The 1975’s Matty Healy Speaks Out Against Paid Meet-And-Greets: “Honestly What Are You Doing?”
The 1975 frontman Matty Healy took to Twitter this week to call out labels and artists who charge fans for meet-and-greets, accusing them of trying to “monetize human connection.”
“Who came up with payed [sic] meet and greets?” he wrote. “Did they think ‘Surely there must be something else we can monetise….OH! Human connection!! They’ll eat that up!’ MEET YOUR FANS OR DON’T. DON’T ONLY MEET THEM IF YOU’RE GETTING PAYED HONESTLY WHAT ARE YOU DOING”
When someone responded suggesting that the practice is beneficial to “lower, up-and-coming artists,” Healy replied, “You can’t be big enough for people to want to pay to meet you whilst not being big enough to pay for touring. It’s a paradoxical excuse for making MUSIC EXCLUSIVE. ‘Rich kids, you line up to the left. Poor kids, just f–k off.'”
Healy also suggested most of the blame lies with major labels for normalizing paid meet-and-greets and called for them to help end them.
Check out his tweets below.
Who came up with payed meet and greets? Did they think "Surely there must be something else we can monetise……..OH! Human connection!! They'll eat that up!"
MEET YOUR FANS OR DON'T
DON'T ONLY MEET THEM IF YOU'RE GETTING PAYED HONESTLY WHAT ARE YOU DOING
— matty (@Truman_Black) March 26, 2019
You can't be big enough for people to want to pay to meet you whilst not being big enough to pay for touring. Its a paradoxical excuse for making MUSIC EXLCUISVE.
"Rich kids, you line up on the left. Poor kids, just fuck off' https://t.co/FcWc9VE5Vh— matty (@Truman_Black) March 27, 2019
I think the problem is that a lot of artists don't understand how brutal it is, because MAJOR LABELS have normalised it. So MAJOR LABELS should change it. They should make all fans pay in cash – directly to the artist. They should literally hand over the $200. Would soon stop x https://t.co/bHhnUo5SvJ
— matty (@Truman_Black) March 27, 2019
This article originally appeared on Billboard.