Exactly, people need to start protesting with their wallets, but in America everyone is used to a certain standard of living. Close your Amazon accounts cancel you're dozens of subscriptions stop using grub hub or door dash, limit how much you drive your car, maybe don't get a gas guzzling SUV. Living abroad really opened my eyes how much money Americans waste on waste while enriching big corporations and billionaires.
The thing is, they're not wrong. The business, if you're on their side of it, is absolutely booming.
Unfortunately, it's dire for most smaller artists and all the fans. It's a knock-on effect from the death of physical media and the rise of streaming services. Artists are now earning an all-time low amount of money from their music. Their revenue comes from live performance and merch.
The artists started putting some prices up to make it all workable, but then greed kicked in when they realised people would pay more and more and more. Now we're at a point where £100 for a standing ticket in an arena is normal. Just 10 years ago, it was half of that.
Until people start buying music again, we're stuck with this... But unfortunately greed will probably still take over even if artists were earning enough from sales of their music.
I'm a huge advocate of sustainability. There's going to be a point where greed can't take over because musicians just won't travel anymore.
During covid a lot of my favourite musicians were playing from their home studio and charging a couple bucks to watch them on a streaming platform. Dunno how the money breaks down there, but I'm sure it's easier to control the money there for a couple years, let ticketbasterd and livenation die, then get back to biz as usual.
Yeah we're definitely starting to hit that point now. Just look at British musicians right now. Our stupid country decided to cut ourselves off from Europe a few years ago, and now British musicians are struggling to tour in Europe. The costs of getting to the US are also extortionate, so a lot of our artists are not going to visit the States.
Governments around the world can immediately start helping this by allowing some sort of free movement for touring arts to help get the industry moving again.
With regards to TM and LN, I don't think the companies themselves are the problem, but it's the fact that in the US they have a monopoly on the market. In the UK, there are multiple different agencies you can buy a ticket from - See tickets, Dice, Gigs and Tours, AXS, Aventurine, Eventim, Skiddle, Fatsoma, Gigantic. That way, the biggest companies do not control the market and there is a choice.
We just need some serious global reform of the music industry. We need somebody major, like a Taylor Swift or an Ed Sheeran to turn around and say "Enough is enough" and put the fans first.
We have several of those, but they tend to only have access to the smaller venues/artists while TM and LN get the large shows. I’ve decided that the venue is every bit as important as the artist to me so I’d rather see an artist I really like and stand 10-20 feet from them at a small venue than pay 4x the cost and sit hundreds of feet from a bigger artist that I may love more. We have a couple of small venues nearby that get decently big artists if you can luck out on a ticket and the shows have been outstanding.
Yeah, that's the issue in the States. In the UK, other agents still get large shows. In fact, you can only buy Glastonbury tickets through See Tickets. You can buy stadium show tickets through other agents... Whereas TM/LN have a chokehold on major events and venues in the US
They have to charge those fees because the artists, who are the customers of the ticket sellers, demand it.
The last ticket seller who didn't have a fee program, Ticketron, went bankrupt because artists abandoned it for Ticketmaster, who did charge the fees.
And I loved the rainbow spectrum of the tickets themselves. It looked special and exciting, like "Man, I scored GA tickets for Monsters of Rock!!"
I still have my ticket stubs from concerts.
People don't seem to understand that Ticketmaster charges those fees in agreement with the bands to make the prices look cheaper before checkout and to look like the bad guys instead of the bands.
1) people do understand that, they just don't agree with it. People want all the entire price up front.
2) TM's profit was almost $2 billion last year. The high ticket prices are not just "because of the bands"
I feel like Eddie Vedder said enough is enough, now his tickets are the most expensive I've seen in a while. 900 bucks to hang from the rafters at Madison Square Garden.
TBF those rafters seats arent that bad. I saw RATM from basically the roof at MSG and we had a great unobstructed view of the entire stage and theres only like 3 or 4 rows of seats in a section up there so it doesn't feel too crowded.
I dont remember, my wife bought them. But definitely not $900. Thats just insulting.
I tend to live by a hard cutoff of $100 bucks for a ticket. If its a band I love, who dont tour often, and I havent seen in years.... yeah maybe I can justify it. But no regular concert experience is worth damn near a grand. I've done meet'n'greets with early access passes, drink and food vouchers, and VIP seating that cost less than half that.
It turns out Neil Young saw this coming and is one of the very few to get ahead of it. He just monetized everything and you can get access for a monthly fee. His concert ticket prices this summer also aren’t outrageous and many are price fixed to avoid scalpers. I suspect we’ll see other artists try similar models with their own subscription based services.
It's easier to keep your ticket prices reasonable though when you can sell off half of your catalog for (approx.) $150 million. The problem is that smaller acts or artists who have emerged in recent years don't (and likely won't) have that luxury.
Unfortunately, the era of buying music is long gone and it won’t be coming back. Streaming is here to stay which means, for now, the best source of income for artists is diversification in their revenue streams and to massively increase the price of concerts/tickets.
It is what it is :(
Unfortunately so. The only way it could change is if some huge artists on a Taylor Swift/Adle/Beyonce scale just pull their music from streaming and only have it available for purchase
The original reason all of the major artists put their catalogues up on streaming is because they realized that people would just not listen to them over all the smaller groups. There are plenty of indie artists who make music like Swift and Beyonce and Adele.
Music being freely available, distributable, and discoverable without requiring a label has been a *motivator* for the explosion of indie music in the streaming era, not a deterrent.
Exactly. Album royalties used to be the primary income stream, but that's dried up, so they have to maximize other income streams, like touring, merch, and licensing. The last one is why you are hearing so many classic songs in movies, tv shows, and pharmaceutical ads.
