 I got a question for you guys. Are you a true fan? Am I a true fan? Are any of us true fans? I mean, I got the merch. I got the albums. I got the swag. But am I really a fan? Let's discuss. What's up, guys? Welcome back. My name is Shreds. Here on Thumbs Up Run, where we talk about buying tickets. Selling tickets to make sure that you have all the fun with your tickets. Today, we're talking all about fan clubs, being a fan, what it actually means, and how it all kind of ties together when you're trying to get those pre-sale tickets. Because, again, if you're a real fan, you're part of the fan club. But if you're not part of the fan club, are you really a fan? Hard to say. Sit back and relax. Let's get going. All right. So first off, what is a fan club? Basically, fan clubs, they are a whole bunch of different variations, but they all kind of have the same idea. Fan club is where fans can all come together and talk about all the fun things that are going on about this artist, this team, this band, this group, everything you want to know about it. They're all talking about it in this one place. So usually, there's some kind of forum involved, whether there's meetups, online, Facebook groups, all these different methods. There's tons of them out there. It's basically just a new way to kind of gather a community together who all want to talk about the same thing. Now, on the other side, the official fan clubs and of artists and teams, these are where you want to be if you're looking for those ticket pre-sale access codes. This is where all the fun is and what they do, they basically operate the same way. Sometimes it's run by the artist team themselves. Otherwise, they'll meet up with a third party and then they'll actually go ahead and actually manage the fan club for them. Fantastic, wonderful, excellent. Let's continue. And within that, there are some fan clubs who will actually go ahead and start allocating tickets to their true fans. Basically, anyone who's part of that fan club, they may be given access to buy tickets before the general public, potentially better locations than others. For fan club pre-sales, they'll take place in advance of any other type of pre-sales that are going on, so whether that's with a venue or if they're a ticketmaster verified fan or whatever the case may be. Because again, the artist says they're fans, they're the ones who are most important to them, they're the ones who support them, they're thick and thin, so they want to make sure that they get the best access to the best seats. Makes sense. In theory, it all sounds like a great idea. When there is an official fan club associated with this artist, that's kind of where you're going to start seeing pre-sale codes. With these official fan clubs, there's usually two layers, potentially even three layers to them. First layer is the free layer. You just want to sign up for the newsletter, start getting some information about what's going on, when are the tours getting announced, when are tickets going on sale, that kind of stuff. Very basic level, nothing too exciting. When you're at this level, sometimes you might receive a generic fan club member code. These ones are, you know, it's like a standard, like, hello, 55, 3001. And then everybody uses that same code, no matter how many times it gets used, it's good for the entire pre-sale. But it does give you a little bit pre-sale access in front of the general sale and some other pre-sales that may take place. All fine and well, all great things, don't got to pay anything for it, so, you know, great. Where it gets a bit more interesting and a bit more, you know, dicey, this is where you're gonna have a paywall behind it. So they're saying, if you're a real fan, you're gonna get through this paywall, you're gonna pay us some money so that you can go ahead and start getting some of these benefits. They don't want any random person on the street saying, hey, I'm a fan of rascal flats, give me some tickets. I want some benefits. Doesn't work like that. They'll say, oh, you know, it's $10, $15, $20, $30, $50, $60, $100. It gets, it can be pretty, pretty tough to be a fan these days. This is where I find it's really kind of starting to separate or differentiate between different groups of people. Now, you know, the general fan, they're not someone who's, you know, it's gonna be spending all this time trying to figure what's the best way to get tickets to this thing and how to get access to that thing. And you know, I want to be part of all the behind the scenes stuff going on. Sometimes you just want to listen to the music and that's perfectly fine. I have no problem with that. I, myself, I don't listen to any music actually, which is a bit odd because I have so many CDs. But here's the thing. I joined fan clubs because they give me access. And again, because these fan clubs are not free, it basically creates a separate tier between the haves and the have-nots. You could, for example, be a fan of Luke Bryan. A lot of country fans out there, I'm sure many people are part of the fan club for Luke Bryan. But Luke Bryan, he has a few different levels going on here. So you could be a free fan club member, just kind of, you know, get on the newsletter, find out what's going on. Or you could become a nut house fan club member. Ooh, exciting. When you're a nut house member, you get access to presale codes so that you can buy tickets in advance of the general public, all well and dandy. Or, for an additional $25 on top of the $20 fan club membership, you can become an all-access membership. So you get access to the nut house membership, plus you get access to his app. And in addition to that, you get access to his additional presale, which takes place even in front of the nut house members. So you see, it's kind of like we're tiering people. We're saying, hey, you're just like a low-level fan versus a mid-tier fan versus a real, real fan. I mean, if you're a real fan, you're gonna be an all-access member. You're gonna be paying $45 a year so you can get access to the best seats. So if you're not in these top-tier fan club membership levels, you're already at a