Well, the same problem as before, but thrust into our faces again, worse than ever.

Vancouver hot seat packages went off sale a couple of days ago. As of today I am able to buy 8 tickets in row B (that's 2nd row) in the centre for both Vancouver shows. Also, rows C and D have tickets available as well.

Coincidence? I think not.

We've been told that the fan club were allocated some great seats in spite of having to compete with radio stations/whoever else for them. We also know that hot seats were taken out of the fanclub allocation. We've been told that some people did get amazing seats through the fan club presale, it's just that they didn't come on the boards shouting about it. That may be true, however those getting such tickets were in a vast minority.

I personally know of at least 6 other people who tried for Vancouver tickets the very second the .net presale started. Every single one of us got seats in row J. For both shows. We checked on ebay right afterwards in case evil scalpers had somehow whisked the best seats away from us - but they could do no better than row J either.

Then, right after we were told that the first 50 hot seat people would get soundcheck passes, tickets in rows E-H suddenly became available - not just for Vancouver but for many other shows. And these weren't odd tickets - seats were available in the entire rows.

Then, soon after the hotseat packages go off sale, rows B-D suddenly become available - again seemingly the entire rows.

This is too much to be a coincidence. It is clear that the vast majority of the best tickets available from the fanclub's allocation were kept aside for hotseats.

Most of us have done this kind of thing before, we know what to expect. We're aware that going online right as tickets go on sale will not get us front row centre seats - we know that those are reserved for competition winners and such like. However, we do expect decent seats - let's say rows 2-4 or 2-5 - for a band OLP's size taking into account the venues they're playing. We realise there's a chance that going onto the public sale *may* get us better seats - due to the way tickets are allocated - maybe the general sale gets the side sections, or alternating rows with the fan club. However, given the demand for OLP fan club tickets, and experiences we've have before with previous OLP presales - which we did not have to pay to have access to - we should have had good enough seats from the presale that while we'd obviously be slightly disappointed, we were happy enough with the seats we had and could just forget about it.

The real issue here is that the hot seats were taken out of the fan club allocation. It would have been bad enough had they all sold, but whoever did their research into the demand for hot seats on this tour (please tell me somebody did research this and it wasn't an arbitrary decision into how many to put on sale) did such an appalling job predicting demand that these great seats that somebody took time and effort to wrest away from the other interested parties are just going to waste. And once again it's the people who have paid to be a member of the fan club who are losing out.

I really don't see how you can expect people to renew their memberships given this. As the site currently is (and I know that should change after the tour) the only benefits are the presales and the competition for front row seats. Well, if any old person who wants to go to the show can go to ticketmaster less than 3 weeks before the show and buy themselves some second row centre seats, those two things really aren't worth shelling out $25 for.

Soozy points out very clearly how negatively the Hot Seat packages affected the other ticket allocations. In Vancouver, people who bought tickets right when they went on sale were practically guaranteed worse seats than a great deal of people who bought tickets weeks after the sales started. One way to resolve all the Hot Seat issues would be to do away with them entirely. Some fans did feel that the Hot Seat packages were good, and that is wonderful for them and for the band. In the section about fan club presales I offered another suggestion which would allow for Hot Seats while still giving fan club members a shot at great tickets. That suggestion was to put good seats in the fan club presale and move leftover seats after the fan club presale ends into the Hot Seat allotment.






Conclusions

It should be clear from why many fans are upset. We were lied to when we signed up for a website and seven months later there is still no sign of some of its supposed benefits of membership. We were lied to when we were led to believe the only way to access much of the site’s material would be by paying the membership fees. Much of the site’s content has been viewable without logging in. We could have just waited, and bought a ticket to a Canadian show through the regular sale (thus probably getting a better seat than we could in the fan club presale), and then accessed all of the site’s content with the Virtual Ticket membership which comes with that ticket.

We were lied to when Stacy McNeil and Coalition told eight fans that membership fees would help allow the fan club to provide more and higher quality content. We were let down when the paid fan club’s content doesn’t stand up in quality or quantity to the content that fans received for free from ourladypeace.net from 2002 to early 2005.

Time and time again, our concerns, questions, complaints, and suggestions have been ignored and avoided by UltraStar employees, even when they have asked for concerns for them to address. Occasionally they surprise us by actually answering a question or fixing a problem, but for the most part their lack of care for their careers is astonishing.

Our Lady Peace is losing fans over this. The longer this fan club goes on as it is, the fewer fans will renew their memberships next year, and the more fans the band will lose.

[faninor]

Also, my letter is apparently longer than the max post length on the CM.

