Collin1000.com

I can be defined many ways, but one of them is music addict. I need to have Music playing at all times. I have premium subscriptions to Last.fm, Rhapsody, and have over 3,000 songs in my library – and ive paid for every damn one of them. I still buy CDs, and I support my favorite artists…. to an extent.

10 Minutes ago, one of my favorite all time artists, Creed, sent out a tweet from their “official twitter account” that they are launching a NEW FAN CLUB! Well, I was simply ecstatic, I clicked the link and checked out the page. I check out the links in the navigation, and right away I click on “Tour” to learn more about Creed’s upcoming tour dates.

This is what I saw:

25 bucks to join their “community”, just to see their tour dates. Well, screw that, Ill look up tour dates somewhere else. Lets look at “News” ….opps, needs a subscription. Uhm, how about media? blogs? forums? Nope, nope nope. The only thing I can see is their Shop.

Way to piss on your loyal fan base. Charge me twenty five bucks, MORE THAN AN ALBUM, to see your TOUR DATES? I can understand “Exclusive Content” such as what you listed above. But nothing on this site is EXCLUSIVE at all…. just to USE THE SITE, there is a fee I need to pay! You are pissing on your loyal fan base by charging us for basic things like tour dates. Just a day ago, I heard about Creed’s new tour and was excited to go. I texted my fellow Creed fans about pooling money, and twittered my excitement. And now, you pull shit like this, with the balls to charge me 25 bucks to view tour dates, view the Creed discography, or do anything else on your site. What, exactly, is your reason to charge to VIEW TOUR DATES? THATS PROMOTION RIGHT THERE!

Ah, well it does have the 5 most upcoming tour dates listed on their homepage. And a link to buy tickets! ..oops, wait, cant buy tickets BECAUSE I AM NOT A FAN CLUB MEMBER!

I will no longer be attending any of the dates on your upcoming tour, nor purchasing any further Creed music. I feel I have been stabbed in the back by this band.

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UPDATE 4:53PM: I am exchanging email with the company that owns the fansite. His offical responce:

I think it’s silly. We just shot 10 hours of video for webasodes, meet and greets kick off Monday and we are rolling in all kinds of other stuff including a point only store (earn points for using the site) fly away contests and more. Find me a better built fan club.

If you don’t like it then don’t join, it’s not for everyone.

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UPDATE 5:06PM: The person I was speaking with is taxing off on the runway and needed to go, however I sent this message to clearly explain my points. At least someone is listening to me and understands the issue.

I understand the whole site is a lockout, I noticed that. What im saying is why not allow everyone to view things like the tour dates and whatnot… it seems crazy to lock out an entire fansite.
Free vs. Premium memberships are very successful with websites such as Flickr, Photobucket, Last.fm etc etc etc
You pay, you get more.
Im just saying something like tour dates is not something you should be charging people to see. It makes me feel like the music industry, already penny pinching consumers left and right for music, is trying to squeeze even more money out of their basic fans.
A good fan, regardless, would pay for a GOOD fan site. Ex, your forum. I have seen plenty of fan sites that have high quality forums with thousands of posts. That is worth paying for.
But by fully locking out the site, you are blindly asking me to pay 25 bucks and I have no idea what I will get.

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UPDATE, 11:22PM – The site has now been opened to the public in areas that I complained about. (Tour dates, Discography, etc) I have also written a revised blog posting.