Ah, the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. The outdoor concert venue that has hosted everyone from Bruce Springsteen to the Grateful Dead.
It’s a great summertime venue with wonderful ambiance and decent acoustics. It’s also a pain in the ass to attend – parking can be an adventure, and sometimes Saratoga County’s designated bird – the mosquito – wants to join the ambiance while you’re enjoying the music.
Well, if you don’t want to pay a king’s ransom for seats inside the venue, you have the option of purchasing a “Lawnie Pass,” where you can sit on the lawn outside the banshell and listen to the performances. Yep, listen to the performances – as in, sitting on a blanket on the trampled, muddy ground, and hoping some bonkbrain doesn’t hit you with an errant tossed Frisbee.
The Lawnie Pass was an inexpensive way to enjoy a night at SPAC.
I say “was.” Because Live Nation, the company that seems to own every single venue and control every single concert and mandate every single concert price … has discontinued the Lawnie Pass for 2025.
And in true corporate fashion, they’re treating it as if they’re disappointed in doing so, but they’re doing you a favor by coming up with something better that they will announce someday – and “someday” is a nebulous term in and of itself.
Here’s the news from their Facebook page.
Yeah, that little blurbie needs an edit. Or three. Here, let me take a proofreader’s purple pencil to this.
We are working on new and exciting WAYS TO GOUGE YOUR WALLET for summer concert season. While there will not be a Lawnie Pass program in 2025 BECAUSE WE CAN’T MAKE VERY MUCH MONEY OFF OF IT, previous Lawnies will be the first to hear about these new TICKET SCALPING COMPANIES THAT WILL BUY UP ALL THE AVAILABLE SEATS AND RESELL THEM TO YOU AT THREE TIMES THE PRICE.
We are so grateful to our Lawnie community WHO WE EXTORTED MONEY FROM FOR YEARS AND GAVE YOU BAD SEATS WHERE YOU COULDN’T SEE THE BAND and we can’t wait to STEAL MORE OF YOUR HARD EARNED DOLLARS soon. We look forward to RIPPING YOU OFF AND BLAMING IT ON DEI AND TARIFFS AND BIRD FLU AND BIDEN this summer.
Yep. Fixed it. 😀
Chuck The Writer 
…On top of the “New in 2025″ privilege of HAVING TO RENT a genuine Live Nation lawn chair – 27.6″ wide X 27.6″ deep X 30.5” tall; shut up and deal with it – @$15 a pop.
Once again, customer experience takes a back seat to the almighty dollar.
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