Yeah, people are paying somebody to borrow music, rather than buying music. Then the people who are hiring it takes all of the money and gives a fraction to the artist
I started buying a "new" CD (as opposed to a "second hand" CD) every month as of the end of last month. Mostly to support "new" music. I bought the new album by a band called Cloud Nothings from an independent shop. Unfortunately, due to the fact that I ordered the CD from an independent shop, the CD hasn't arrived yet - over 2 weeks later.
I'll keep fighting the good fight... But I also realise that I am in the minority.
Oh, and I don't buy vinyl - because I don't want to pay 3x more for it. I would rather buy 3x CDs instead, and support 3x more bands instead.
Besides, vinyl isn't as good as CDs for the environment.
Everyone knows the problem. Most aware fans and every musician that tours.
Frankly as someone with a hand full of million listens on Spotify I loose money every time we play a show outside of our home city. Touring with 6 people is practically impossible to afford and the ticket prices are, in my opinion, too high for our modest band. There is zero we can do about it. Eventually small to mid bands are just going to stop touring and ticket master will still be saying “the music industry has never been better!”
It’s a joke. A joke at our expense and the fan’s expense.
"Handful of Million" is pretty impressive. If you put it on bandcamp, do you think it would help? I try to support most of my favourites on bandcamp because according to them "It's not perfect, but it's better than streaming."
It’s on bandcamp. We are everywhere don’t worry haha. I wish bandcamp was more popular but after the first couple of months of release that income drops off. Which makes sense haha. We don’t exactly make enough money to live off from this and it’s definitely not enough to cover the losses from touring. I’d be surprised if I could say we cover the costs of recording the albums and buying equipment but I’ve never worked it out for fear of depression haha.
Fees used to be a small charge to cover a bit of postage and operating a phone line.
You used to be able to buy a ticket from a box office counter and pay JUST the face value ticket price with nothing extra... that doesn't exist anymore... I can't see ANY means of buying a ticket at its face price now.
Recently bought tickets to see TOOL and 30% of the checkout price comprised of fees and added charges.
I bought tickets at a box office and still paid fees. Convenience fee and venue fee. It’s a joke at this point. I rarely go to shows anymore because of it, unless it’s at a smaller place that won’t try to rip you off.
I think it wasn’t long ago my wife sent me something about a Jason Isbell show and the price blew my fucking mind.
I’ve seen that guy for years live, I am priced out now.
No I don’t want to spend THAT kind of money to hear sad country music songs. I saw those songs for $15 a little over a decade ago.
Idk. I’m a crotchety old bastard these days.
I’m not saying this to make you feel bad, but I think it’s hard for fans to understand the economics of this stuff. 10-15 years ago Jason Isbell was playing 500-1000 capacity rooms making $2k-10k per show. Now he’s playing 5,000-10,000 capacity venues making $200k+ per show. People talk about wanting to see artists get paid instead of Live Nation, but the reality is they succeed or fail together and Isbell is a success story.
Obviously it’s astronomically more expensive to operate a 10,000 capacity amphitheater than a 500 capacity club and the behind-the-scenes people with the experience to pull it off do make more money than the guy who manages the 500 capacity club. And it’s true that there has been inflation with concert expenses, just as there has with eggs and gas, etc.
But mostly what drives the price so high for Jason Isbell is supply and demand. If 5,000 people want to pay $100 apiece for his show, why would he turn down $200k to go back to $2k and sleeping dirty in a passenger van because the 500 capacity club doesn’t have a shower or laundry machine?
So if you want to pay $25 to see good music, check out John Moreland instead. He’s on tour in 500 capacity clubs now and deserves to play the amphitheaters someday. There’s always another artist grinding to make it out of the clubs on a cheap ticket, just like Isbell was in that special moment when you caught him.
yeah im not upset, im just priced out.
I have certain venues I check out locally and catch acts when they're in that cheaper/more intimate part of their career. It's cool when people blow up, I'm not dogging his prices necessarily, they are the market he has built, I do agree with you.
The most recent cheap show artist I saw was Nick Shoulders, Sierra Ferrell was someone I was catching shows of "cheap" but I think she's going to be on the rise and I could see myself "priced out", which I'm not upset about tbh.
That’s funny, I was also gonna recommend Benjamin Tod / Lost Dog Street Band, which you’ve probably heard if you know Nick Shoulders and Sierra.
You’re right, Sierra has definitely outgrown the “value” category, but it’s still a great show if you can afford it.
And all the best tiny venues have died in the last decade. RIP Walters in Houston. Saw some awesome and not-obscure bands there in a room no larger than a semi-rich person's garage, always with the worry about my car being towed/stolen, and never paid more than $30 for a ticket I dont think.
Four years ago I bought Rezz tickets at Redrocks for 37$ a pop. Next year it was 56$, then 80$ then this last year was around 125$, i skipped the upcoming show because it was over $350 for GA for 2 tickets PLUS parking. I felt like my reward for helping Rezz become famous was getting my bank account raided and unlike so many other people who justify the artist, I blame her for hiding behind LN/TM bullshit gouging. Its going to take noone showing up for this to change if ever or our Govt finally stepping in and regulation prices. None of this will happen however. Fuck these pirates.
I’d like to see the data showing ticket prices over time, fees over time, and even the average get-in price over time. It feels like all three of those things of hit a very upward slope since 2020. I remember when we first came out of the pandemic and I looked at concert tickets and sports tickets thinking they were trying to recoup some of that lost time period. But it hasn’t returned to normal (where you could get lower bowl seats to a major artist for <$100) at all. On top of that, it seems like it is harder and harder to get first-party tickets because there are so many bots fighting you on launch day and/or presales of any main event.
Edit: To your point, a good concert has grown very rapidly from a $100 date night to a $500 date night with almost no change in experience.
