Shelley Lazar, founder of SLO Ticketing and a pioneer of premium ticketing and VIP programs for artists including the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and The Who, died Sunday morning after a battle with cancer, a rep for her company confirmed. She was 69.
Affectionately known as “The Ticket Queen” — or “MFTQ,” as she was dubbed by none other than Keith Richards — Vanity Fair called Lazar “the mastermind behind rock royalty’s all-access passes,” Lazar made her mark in the industry as the Vice President of Artistic Relations and Special Projects Coordinator of Bill Graham Presents (BGP), where she worked from 1991 to 2002, before striking out on her own with the San-Francisco based SLO VIP Ticket Services. Earlier in her career in her native New York, she worked with promoter Ron Delsener and at Madison Square Garden.
In the book, “Ticket Masters, The Rise of the Concert Industry and How the Public Got Scalped,” Lazar explained how she created the VIP ticketing package.
“I said to the artists, ‘These are your great fans and these are your great tickets, so why not give your great fans the great tickets?,’” she said. “That way they don’t have to go to what we at the time called scalpers.”
Her Facebook page is filled with loving tributes. In 2014, at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, McCartney performed “San Francisco Bay Blues,” an early hit for the Weavers, and dedicated it to her. He speaks about her at length in the video included in the tweet below, saying “You want tickets for anything? Shelley’s the go-to,” then apologizes. She can be seen smiling and waving at the end of that video, and this one of McCartney performing the song.
According to her biography, Lazar went on to manage VIP ticketing and credentials coordination for major concert tours, festivals and events, including Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Pink, Celine Dion, the MTV Video Music Awards, the People’s Choice Awards, Barbra Streisand’s 2017 television special, Madonna’s “Drowned World” tour and even two Popes; she was co-executive producer of the award-winning documentary, “Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars.”
SLO was acquired by Ticketmaster in 2008, with Lazar remaining as chief executive.
Lazar began working part-time in the music industry in the early 1970s, while still a public school teacher in New York City (future comedy and film star Chris Rock was one of her students). According to her bio, she worked in several areas of the business, starting with catering and moving up to booking, marketing and ultimately ticketing, managing the ticket office at Madison Square Garden and earning a reputation as “The Keeper of the List” at the Pier in New York for shows promoted by Ron Delsener.
She was also active in several non-profit organizations, including the Bill Graham Memorial Foundation, Human Rights Watch and the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She also melded her teaching and music-business backgrounds as a member of the Board of Directors of Little Kids Rock, a charity based in Verona, New Jersey charity encouraging children to play popular music by providing free music instructions and instruments to school districts across the country.