Bruce Springsteen fanzine Backstreets closing after 43 years due to ticket prices

Last Friday (3 February) Christopher Phillips, the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Bruce Springsteen fanzine Backstreets, published a letter announcing that it has "reached the end of the road."

Phillips wrote, "We are immensely proud of the work Backstreets has done, and we are forever grateful to the worldwide community of fellow fans who have contributed to and supported our efforts all these years, but we know our time has come."

Some of the letter is dedicated to writing about how tickets have become too expensive for Bruce Springsteen shows, and his fans, as well as people at Backstreets, can barely afford tickets. Some tickets for Springsteen's 2023 arena tour that went on sale last summer went as high was $5,000 due to Ticketmaster's "dynamic pricing" policy, which that allows prices to fluctuate in response to demand.

The Backstreets Editor-in-Chief wrote, "If you read the editorial Backstreets published last summer in the aftermath of the U.S. ticket sales, you have a sense of where our heads and hearts have been: dispirited, downhearted, and, yes, disillusioned."

Later, he continued: "We're not alone in struggling with the sea change. Judging by the letters we've received over recent months, the friends and longtimers we've been checking in with, and the response to our editorial, disappointment is a common feeling among hardcore fans in the Backstreets community.

"When I revisit that writing now, it reads like a cry for help; most discouraging was that six months went by with no lifeline thrown. What we have been grappling with is not strictly the cost of admission ("It's not just about the money!" is a refrain we've heard from Backstreets readers) but its various implications.

"Regardless, there's no denying that the new ticket price range has in and of itself been a determining factor in our outlook as the 2023 tour approached - certainly in terms of the experience that hardcore fans have been accustomed to for, as Springsteen noted, 49 years. Six months after the onsales, we still faced this three-part predicament: These are concerts that we can hardly afford; that many of our readers cannot afford; and that a good portion of our readership has lost interest in as a result."

Although Backstreets is coming to an end, Phillips revealed there'll be "a blow-out Final Issue of Backstreets," and the Backstreets Record Shop will stay open. The Backstreets Ticket Exchange message boards will stay up "for a short time", and the Backstreets social media and email list will "remain active". Visit backstreets.com to read the full post.