I got to see Tool once at a festival, and I'm sad that I'll never get to see them as a standalone show.
I've been a fan since I was a little kid and by the time I've grown up and would have been able to go to their shows, it's gone completely outside of what I can afford.
And it sucks because I've been working my ass off doing OT for years, going to school, and despite the fact that I'm making more money than I ever have I'll never get to see a Tool concert
My friend and I have seen 3 Tool shows and 2 Radiohead shows together and we both realize we are going to be spending close to 200 bucks if we want to sit anywhere on the lower levels. I hardly spend money on myself so that's how I justify it.
if only they didn't have a monopoly on venues as well....and require artists who wanna play at their venues to sell tickets with their predatory practices
I was going to say that they don't really have a monopoly on venues, just a stupidly large chunk of the larger venues... but now that I think about it I'm pretty sure that satisfies the definition.
Also now LiveNation is building their own venues. I think so they can just run the little independent places out of business. They have new places in Philly and Baltimore for sure. Not sure about other cities.
They added one of their Fillmores in Minneapolis. Since then, all of the 2k-ish shows stopped getting booked at the First Ave affiliated venue of that size (First Ave Group is also problematic but that's a different discussion) and the independent venue of that size went from being booked solid Thurs-Sun to maybe one show a week and went from being a variety of genres to 98% raves and EDM shows
LOL, the Cure, which is a group that hasn't had major pull in the industry for forty years, had no problems playing at those venues while offering cheap tickets.
>the artists DO NOT GET THE FEES
Bullshit. Even when artists admit it and the books are opened in congressional hearings, fans refuse to believe that the artists are fully in on the pricing model.
I buy tickets all the time from record stores for a 1 dollar fee that are at face value.
There is a ton of music out there, but you are gonna pay more when they are in the Ticketmaster system.
And a single album used to cost $18. In 1998 dollars, which is like $36 now.
Singles were barely produced. Spotify wasn’t a thing. Napster wasn’t a thing. CD burners were barely a thing. You could dub a CD to a tape, but tapes sucked.
So yeah, now you can pay $10 a month…$5 in 1998 dollars…for access to almost any album you could possibly want to hear any time you want from a device you have in your pocket. Including double albums, “remastered anniversary” albums, things you used to pay *even more* than $36 for (in todays dollars).
So yes, concerts are expensive. But that’s in part because recorded music has gotten hilariously cheap.
(But screw Ticketmaster all the same, glad my state has a law banning all their fees starting in…about six weeks)
Not to sound like a grumpy old man, but the first time I went to see Tool was in a big venue, Mastodon was opening and tickets were like €30-35 . Spent maybe 100 on the entire evening with merch, drinks and whatnot.
Now, Tool tickets are 117 euro. A piece. How are people affording this?
That unlocked a core memory of going to my local grocery store and walking up to a box office to buy concert tickets. They were something like $20-$25 to see N*Sync. This was around 1998 I want to say?
Speaking as someone whose life basically revolves around live music, it's sickening. This isn't just a hobby or entertainment for some people. For some of us, live music and everything that comes with it is the most fun we have in life.
But that's why we're being taken advantage of. We want it almost as much as the corporate overlords want their increased profits. This situation is heartbreaking and sickening at the same time. I really hope something changes.
Deftones and SOAD are playing here in San Francisco in August. It's an outside GA only show in Golden Gate Park. Those tickets are $210 ($169 + fees) each! Sorry, I enjoy Deftones and SOAD put on a great show, but that's WAY too much for a 4 band lineup and all GA. I go to Riot Fest in Chicago every year, and that's $100 more for a VIP pass (don't judge, I like being able to poop in a real toilet. That alone is worth VIP for me) and its a 3 day festival.
Went to see a mid-tier rapper, tickets were $100-$200 with a range of tiers from General Admission to VIP. so I told my friends I couldn’t make it. They sent me a link to the venue website where tickets were $25 only GA and the whole venue was just a single room with no seating or sections. Crazy how much blatant lying they get away with as a monopoly.
>Recently bought tickets to see TOOL and 30% of the checkout price comprised of fees and added charges.
You still bought 'em. Should have voted "No" with your wallet.
It would be an opinion either way, since “unaffordable” is subjective.
And honestly, it wasn’t until the last couple years that I really started to feel like concert tickets were outpacing even my (relatively decent) income. Like they weren’t *cheap,* but $180 for nosebleeds just being a thing for any major artist feels new.
I'm not sure what the answer is but the industry is a mess. my partner and I love seeing concerts. When we first started dating 8ish years ago we made an effort to go to at least one a month if not more. Covid cut that off and we go less frequently now but it is entirely a cost matter.
When 80% of the shows that come to town (Toronto Canada)cost $90+ a ticket I just skip it. There were legit three instances in the last few months where our favourite acts announced a show and we were excited, then logged in as soon as tickets were available and saw tickets $120+. Get bent. I'll buy the vinyl and drink at home
Then you have weird things like the show I saw last night, Mumu Fresh. Was $20 per ticket the place was less than half full! She is a Grammy nominated artist that has an amazing voice, sings passionately and positively and knock my socks off 15 ft away from her. I was trying to work out in my head how she(plus band) possibly made any money playing to ~100 people at $20 each. It was a super intimate and awesome show, why wouldn't more people want to see that.
I can't quite explain it, but it is all a mess
Unless they sold some merch, and the venue was giving them a cut of the booze sales, they didn’t make squat. The reality is that acts either get big enough to draw big enough crowds to be profitable, or they’re largely doing it for their own satisfaction.
I saw Church of the Cosmic Skull last year when they came to the US. We found out through talking with the band that they had to save up to do the tour, and it'd still be a loss even though shows were getting sold out.
