Luke Combs would feel "weird" charging fans to meet him.
The award-winning country star believes passionately in keeping his ticket prices affordable and he admitted he wouldn't be comfortable asking people to pay to attend meet-and-greet events at his shows because it's not something he'd have been able to afford to do himself before he found fame.
He told Billboard: “I’ve always just felt really weird about, like, charging people to meet me. Maybe that’s just me feeling like, ‘Well, it’s not worth it.’...
“I just want to meet people who came to the show, whether it’s their first show or their 50th show. It’s like people who would have never gotten the chance to meet me or could never have afforded it. Because I couldn’t have afforded that growing up.”
When Luke didn't even have a record deal in 2015, he and his manager launched a private Facebook group for his fans, who are affectionately known as 'The Bootleggers' and the members, of which there are now more than 175,000, can enter a meet-and-greet giveaway on the 33-year-old star's website, with 25 people per show chosen at random so the singer gets to see a "real representation of who is there".
The 'Beautiful Crazy' hitmaker's manager, Chris Kappy, recalled how he turned down a $5,000 offer from a banker who wanted to meet Luke at his show.
He said: "That’s not the type of people we want.
"[I told him] I’d rather have the guy who can barely afford to come to the show because that’s more of a real fan than you wanting a picture with Luke for your Instagram.”
The 'Love You Anyway' singer insisted he never looks to see how much money he can make from his fans.
He said: “I always want my fans to understand that I’ve never made any decisions based off how much money I can get out of them.
“It already costs so much to do anything, right? I want them to love the music and feel like they saw a great show that someone put a lot of f****** thought into and did it at a price that was affordable to them.”
