A post shared Wednesday appears to show a concert venue hitting back at country music star Oliver Anthony over claims he made about them appearing to price-gouge his fans.
The whole situation started after Anthony shared a video in which he told his fans not to spend $90 or more dollars to see him in concert at the Cotton Eyed Joe venue in Knoxville, Tennessee. He wanted the prices to be more like $25 to $40 per ticket, and said he was “pissed off” that the venue was trying to more than double that cost.
Well, the venue hit back, saying Anthony was contracted to play for 60 minutes for $120,000. The venue only holds space for roughly 1,500 people. “Paying the ticket website their fee to sell the tickets, paying the tax man, opening the JOE on a close night … we set the ticket price to break even and bring customers a show we thought would be fun,” it wrote in a since-deleted post about the disagreement, noting that the math ain’t mathing on this one.
Cerno is always right. He was gonna get paid $120,000.
Venue has to make that up somewhere.
You don’t put a venue on blast when you’re walking away with six figures.
Not the Southern way. https://t.co/iV5Y4mmswy pic.twitter.com/fYFkNCoD68
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) September 14, 2023
But they dealt a pretty low-blow to Anthony, saying “to our talent agency and promoter friends that follow us … be careful booking the North Man of Richmond.” No, the statement doesn’t make sense and completely butchered Anthony’s No.1 hit single “Rich Men North of Richmond,” but you can see what the venue was getting at.
While I understand that $120,000 for 60 minutes is an obscene amount of money, I also wonder whether Anthony or the venue spoke to each other to renegotiate the deal? Part of me feels like he would have taken a lot less in payment to do the show, so it all worked out. (RELATED: Oliver Anthony Teams Up With Two Huge Rock Bands For Epic Cover Of Country Legends)
But it doesn’t seem like he’ll get the chance. Or perhaps I’m wrong. Part of says this isn’t the last we’ll hear of this situation.