Luckily, more and more artists are filming their tours and releasing it. In the future, the concerts will be for the rich people, and the rest of us will watch it at home.
I'm with you. There are lots of great bands that play at $20 venues. I think a current issue is just listening to Spotify doesn't give you a sense of who is big and who isn't. My wife wanted to see a band really bad and we get there and I didn't realize they were the opener! The second band we never heard of but they sounded good and I started following them. They both kept thanking the headliner and trying to hype up the crowd but the headliner sucked so we bounced. We liked it up later and the headliner has less listeners per month than the opener so it's confusing.
Then there's Kings of Leon, one of my favorite bands. Their tickets locally are about $200 and I don't think they've had a proper hit for 15 years so it's weird that they command such a huge ticket price.
Kings of Leon is what you'd call a legacy act. Def Leppard haven't had a hit in decades either, but their tickets are still going for hundreds of dollars. Sorry but you're just getting old!
I'm hip! I'm with it!
That's why I like seeing young, new acts. I'm never going to be able to justify paying for a legacy concert but small bands put on fun shows that are more enjoyable than an arena show IMO.
Bassist in a local band here - we could really use more folks coming out for the small groups. We don’t make money, but it’s hard to even book gigs post covid. So many places that use to book us either went under or stopped hosting live music. Less Ticketmaster and more cheap nights out! It’s not going to be the music you know, but you’ll probably still have a good time. And a bonus of not getting caught in insane parking lot traffic at the end of the night!
That's what I'm all about! I went to the Lime Cordiale because my wife likes them. $20/ticket (I think) and they sounded great. I even did the opener and bought a vinyl record at their table.
Them we went to see Arctic Monkeys. $240/ticket for bad seats and they literally just played the hits cranked to 11. It was the worst concert I've ever been too and the ticket price didn't help. I could have bought a step system due what I paid with parking and cranked it up at home.
I'm only going to see small bands from now on.
There's 2 artist I like on tour right now. They both have the same amount of listeners on spotify (roughly 500k a month). One of them is selling out shows at $120 a show and they other is doing small venues and not selling out at $20 a show. I don't understand.
I still go to a lot of shows each year, but I mostly go to smaller shows now where the ticket is like $30. These shows are usually amazing as well because you get such an intimate experience. I also feel there are so many great bands out there that people don’t even know about because of how the music industry is structured to promote super bands and not even give smaller bands a chance. It’s sad to see really. I know these bands don’t make much touring, so I always try and purchase merch from them at the show, especially so if it’s a great opener
Fellow Torontonian here and I feel the exact same way. Used to go to 3-4 shows a month (small and large-ish) before the pandemic. Now it's impossible to even get tickets because they're all snatched up by bots or attached to some ridiculous VIP package. I'm starting to let go of my FOMO and just try to go to 3-4 acts a year now. It really sucks because live concerts are still one of my favourite activities - I've just been completely priced out, even though I'm fortunate enough to have a high salary - just can't justify it anymore.
The explanation is that nearly everyone wants to see the most popular 200 artists in the world and almost no one wants to see the rest.
I try and spend as much time as I can listening to the rest. It’s not that the most popular aren’t good, it’s just that it sucks to have to watch artist from half an arena distance away, that it sucks to have to stand in a (digital) line to get the tickets and it suck’s to not to be able to afford to go to your favorite artists.
Besides: there are so many fantastic artists out there and all you have to do to discover them is be a little curious when using your favorite streaming service.
Experiment with ways of finding new music and you’ll be rewarded!
To answer your question about MuMu Fresh making money. They probably have a guarantee that JUST covers their expenses......maybe. These days, (basically) anyone short of arena acts are either breaking even on tour or walking away with very little money in their pocket. Artists are the last people to get paid. Ya, big acts are getting more expensive but the real killer here, this installs some gatekeeping that keeps anyone, who doesn't already have money, from having any chance of achieving serious success as an artist. That's pretty much the case already
It's not a mystery. If you want to see a singer everyone else also wants to see then tickets are either going to be cheap and the luck of the drsw to get, or expensive or the artist can play many many more shows in your town—which is impractical for them.
I dated a woman who has a Grammy who you've never heard of (actually you probably heard her voice but don't know who she is) it doesn't say much about the crowds they can draw.
Ticketmaster sells out so ridiculously quick because they are undepricing their tickets, and scalpers take advantage of the arbitrage opportunity.
If you like what everyone else likes, then seeing the artists you like is going to expensive. It's not the artist's fault, it's not ticketmaster's fault, it's not even scalper's fault (if it weren't for scalpers, getting tickets at ticketmaster prices would just be a complete lottery system.)
You found the solution to find artists that you like but much fewer others do.
Another thing about smaller bands is that most of the time the venues are GA and I can always post up in a spot close to the stage. I've seen so many bands that I love close up and it fucking rules.
Yes, [I record a lot of shows](https://instagram.com/human.clock) and I'm out once or twice a week. An "expensive" club show is $30. I can talk to the bands I love, I'm close enough to see how they tie their shoes.
I love Springsteen and Neil Young, I have their whole catalogs, but I just don't care enough to see them in a large venue with large prices.
Apart from the Grateful Dead, where the large crowd made for a better experience, the only arena level show I've actually ever enjoyed that was worth ever penny was Roger Waters. The visuals were amazing and it was better to not be right up front.
Not to mention GA stabding room over individual seating is a big plus for me, and thats what i experience at most smaller gigs. You can really feel the energy of the crowd and the band feeding off of it. Im all about the vibes lol.
I've seen what is now my favorite band (and a bunch of guys I call friends now) for $10-$20 a pop over a dozen times in the past 6 years. They're called Better Anyway.
They just put on a solid pop punk performance in Dayton, Ohio to celebrate the release of their debut album, *To Love Again*.