[Hope]

um... theres a max post length on the cm???

o_O


*reads*

[faninor]

I apologize for the formatting being crappy. The actual letter has 3 different levels of headings and is pretty easy to work with. Maybe I should figure out how to make a pdf and post that? :*)**

[Hope]

One member, Kaegan, was shortchanged and was only fan of the week for 4 days. On the subject of Kaegan, he was made fan of the week for starting a thread called “Dear Ultrastar Staff…” in which he wrote: “Fuck you. Sincerely, Kaegan Donnelly.” UltraStar staff member Maria replied to that saying, “That’s direct and to the point. I’ve just made you fan of the week in honor of your economical use of words"

omfg. thats hilarious...


i read all of it , but the only thing i found was the typo of "ourladypeace.net" under "Requesting Virtual Ticket promo codes". you wrote "ourladpeace.net".

kudos for picking up so much little tiny things i've never known. i guess most of them relate to the fanclub of .net, but still, i didn't know 3 quarters of all the things listed in the letter.

[Hope]

i just re-read it. should i point out every single typo there is? because they're super-minor.


holy crap, i dont know what they're gonna do after this letter. its just so... attacking.

[faninor]

Sure, pointing out every typo is fine... but don't kil yourself reading it over and over!

The letter's not too attacking is it? I'm going to mail Duncan a copy as well, but in his cover letter I'm going to explain that I don't blame the band, I think UltraStar is the problem here and if the band is guilty of anything it's probably only of not being aware of the extent of the problems with UltraStar.

[Kathy]

Josh - great letter! I'm working on mine today

Also, some ppl have msgd privately on .net and said they want to help but don't know what to say. Maybe post a quick list of key things to remind people (bullet points) what you're writing about? They know your letter is 23 pages but theirs doesn't have to be. They can say they agree with the issues you raised, and add anything personal that happened to them. E.g. there was a technical glitch that caused them lose seats they were holding in the presale. E.g. they opened a help ticket in April but have gotten no response.

One thing... anything else is minor and I don't have time to go back through it:

This is probably either UltraStar’s problem, or SLO’s problem, but it seems that someone gave out the wrong list to all the ticketing agencies for what would be included in hot seats, or else someone <b>forget</b> to get autographed items and decided to lie about what was supposed to be included rather than solving the problem.

[tasha]

holy shit, i am sorry, but that is way to long for me to read the whole thing right now.

and i think it's kind of unrealistic to expect their manager to sit and read it all.

[Johnny]

[nelison]

ya I don't think they'll care to be honest... I mean it's great that you're doing this but I know that if a bunch of internet people sent me a long letter about how they didn't get the wallpaper they were promised I probably would just toss it in the garbage.

(yes, I know getting wallpaper isn't the issue, just used that as what anyoen in a position of authority would think if some "kids" were complaining about their internet fan club.)

[faninor]

Eric Lawrence would be a fucking idiot to do that. I am a paying member of a fan club that doesn't even offer most of the stuff that I paid for, and offers much of the rest to non-members. Anyone in a position of authority should realize that is a serious problem, and do what they can to fix it.

But yeah, I don't know that he will read his copy. That's why I'm also sending Duncan a copy. If anyone doesn't just toss it, it's him. If nothing has happened by the beginning of July, the band will receive another copy at Edgefest.

If this is ignored, the band will lose fans.

[nelison]

If the band gets it then good, but I don't think management cares THAT much. The online community is a very small percentage of the people who buy OLP albums, but then again I could be wrong

[Matt.]

Eric Lawrence would be a fucking idiot to do that.

You're underestimating the ignorance of the human race.

[Locobone]

Excellent letter! I doubt I can cobble together 23 pages, but I'm going to whip something up this week to send in too.

[Kathy]

mine's a solid 3 pages... going in the mail tomorrow.

[petersl1]

OLP.net is starting to listen...did everyone on here who is a Transparent Human member get their e-mail yet? They're doing a very cool contest!

They're listening!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Random Name]

Wow, I'm very impressed. You are very articulate and clear.
I think people would be surprised what sending actual mail can do. In the business world of customer service big businesses reguard every customer complaint as representing 100 other customers. Because people are apathetic when it comes to wanting to make a change.
If this does get mailed off, it will get read and it really woulnd't surprise me if someone gets fired over it.

I'm not a .net member. I have no desire to be, but I've heard enough frustrations from olp fans to see a backlash in our own seperate our lady peace community. For one company to do so much damage to a fanbase is kind of astonishing.
I'll send out a letter to Mr. Management when I get the chance, though I probably won't say much because I don't have first had experience.

[Random Name]

It seems to me that the way ourladypeace.net contests earlier this year were set up was not legal in the US and possibly Canada as well. They required a paid membership to enter, and they were based on chance. Most chance based contests always say “no purchase necessary” and provide an alternate way of entering. However, ourladypeace.net contests should be for members only and thus a “no purchase necessary” clause won’t help you. Check with your lawyers about illegal lotteries to confirm if this is true or not.

I also want to say that you sound very unsure about this section.
The fact is, if you have to pay to enter a chance-based contest you need a gambling licence because that is what it is. And you were required to pay to enter the contest. Those are the facts. It basically is illegal but no one is going to bother charging them for it because there are much worse contest situations in canada. And I'm sure they have technicallities on it.