KFAN's Chris Hawkey says Aerosmith made late demand to open up VIP section to all
Chris Hawkey says that Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler demanded that the VIP section be opened up to General Admission ticketholders an hour before the band's performance at Twin Cities Summer Jam an hour before going on stage.
The KFAN personality, who organized the festival at Canterbury Park this past weekend, claims he was told by a member of Tyler's entourage shortly before the band's Friday night performance to let the wider crowd up to the front, or the frontman wouldn't go on stage.
Tyler's concern was the VIP seating at the front of the stage, with the singer saying he wanted General Admission ticket-holders to be able to come to the front.
Hawkey himself had to go explain Tyler's request to VIP seat-holders, who were less than happy given that VIP tickets ranged from $600 to $1,200 for the three-day festival.
"As a festival you make choices about what you're going to do about seating, and because we paid an exorbitant amount of money for Aerosmith to be at this festival, we had to sell some VIP seating in order to make enough money to have a festival," Hawkey said on the Power Trip Morning Show Monday.
"You can't just do General Admission to book Aerosmith for the kind of money."
While he says he doesn't blame Tyler for wanting a larger crowd at the front of the stage, he says that the band had known about the arrangement well in advance.
"Even though they had been there literally all day, an hour before the show Steven decided he didn't want VIP seating, he wanted everybody to be able to come up close to the stage.
"That didn't seem to make sense to the people who paid a thousand dollars for a seat at the show."
"There were very angry people and I understand .. I had a guy literally trying to fight me," Hawkey said.
"I'm sure you'll get a refund and most people who deserved it are getting their refunds, they deserve to get a refund, but the guy wanted it that moment."
Hawkey said that Aerosmith put on a fantastic show and had nothing but praise for Tyler's performance and nice things to say about the rest of the band, "specifically Joe Perry."
that with the precedent set on Friday by Aerosmith, the VIP section was opened up to GA for Pitbull and Tim McGraw on Saturday.
Bring Me The News has reached out to Aerosmith for a comment. This story will be updated should we receive a response.