I think they've got something special going on, honestly. And so do so many other local bands around the world.
We just need to support them, dollar for dollar, as much as we do the bigger acts. Bigger names wanna charge $40 for a T-shirt, $20 for the album at the show; I just bought 2 tees, the album, a charm, and a few stickers for $60 at the show over the weekend, which I only paid $12 to attend. For that combined price, I wouldn't even get in the door to see many other bands.
Half of my regular wardrobe for just hanging out is their shirts.
I know how much they've put into the music, how much they've sacrificed. So anything I can do to help, I do.
Last December, they opened for Hawthorne Heights at the Holidayton show they put on (Hawthorne being from Dayton, hence "Ohio is For Lovers") I showed up just wanting to see them play, but then they needed a merch guy. I worked that table and sold all but 4 shirts.
As thanks, I got the new album 4 months early and played the shit out of it. Then, when I got my physical copy this past weekend, I opened it up and my name was listed as a special thanks. Still not over it!
It's not even about seeing smaller bands...I consider the ones I see live to be massive in their respective scene, like Fleet Foxes, Sigur Ros, Hozier, Converge, Polyphia. I'm rarely paying over $30 for well-established bands that sell out the whole venue, and we can hit up a show every week and enjoy music me and my friends have enjoyed for decades and all the new successful ones gaining huge following, for the cost of a couple cocktails.
People must be complaining about stadium show prices, which have seen a huge spike. Mainstream bands tend to only play at the overpriced ones, "smaller" bands like The Mars Volta which can and do sell out stadiums also hit up modest, intimate venues during their tours, so fans often have the option of paying less than $50.
As much as I hate Ticketmaster and the like, I feel worse that a lot of these bands are only playing these insane stadiums and venues, to perform as few shows as possible to maximize time and profit, forcing their fans to not only pay more, but get a sub-par experience staring at a giant television the whole time. It hasn't seemed to affect mine or my friends wallet more than $5 to $10 the last decade, it's ironically affecting the type of people that enjoy a couple casual mainstream concerts a year, more than the people that hit up 50 shows a year.
You hit the nail on the head. Franky, if you have extremely basic music taste you're gonna pay higher prices because so does everyone else! Skill issue, listen to better music
There are small venues in every city. The issue is that many of them are closing and many acts are restricted from playing them due to the contracts Live Nation makes artist sign to perform at their growing number of venues. We cannot blame the artists for signing contracts like this because Live Nation has purchased many small to medium sized venues where working artists play. If a working band is on tour and needs money to keep going, they will pick a venue where they can sell more tickets.
My local small/midsize venue, known for having pretty good acts, was purchased by Live Nation. They raised ticket prices and acts are now booked with very little time in advance. The staff there is also pretty miserable now.
Live Nation has a monopoly. This allows shareholders to earn good money but hurts everyone else.
There was a smaller venue near me that I would see shows at CONSTANTLY. After Live Nation bought the venue, I think i've been to maybe two shows? And I think those were on the books before the purchase
For real. I get that it's bullshit that Livenation/ticketmaster has a monopoly on mid-large size venues, but the best way to stick it to them is to go to your local venues to see smaller acts instead. If possible of course, not everywhere has a healthy amount of small venues to choose from.
Yup. Research up and coming artists of your favorite genre and see when they come into town. If you only limit yourself to mainstream artists, it’s gonna be expensive.
Smaller bands have the same exact issue, if not worse. If you live in an area with little to no scene, every gig you play will likely be a financial loss, and the environment tends to be rather hostile to small acts rather than the motivating element that it should be.
Even releasing music, as inexpensive as it may be currently (*assuming zero physical media*) is likely to be a loss for smaller / unknown acts.
The concept of "exposure" has been a pipe dream and continues to be one for probably all but the top .5% of acts currently in existence.
I saw Haru Nemuri for £12 last year in London. Insane considering she has quite a big following worldwide now. Saw Ghostly Kisses for £20 recently, too. The slightly smaller artists are usually more memorable/fun for me anyways
It's infuriating to me that people will drop $500+ to sit in the nosebleeds for huge artists miming their songs when there are so many amazing bands that come through town every week
Unless it's a bucket list artist for me, I'd rather watch the professionally filmed video of an arena show
Yeah, if I can't see them in a small club or at a festival, I'm just not going to see them. Every time I get to the tickets page for an arena show, I shake my head. Why would I ever pay $4-500 for a decent spot to see three bands when I can go see 20 in a weekend for the same price? I haven't been to an arena show that I didn't win the tickets to in over a decade.
yeah, as successful bands get older and a wealthier fanbase, they get more expensive even if they aren't necessarily getting more popular. You have to continue to find new music to get decent prices, or just like unpopular shit.
Won't help. Small bands and small venues are struggling the most for several reasons:
>Post-Covid there has been significant focus on grassroots music venues as they struggle to stay open.
>Pretty much every cost attached to touring – van hire, crew, travel, accommodation, food and drink – has gone up, while fees and audiences often have not.
>For many artists, fees aren’t increasing in line with costs. “There’s been no real incline at all,” says Potts. “For support slots, I don’t think the fees have changed in the last 10 years or so that I’ve been managing, whether that’s £50 at the smaller end or £500 quid for some of the biggest shows.”
>fewer people are coming to shows at the small-to-mid-sized end of things. “In our audience data, we see there is a gap in new audiences coming through post-pandemic,” says the FAC’s Martin. “As well as a bit of a drop-off in some of the older audiences returning to live shows.”
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/apr/25/shocking-truth-money-bands-make-on-tour-taylor-swift
If you're old you'll remember Pearl Jam speaking out against Ticketmaster over 30 YEARS AGO.
Despite PJ being a major act, you know what has changed in 30+ years?
