What would you pay for a photo of you and the three stars of the movie Back to the Future, Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd and Lea Thompson?
$10? $50? $810?
If you guessed the last figure, you’d be right. That’s what they were getting at last week’s Silicon Valley Comic Con, the first really big comic event in San Jose. And you’d pay that on top of the $158 one-day regular pass for a family of four. VIP or three-day passes were buckets more.
That said, the event was great and we can’t wait for it to return. But there was a certain feeling that left our wallets feeling like dead pools. If you wanted Stan Lee’s autograph, it was $100. Other stars, including the people who played Chewbacca, Napolean Dynamite and Captain James Kirk charged as much as a college textbook to smile and sign.
I still can’t get over the $800 for Back to the Future. Who would pay that?
So, yeah, I know it’s a free market and they charge what the market will bear. Most of those slots to buy photos and autographs sold out. There were huge lines for the privilege of paying for a celebrity or semi-celebrity signature. Yes, I know the marketing of autographs has become a big business. Many of the signers feel they should get something, since quite possibly the people receiving the autographs could sell them at an auction site for considerable amounts. Ringo Starr, who was once a Beatle, stopped signing for that reason.
Some signers donate the money to charity, but plenty don’t.
I remember the first person to complain to me about seeing his signatures for sale on eBay was Eric Bloom. He went on for a half an hour about how ripped off he felt when he signed guitars and discs and saw the signatures on eBay. Right now you are thinking … who? Bloom is the singer in Blue Oyster Cult, the band most known for the umlaut over the O and some five hits in the ’70s and ’80s that have kept them touring county fairs endlessly.
I remember thinking, Eric, you should be glad anyone wants your autograph. Are you sure you aren’t paying them to ask you? Why is signing such a problem, when they are paying to see you play the same five songs ad infinitum and you aren’t digging ditches or pouring lattes? You should be fearing the reaper, dude.
The irony was that Bloom was opening a show for the band I was playing with, El Tri, the biggest band in Mexico. If you don’t speak Spanish, Google them, but they are as big as the Beatles or Stones in rock en español. And their singer, Alex Lora, signs every autograph for free.
One night after finishing a long dinner at Oakridge Mall in San Jose, we went out to the parking lot and there were at least 1,000 people waiting patiently to take pictures with Lora and sign everything he could get his hands on: cars, photos, backs, breasts.
He stood there for hours writing his name and a greeting, perfectly and carefully, while his wife and family waited to go to bed. Yes, it’s tedious, a lot of work and draining. I told him U.S. rock stars seldom did that any more and his reply was simple. “They made me who I am. It’s the least I can do. I never forget the fans.” I’ve watched him do this all over the world, night after night.
What happened here, where our stars are already mega millionaires? Why are they nickel and diming the fans, or $800 bucksing them? What happened to remembering the people who made them?
