free???? book events

it finally happened like i knew it would. the death of the free celebrity book reading. i went to barnes and noble's in union square tonight intending to see katie couric speak about her new book and there was a barricade in front of the book event space. the guard said that there was priority seating for those who bought books and those who didn't buy  books could wait in the stand by  line to be seated later. this is a first . i don't know it if was just because it was katie couric's book event, or if this is the new policy. either way it sucks. i admit that i don't always buy the book when i attend a book event, but there are many times when i do end up buying the book  after hearing snippets of the book during the book event . i thought that this was one of the ideas of a book event.
lots of people attend book events and do not buy the book so i understand why they want to have priority seating for book buyers at these events. however, if i have to wait in a stand by line before a book event i won't bother attending the  event unless i know for sure before hand that i wanted to buy the book. the store will be missing out on me buying a book only because i attended the book event because if i can't get a seat unless i buy the book, im not going to bother attending at all. this is why i said that these book events are no longer free. if i must buy the book to get a  seat the book event  is no longer free.
i have the feeling that the priority seating will only be for big name book events because few will want to buy a book buy an author they are unfamiliar with before attending their book event.
if i would stand in a stand by line to get a seat at a book event i would on principle not buy the book.
im so glad i have taken advantage of attending all the book events i could possibly attend in the past ten years because now the party is over  .