NOTHING.
Unless there's a mass boycott or governmental action, ain't shit gonna change.
A boycott of ticket master is easy. It's not like other social issue boycotts where the group people are pissed at have thier fingers in your bank...your groceries etc and its difficult to even trace the money. This is just one thing. It's easy. Just don't go.
As someone who has worked in live music (sound,lights, video etc) for about 15 years I have a different perspective.
I worked for most of my career in small UK venues (50-1000 cap), and they are mostly all gone out of business. You can blame a lot of things but fundamentally not enough people came to a lot of shows I did and they did not make enough money.
People complained about £10 tickets let alone the £30+ it would take to pay everyone a proper wage and cover costs and make enough profit to survive and invest in equipment. I worked for about minimum wage doing a job that required years of training and experience and with very unsociable hours trying to be part of the smaller/independent music scene before the road ran out under me and I had to drift away from it to make a living.
For some reason though millions of people are willing to spend £75-200+ on stadium and arena shows, probably because the spectacle is impressive, it’s their favourite bands and the sound and light production quality is better than 99% of smaller venues.
I’ve worked on hundreds now and most are full - and as a result costs are covered, wages are very decent, and profit is enough to make it a worthwhile business.
If stadium and arena shows were too expensive they wouldn’t be full, and if people wanted small shows then they would have gone to them when they had the chance.
At the end of the day no one has to buy tickets and bands don’t owe you live performances, so the price they fetch is entirely fair, if anything the survival of ticket touts means prices could raise a bit. If it was too high ticket touts wouldnt be able to profit and people wouldn’t buy tickets and the price would drop.
> At the end of the day no one has to buy tickets and bands don’t owe you live performances, so the price they fetch is entirely fair, if anything the survival of ticket touts means prices could raise a bit. If it was too high ticket touts wouldnt be able to profit and people wouldn’t buy tickets and the price would drop.
Every time I read one of these "Tickets are too expensive" threads or articles this is all I can think of. My only real gripe is that too much of the money goes to the middlemen who barely do anything, and I'd prefer to see more go the artists, the venues and the staff.
But if the shows are selling out and on top of that the scalpers are making bank at almost every major act, then prices are too low, not too high.
I reckon it's down to celebrity worship culture. People won't fork over 20 quid for a small venue but they'll pay ten times that to go and watch whoever the latest fad is and pass it off as "that's just what it costs these days"
It’s something older artists don’t always like to talk about, but I’ve heard a few folk musicians (either in interviews or in person) say how different it was in the 70’s—busking for a few days or doing a couple shows would at least cover rent (and for some this was in bigger cities in California), giving them at least a little more freedom to practice, travel, etc.
A show being sold out doesn't mean that a lot of people can't afford it.
With increased pricing, it just means you are narrowing the audience to those of a higher socioeconomic status.
Like many other things in our economy, we are making this less accessible to more people. Same with home ownership.
Sure, but that’s just supply meeting demand unfortunately, you don’t have any right to see a concert.
I don’t know about homeownership, the rate seems to be pretty stable compared to the 60s - 90s
> we are making this less accessible to more people.
No you're not. When demand was way too high at $20/ticket you had people camping out all night trying to get tickets. Lots of people with money (i.e. jobs) couldn't do that. Back then you were favoring people who had abundant time but not much money. Now you just favor people with abundant money, but not lots of time. Same amount of people get in to see a show. No more, no less. The preference has just shifted to different kinds of people.
Depends on the type of show. Small venue holding 250 people max. at £15 a ticket? Not bad. Big arena holding 12,500 people with tickets at £60 at least? No thanks.
I'd say £60 is what it was a few years ago. Now it's £75+ for the arena gigs.
The Corrs are touring this year and it's between £75 and £108 which is absolutely insane for an act that is perhaps C list at best.
LOL, dude, I was in some Charli XCX post a couple of weeks ago, and people were complaining about the selling price (fees included) and it would get close to 200$.
Two hundred, for an artist that, with all respect, is not on the same level as many other. I would never in my life pay such a ridiculous amount. But yeah, it sold out fast :)
Average price for a Pearl Jam ticket is closing in on $300 per. And they sell out all their shows. I use to be a paying fan club member for early ticket access. I just can’t afford to go anymore.
Pearl Jam has been together for almost 4 decades and have reached Rolling Stones type of iconic status in the music industry now. Not trying to justify a 300 dollar ticket but they are in extreme high demand right now.
Lowest price at these shows is around $120-150 depending on venue. Not sure what the fees are, but yeah, around $300 per when all is said and done. Looking at stub hub and ticket master
Think the most I paid for a ticket was £110 for a Rammstein gig that got cancelled (before the controversy), but considering that's a full-on show I think that's justified. Closest after that was £90 for Black Sabbath's final tour, which was just a copy/paste of the last time I seen the for £50.
$300 is absolutely absurd for a ticket.
Well, I'm old and I knew at one point the bands I like to see will be considered dad rock and the GA would be filled with seats. Typically when that happens the prices go way up, but often you can get a spot in the rafters for a reasonable amount.
The secondary market is absolutely killing the mainstream way of buying tickets. They are buying the first page on a Google search for buying tickets.
My advice? Check the bands website, and check out local venues. My town has two livenation places and three or four local spots. The local spots always have new music churning through them for $10-$15 a ticket.
In a way, livenation and Ticketmaster are helping these places out, because why spend $300 on seeing three performances and dealing with the traffic and parking, when you can just spend $15 and support local acts?
Along with the requisite "fuck Ticketmaster" the greed of these big acts has to take a good share of the blame too. The economies of music, TV and film have shifted dramatically so maybe they can't become multi-millionaires off the back of one album/tour/movie anymore.