disadvantage. You're not gonna be getting those front-row seats. You're not gonna be getting those VIP access. You're not gonna be getting no nothing because you're at the back of the line. Doesn't make you feel good, does it? No, and then within fan clubs, there's another layer going on. So one, you could pay your way to the front of the line, but others, there's, you know, you gotta be consistent and you gotta become a legacy member. What do I mean by legacy member? Legacy members are someone who has signed up with the fan club, continues to pay their membership or, you know, renew their membership year after year after year. And after so many years, you get upgraded to a new status. Basically, you are now a real, true, die-hard fan club member. So with you two, I think, after two or three years of paying your membership dues year after year after year, then you get upgraded to the premier tier. So you have, you know, your basic level fan club membership tier, and then you have your legacy member fan club membership tier. Zach Brown band, same thing. After two years, you go from basic to legacy and legacy, they get an extra one to two hours of pre-sale access in the front of everybody else. Only the real fans get access to the best seats. So if you've just learned about a new artist or band and you wanna go see them, you find out the tour is coming along, sometimes it's just not even possible to get those great seats because you just haven't been a fan long enough. You haven't been paying those fees long enough. How can they know you're a true fan if you're not paying that money? And then lastly, the last thing I'll mention is like, do you think it's fair? I don't know, it's hard to say, right? A lot of times it could just be, you know, you're a casual fan and you listen to them on Spotify, you know, every now and then you hear there's a tour going on, you find out about the different concerts and stuff and you wanna go to the event, you wanna have a certain type of seating option for you, but you just can't get those seats because it's just not possible. You didn't realize that you had to also, you know, pay the additional 20 or 40 or 50 bucks to get access to the presale codes. And then on top of that, you didn't realize that you had to be a fan for, you'd be paying these fees for two, three, four years before you can get access to these amazing seats. So when you go into a presale or any kind of general sale, just trying to buy some tickets, just remember that if you've been paying those fan club membership fees for long enough, it's possible you're already put yourself at a disadvantage and you don't even note. Do you guys think it's fair? Let me know in the comments below. I personally, it's hard to say. Basically, it's the way I see it, they're saying it's pay to play, right? If you pay the membership fee, you pay it long enough, you get access to all these additional benefits than the general public does not get access to. Some of these fan clubs, obviously they don't work that way. It's, you know, it's a flat, you know, you pay your 40, 50 bucks, you get your unique membership code and then you can go in and buy your presale tickets with everybody else in the fan club all well and dandy. And I think that's kind of a nice way of doing it. Others though, they'll say, you know, you gotta be a member for two, three, four plus years, and then you get access to additional benefits in advance of everyone else. I mean, there is certainly a level of saying, you know, hey, you know, you're willing to commit to this team, this artist, this band for, you know, several years and show your continued loyalty. And it's the same with, you know, even with seasoned seat holders and things like that, the longer you stay with the team, you know, get access to better seats, better experiences, better everything, right? So they're saying if you're willing to, you know, spend the time, obviously they're trying to incentivize you to stick around. But if you're someone who's new and you still want to get access to some of these amazing benefits, you're kind of locked out, at least at the beginning, because you have to be willing to spend that money and time to go ahead before you can start moving up in those different levels. I think there is a certain aspect of it saying, you know, if you've been a fan long enough, you should be given some kind of benefit or access, but if you're not doing it in the official way that they want you to do it, where you're actually, you know, either part of a newsletter or part of a group or part of a community long enough that you're kicked out automatically. It's kind of a bit of a pain, right? It's not a lot of fun, but with that being said, if you do want access to those presale codes, you better start signing up soon because this is where a lot of fan clubs, you know, this is how they operate the longer you're with them, the better access you get. So just gonna keep that one in mind when you're going ahead and trying to buy some tickets in the future. So next time you're going on Ticketmaster, you see your favorite artists come up for a new tour and you see there's a presale code that you need to get from the fan club. Maybe you should look into that fan club a little bit more because if you wanna get access to those seats, you gotta be paying and you generally have to be paying for more than a couple of years. Hopefully I didn't depress you guys too much with this. Presale codes, sometimes you do gotta pay to play and because of that, it's important that, you know, you spend the time, do your research, find out which of your favorite artists run different fan clubs and if they do run fan clubs, do they offer presale access to tickets? And then on top of that, if they do, see if there's, you know, different tiers, different legacy levels because if there are, you gotta get started now if you wanna get access to those good seats, next time they go on tour. Hope you guys enjoyed this video. If you did, let me know by hitting the like button down below. Also, be sure to subscribe if you haven't already. Lots of great content coming out and see you guys next time.