What do Beyoncé and former First Lady Michelle Obama have in common? No, you’re quite wrong. It’s ticket prices to see them.
Last week, Obama announced her nationwide book tour ahead of the release of “Becoming: An Intimate Conversation with Michelle Obama,” her first memoir. After keeping a relatively low profile since leaving the White House, Obama is returning to the public sphere in dramatic fashion, launching a month-long, 10-city book tour that had fans of the first lady freaking out from the sky-high prices, which according to Ticket City, are more than the price that one would pay to see Bey and her husband Jay-Z in concert.
Front row seats in the arenas Obama will be headlining are now going for $3,000, which includes a pre-show photo opportunity with the wife of the 44th president, a signed book, and other “VIP” gifts – maybe some of the palettes of cash President Obama flew to Iran, or possibly even a doctor you like and can keep…period.
To compare the book tour’s prices to an all-the-rage music concert, VIP tickets to Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s “On The Run II” tour are just $1,000. Though, for those slovenly commoners that wish to get a peek at the former first lady, seats in the nosebleeds are going for $29.50. Considering it has to do with one of the Obamas, the seat will be extra and if you bring your own you’ll be taxed…I mean penalized.
“Michelle Obama is out here selling Beyoncé priced tickets and I was not prepared,” one user wrote on Twitter, followed by a crying emoji, as reported in the New York Post.
“This is for the upper-middle to upper class only,” tweeted another Obama fan. “The rest of us can’t swing $200 for one ticket.”
On its website, Live Nation said Obama’s show would “feature intimate and honest conversations between Mrs. Obama and a selection of to-be-announced moderators, reflective of the extraordinary stories shared in the wide-ranging chapters of her deeply personal book.”
Hey, maybe top campaign donor Harvey Weinstein will make an appearance. He shouldn’t be too busy these days and could use the money.
Although Obama’s book tour is not the first to resemble a rock concert venue, Steven Barclay, a book agent who has planned large-scale tours for authors, was “virtually speechless” as he checked the Ticketmaster landing page for Obama, he explained.
“Huh,” Barclay said. “Wow. OK. It’s like you’re looking at a Madonna tour. That’s the first thing that comes to mind.”
For a woman who held back her own law career upon the rising stardom of her husband, Michelle Obama now holds an impressive set of titles: writer, advocacy icon, former first lady, and soon-to-be Netflix producer, to name a few. She currently has a net worth of $40 million, according to Yahoo Finance. Of course, that’s not counting what she shares with her husband…palettes of cash…
Michelle Obama’s net worth is set to skyrocket even higher once her memoir debuts on November 13, 2018, with the book deal reportedly being worth over $65 million, but no exact sum has been confirmed…and neither has the identify of the woman impersonating her in the official White House portrait.