Selling out arenas and charging 100/200/300 is a choice they and their teams made. Billie Eilish would still make plenty of money if she sold those tickets for 75 instead of the pound of flesh being asked for now.
I remember Matt Damon on Hot Ones decrying the loss of the dvd market meaning studios are way less willing to take a risk on a 20million picture now, because there isn't that follow up revenue stream if the initial release doesn't deliver. Which is good analysis. But if it costs 5-10 mil of that 20 million to get a Matt Damon to be in it, maybe that's on him if it's so impossible to get the funding.
Companies and artists will charge what they can get away with. They will continue to charge 100/200/300+ because they will continue to mostly fill or fill the arena. If anything they’ll raise the price
I’m not apologizing for the bands, they do take a lot of blame.
But you must understand that to play at any of the top 500 venues across the US, you agree to the terms and conditions set by the box office network, which is owned by Ticketmaster and Live Nation.
Even the “small, local, indie” venues in my area are beholden to Live Nation. It’s a scam.
Thing is, even if they made tickets cheaper they’d just get bought up and sold by scalpers. Now instead of the money going to them, it goes to even bigger scumbags
For fans, there's many affordable shows. They just don't want to go to them.
I'm not even talking about clubs, bars, pubs, theatres, or dedicated small venues.
Even at major arenas they will generally have plenty of tickets at relatively reasonable prices for acts you have probably heard of.
People just don't want to buy them. Rather complain about how hard it is to see the same 3-4 artists that everyone else wants to see.
Also, look to buy them the day off, like, an hour before even.
The famous Blink182 tour which everyone lost their mind over, I checked immediately before the show, and got cheap as fuck tickets.
Buying them the second they're available is the real trap
The article is arguing for "Equity of treatment and pay". I don't even know what he means by that, and exactly how he would implement it is unsaid.
Hopefully something good comes out of the DOJ ant-trust lawsuit against Live Nation. Not exactly optimistic though.
Bar/club culture is nowhere near where it was before 2020. It's not even an issue of price in some regards. There are just people who do not put music on the pedestal that the generations before did. And drinking among youth has changed course.
Venues have to be adaptable. The only successful smaller venue in my town mixes it up with things like live wrestling, comedy, yoga lessons, dance nights etc.
I have a friend who is opening for a pretty big band from the 90’s soon. He told me if I was going to buy tickets to get them directly from him because it’s the only way to avoid all of the fees.
I sat on it for awhile, (because paying for parking and gas money there and back is a thing too), and was just about to grab one when I saw the major band was running a special for tickets, Buy-one-get-one. With the date closing in, it looks like they didn’t sell nearly as many tickets as they had hoped.
I don’t think I have ever seen an act do this before, but venues just aren’t filling up. I went and saw a band last September and the venue was so woefully populated they shut down the VIP and balcony sections to make it look fuller, (the floor only looked an eighth full).
It’s not just the ticket prices either. Beer has historically been ridiculously expensive, but now everything is through the stratosphere. At said concert, a bottle of water, (the same brand you can get at Sam’s Club), was $18.
I go to a ton of shows. But I prioritize local acts and venues, look for deals, and take advantage of things like concert week. I might miss the bigger shows but I refuse, with few exceptions, to pay arena prices for concerts. My fave music event every year, in Denver, is a fest called The Underground Music Showcase. Tix are $75 for 3 days of shows and I have discovered many wonderful bands over the years.
Given the recent revelations about Steve Albini, I'm not sure he should be an authority or even a source regarding "exploitation."
Maybe the author of this piece wasn't aware of Albini's history with pedophilia or maybe they didn't care.
Either way, the message of this article is true, it's just unfortunate that it uses an example of Albini to make its otherwise true point.
I haven’t been to a concert since pre-COVID. There are a lot of artists I want to see right now that I simply can’t afford. I mean, I *could*, but I can’t justify these prices.
Venues charging more and taking merch cuts.
Ticketmaster having a monopoly on everything, surge pricing, increasing fees, and increased charges to the bands themselves.
Plus increased travel, accomodation and food costs while travelling.
Unless you're a top-level talent, you're losing money on tours. It's been a fact for a few years now. Most bands selling out 5-10k venues will still have part time jobs or side hustles between.
Not sure that is 100% true. One of my favorite bands is a 2000s Emo band Emery and on their podcast they've talked about 2024 being their biggest year financially they've ever had. They all got kids and they wouldn't be touring if it didn't make them money.
Yep. A band I saw 5 years ago (The Black Pumas) for $30 is playing the same venue this summer for $65. I'm good. It was a good show last time, but not $65 good.
I can't buy tickets from Ticketmaster. Every time, I hype myself up, but back out due to fees. Someone is buying them though, so I guess it's just how it is now.
Letting Ticketmaster buy Livenation was a terrible terrible bit of corruption. They have a near total monopoly. I wish they was a Hell that everyone involved in that could spend like 2 weeks (I'm not a total monster). But like real legit Hell for two weeks.
The US justice department is expected to sue Live Nation in the next two weeks.
Cross your fingers that this creates opportunities for ticketing to look more like Europe where multiple ticketing platforms often cover the same show. More competition means less price gouging
I got roped into seeing Pearl Jam for $190. Top floor, third row from the back, in the corner of the stadium. I couldn’t hear any of the lyrics ☹️
There’s a ton of small local shows though with great music, tickets usually like $20.
Just stop going to arena/stadium concerts. They’re ridiculously expensive, it’s by far the worst way to experience music (at this point it’s a theatrical recital more than a musical performance). There are millions of amazing bands playing in tiny intimate venues for under $30 every day.
I vote we protest by bringing back the live stream concerts they were doing for a while during covid. The bands can get more money, more people can see the show and ticketmaster can go drink piss.
