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Q Prime manager pulled into spat with attorney during Nashville ticket touting debate

By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 14 March 2013

An interesting spat has developed as part of a debate in the Tennessee state legislature about ticket touting, and proposals to introduce new laws to crack down on the rampant reselling of tickets.

The boom in touting in the internet age has been contentious all over the place, of course, though in the US moves to restrict the resale of tickets online is mainly a matter for State law, and proposals have been considered in some places. The debate is currently ongoing in the Tennessee Senate.

The spat is between a lawyer who is opposing the proposed crack down and the Nashville office of artist management group Q Prime, and centres on allegations by the attorney, one John Ray Clemmons, that Q Prime’s Fielding Logan, who manages The Black Keys and country star Eric Church, keeps trying to give him free tickets.

The implication in Clemmons’ remark, in which he said he was “disturbed” by the Q Prime man’s repeated efforts to provide free tickets, is that the manager was trying to bribe the legal chap into withdrawing his opposition to the proposed new ticketing rules.

But, according to WTVF-TV, Logan has responded to the implied allegation, saying that while he had, indeed, offered free tickets to Clemmons, he did so in a bid to show how easy paperless tickets could be transferred; the pros and cons of e-tickets in combating touting be part of the debate in the Tennessee senate.

Clemmons is yet to respond, though the letter containing his original allegations has reportedly been passed to the Nashville prosecutor’s office.