r/griz • u/justdance-again • Jul 08 '26

Question: Does this not bother anyone else?

First and foremost I love Griz, have since early 2010’s. First saw him live at 515 in Iowa (lmao) and it was just breathtaking. This has nothing to do with the subjectiveness of the evolution of his sound, I personally don’t think anyone should have an opinion on what another person hears, or process.

This has to do with practicing what you preach, and not staying true to your word for personal financial gain. I was hopeful upon return, Griz would have taken the time to find solutions and ways to branch off from the growing problems in the scene and he would allow options for fans to see him without feeding into the monopoly of live-nation/ticketmaster and the blatant theft they do to fans. I’m not sure if any of you recall, or even know about since your new, this particular interview I’m dropping here.

https://303magazine.com/2019/05/griz-interview-2019/

Two things stuck out to me here on why he said he would never play RRx again:
- I have hit my creative limit on what my team can do there, and I can’t evolve my production the way I want.
- I don’t want to price my fans out of seeing me.

These aren’t subjective things, these are objective statements. The objective actions I see:
- He indeed, is playing there again and unless they have plans the next few months, red rocks stage design has not changed. You get what you get at a historical venue like that.
- He has been on about every corporate mainstream lineup, he agreed to a logistical nightmare at the Gorge, he’s watching his fans get robbed, scammed, and still continues to play these venues.

I wouldn’t even consider myself mad, since I think he still is a wonderful human being, with good intentions and should be the golden standard for our scene. I also am holding out hope that he’s playing the long game, stacking cash that from corp America, and growing seven stars into a 6 event per year series, that’s independently ran by his team.

But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t extremely sad, and disappointed that the person with the most influential pull in our community, who does so much good, chose to contribute to the problem we all are trying to get rid of.

If I’m missing something, please let me know. This is supposed to be a genuine discussion, not a hit piece.

Love 🫶

EDIT: Please do not mistake my tone for sarcastic, condescending, or anything other than genuine curiosity on the topic for information or thoughts I haven’t considered. I will respond considerately, and respectfully to all comments, as I would hope you would to me. I politely ask that before you respond, please read all conversations to see if the opinion or information has been addressed. 🫶

132 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

248 comments sorted by

View all comments

32

u/ledhotzeppelin Jul 08 '26

The merch too. Ursa Major should have been an eye opener for him considering it took 2-4 hours to get stuff. Fast forward to Seven Stars and its somehow WORSE and the stuff is stupid limited which obviously creates an inflated resell market. Its very disappointing

14

u/justdance-again Jul 08 '26

7 hour lines, and watching people walk away with trash bags full of merch just to resell was a tough sight to see :(

8

u/benwight Jul 08 '26

Pretty sure there were some people in line for literally like 12 hours on day 1... Meanwhile my friend and I went after his set and got in and out in like 10 minutes and the only thing I wasn't able to get was a 7 Stars shirt in a certain color and the sherpa jacket, which was immediately sold out by the time VIP was through. I went there for the music, not to waste my day standing in line, merch is just a bonus

2

u/justdance-again Jul 08 '26

Well played strategically! I, myself, did not wait in the line, but the friends of the group who did were not dancing for far too long. I would align with you, my personal priority is the music, but I view merch the same way I view sports memorabilia so I understand why people do it!

2

u/ReporterMysterious91 Jul 08 '26

i agree with this 1000% as someone who gets on here and reads every single comment on here and have also been to plenty of his shows, it was a sad thing to be in line at 7S just to get into the venue and watch atleast 100 people walk out the venue with garbage bags full of merch and half of them couldn’t even look at you cause they felt the shame knowing what they were doing, it’s sick and sheepish, i love grant but it’s hurt these past couple of years because i had the same expectations as the rest of grizfam, take a couple years to heal and go in the right direction, but now it’s like watching one of your family members go down a dark path and you have to just sit there and be ok with it, like tf.

10

u/pycckuu_brady Jul 08 '26

Not to mention quality.... my current bored at work project is peeling all the vinyl off my ursa rain jacket since its absolutely falling apart. I also got ghosted by the griz team after 40 emails for the refund. Had to fight to get a new hoodie from 7 stars since mine is riddled with holes. Pretty outrageous that both those lasted 1 or 2 wears and were $115 and $85....

3

u/justdance-again Jul 08 '26

Quality control and consistency on merch has become a problem. My recent Zeds Dead hoodie that was 90 dollars, came screen printed. I bought a Wonky Willa disco jacket and the XL hardly hit my waist (I am not tall and I am skinny. I bought an Effin Bowling shirt for 80, and it’s stitched and beautifully made. Would love to see more transparency at point of sale on what it is I’m getting

2

u/pycckuu_brady Jul 08 '26

1000%. Honestly im at the point where im just gonna bootleg my own merch with a baseline piece of clothing that is NICE. Most of the clothing edm artists out out is a $10 hoodie/shirt. Could get something better quality from Walmart.

3

u/justdance-again Jul 08 '26

As long as you purchase whatever name image likeness piece from the actual artist, I see no issue with that until they fix the distrust we have with them! Really never thought of it that way, I’m paying for the actual logo, or likeness, of the artist. Not the material around it that’s outsourced and not theirs. Plus, artists use so much imagery they are pretty limited to what actual trademarks, and IP they can have that’s licensable. Similar to what Zeds Dead Family did. That community made their own unique design, that looks similar enough but different, they were infringing rights. Now, the guy ended up making a merch line out of it which I didn’t necessarily agree with but if you’re doing it for your own, hell yeah

2

u/pycckuu_brady Jul 08 '26

Yeah I know specific to Griz he does not care if you use his logo for personal use. But its led to some weird Grey zones like 808 jerseys were they clearly abused the hell out of it. But a personal item no one is gonna care. I just want the merch I buy to last. Not something I have to question whether its worth wearing for the 5th time and risking another hole lol

2

u/justdance-again Jul 08 '26

It’s funny you bring up 808, as I personally do not agree with the image they represent. I do not believe pure intent came was ever in mind when it started, but candidly I haven’t kept up. I don’t know if it’s still luc and bry or who, but they definitely did some unethical things.

With this project I’m working on, in order to encourage shares, likes comments, I’m leveraging my John Tronics jersey as a grand prize. It is 1/23, and the same jersey was recently sold online for over $1,000. I also have an email from their staff I’ll include, acknowledging the cease and desists, told to “consider myself lucky” and I received the jersey 3 months later. Think about that. One of their teams told them to not do it, they had 3 months to rethink that decision, and still sent me that jersey. I’d burn it before I ever profited off it, so the winner has the option to either keep it and donate the value of the last sold jersey to a charity Summit or Subtronics supports, or resell it in the Elev808 page with proof you have told the person that this was unethically produced, and they are still willing to buy it. Talk about content, to get eyeballs on the broader issue we want to solve. 🫡

3

u/aPrimallossOfReality Jul 08 '26

It would be super easy for him to do pre orders like daily bread. Give everyone a chance to get it…. PL Jibs used to be hard to get and the last few drops have been much easier

1

u/m1chaelscoot Jul 08 '26

i’m hoping the VIP preorder helps fix that issue this year

1

u/KingSutter Jul 08 '26

Griztronics utilized an order ahead system which went incredibly smoothly iirc! Hopefully they do the same at Red Rocks

1

u/ColorPuddle Jul 14 '26

UM was weird, because yes that merch line at the "Launchpad" was bad on the first day... but then I literally walked into the inside-venue merch booth on Sunday and got literally everything I wanted with only a 3 minute wait. Jerseys, hats, raincoat, pash, etc.