Billy Joel willingly loses $20,000 in each concert — ensuring the front row isn't always just for the rich

We are living in a world where concert tickets are sold at inflated prices giving wealthy individuals VIP access to pop icons that common fans can't afford. Then there are artists like Billy Joel who happily refrain from selling first-row tickets so that real fans can be closer to them. The legendary musician revealed that he started doing so in 2014 and told Billboard, "They make the best audience, they make the most noise, they’re the most enthusiastic. It’s just hard to get to them anymore. I tell the audience every night, ‘I hope you didn’t pay more than face value on that ticket, because we ain’t worth more than that, and you ain’t gonna get any more than that.'"

Typically the front rows of arenas are filled by those who are the wealthiest rather than the ones who are truly passionate about the music. Historically this has been true for all events with sitting arrangements, however, in recent years more standing concerts have also started segregating audience members based on the ticket prices that they can afford. While there's a good chance that promoters came up with this idea instead of artists, there are very few who actually resist. 

"My theory is there’s a lot of tax revenue in those secondary ticket markets, these guys selling tickets for $500 to $1,000 gotta pay tax on it, and a lot more goes to the government than there would be based on my ticket prices. So why should they enforce the scalping laws," Joel added.

Billy Joel is one of those very few people who doesn't believe in selling front-row tickets. "Our tickets are cheap, under $100, some in the $80s, the highest is about $150," he told Billboard at the time. "I’d look down and see rich people sitting there, I call 'em 'gold-chainers' sitting there puffing on a cigar, 'entertain me, piano man.' They don’t stand up, make noise, [they just] sit there with their bouffant-haired girlfriend lookin’ like a big shot. I kinda got sick of that, who the (heck) are these people, where are the real fans?" he added. 

Joel said that now he holds those tickets and later sends his road crew out to the back when the audience arrives so that they can bring people from the worst seats to the front row. "This way you’ve got people in the front row that are really happy to be there, real fans," he added. According to IMDb, Joel Loses almost $20,000 per concert by not selling the front-row seats.

In an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live Joel talked about how he loves to play for young people, "They make the best audience; they are the most enthusiastic, and they cheer wholeheartedly," he said. Claiming to be one of the people who were escorted to the front row, a user called @notelpatss commented, "In 2003, I was one of those kids! A man stopped me, asked me where my seats were, and then personally escorted my boyfriend and me to the front row! One of the best nights of my life."