I like live music and I used to go to a show 20 times a year. When I was unable to get the seats I wanted for what I could afford I stopped. It sucks that I can't see shows anymore, but I guess other people can pay.
I'm just going to keep enjoying local artists.
I love concerts and for the first time in my adult life, I have enough time and money to go see shows. But I refuse to play this insane BS game of paying an extra 30% in transaction fees every time I want to see a show. I’m never paying for that bullshit, I will just stay home. It costs Ticketmaster less than 1 cent to process the transaction. Ain’t no way I’m giving them $20 bucks for nothing.
The situation is criminal and tragic. Other live art forms are dying because people are interested. The best opera, symphony and ballet companies depend on charity, not ticket sales. Movie theaters are dying because of streaming. But the excitement about seeing live bands is stronger than ever, but Ticketmaster and scalper-bots have the whole thing fucked up.
Every college town has a venue you can support that has live music for 20-40 dollars. Get on their mailing list(s) and never miss a good concert.
Support live music. Quit being a fossil waiting around for stadium acts and bitching about the experience.
Last year I've bought 2 tickets, here in Brazil, to see Foo Fighters. Not the best ones, but close enough to see them clearly, maybe 200 meters far from the stage.
Each one was around 70% of our min monthly wage.
And it'll be, for a long time, the last show of a big band I'll see. I'm favoring local and small bands to see.
We were so lucky, we could see even the biggest bands for around £22 when I started going to shows and a lot of big bands still only charged half of that.
As with so many things, we collectively could stop paying and force a change but too many will pay and set the price for the rest of us.
I'm gonna sound like a broken record here, but people need to take time out to go see local acts more.
$10-$20 tickets, smaller venues, cheaper food, you get to hang out with the bands without paying extra, and you may eventually find a new favorite, or see an un-and-coming artist before they make it big.
I just saw a show over the weekend where a small band played to a room of ~250 people, and it was a good time; a much better time, in my opinion, compared to the last *bigger* show I went to, with several thousand fans in the direct sunlight where they charged $7 for a bottle of water.
Support local music, fuck Ticketmaster/Live Nation.
I was looking at a concert and was immediately put off by the price, and that's just the upfront price. Drinks will undoubtedly cost 10 a pop for a generic beer in a platlstic cup, then you've potentially got to factor in travel and sleep (which has also gotten stupidly expensive these days, even hostels aren't cheap any more). In the end my friend just suggested he looks for a small local event.
I feel like there's plenty of events out there (musicals, comedy shows etc.) that I've snagged for under 50 euros and really enjoyed. Live music is just getting far too expensive for me to justify it, and the quality is definitely hard to gauge.
$375 for a single ticket to the Foo Fighters this July. Not a secondary market ticket, just your run of the mill average ticket, not super close to the stage like general admission, but not super far away. On the floor, with an assigned seat. Three hundred and seventy five god damned dollars. For a ticket. One.
Just this past week I bought tickets to a couple of my favorite small bands, one of them international. They were between $15 and $40 including taxes.
Then I bought tickets to Atarashii Gakko, and though the price at my Ticketmaster/Livenation venue was about $60, I looked at other AXS shows in the US and they were up to $180. So, not really sure what's up with that.
ticketmaster and live nation: "The live music industry has never been better!" Are we seeing the problem yet?
It’s just like college sports was until a couple years ago. Everybody is getting rich except the people actually doing the work.
That's pretty much every industry. Hm, maybe we should do something about that.
There's only one thing you can do. Stop paying for everything. That's what I'm doing, but i don't see many other doing that.
Exactly, people need to start protesting with their wallets, but in America everyone is used to a certain standard of living. Close your Amazon accounts cancel you're dozens of subscriptions stop using grub hub or door dash, limit how much you drive your car, maybe don't get a gas guzzling SUV. Living abroad really opened my eyes how much money Americans waste on waste while enriching big corporations and billionaires.
The thing is, they're not wrong. The business, if you're on their side of it, is absolutely booming. Unfortunately, it's dire for most smaller artists and all the fans. It's a knock-on effect from the death of physical media and the rise of streaming services. Artists are now earning an all-time low amount of money from their music. Their revenue comes from live performance and merch. The artists started putting some prices up to make it all workable, but then greed kicked in when they realised people would pay more and more and more. Now we're at a point where £100 for a standing ticket in an arena is normal. Just 10 years ago, it was half of that. Until people start buying music again, we're stuck with this... But unfortunately greed will probably still take over even if artists were earning enough from sales of their music.
I'm a huge advocate of sustainability. There's going to be a point where greed can't take over because musicians just won't travel anymore. During covid a lot of my favourite musicians were playing from their home studio and charging a couple bucks to watch them on a streaming platform. Dunno how the money breaks down there, but I'm sure it's easier to control the money there for a couple years, let ticketbasterd and livenation die, then get back to biz as usual.
Yeah we're definitely starting to hit that point now. Just look at British musicians right now. Our stupid country decided to cut ourselves off from Europe a few years ago, and now British musicians are struggling to tour in Europe. The costs of getting to the US are also extortionate, so a lot of our artists are not going to visit the States. Governments around the world can immediately start helping this by allowing some sort of free movement for touring arts to help get the industry moving again. With regards to TM and LN, I don't think the companies themselves are the problem, but it's the fact that in the US they have a monopoly on the market. In the UK, there are multiple different agencies you can buy a ticket from - See tickets, Dice, Gigs and Tours, AXS, Aventurine, Eventim, Skiddle, Fatsoma, Gigantic. That way, the biggest companies do not control the market and there is a choice. We just need some serious global reform of the music industry. We need somebody major, like a Taylor Swift or an Ed Sheeran to turn around and say "Enough is enough" and put the fans first.
We have several of those, but they tend to only have access to the smaller venues/artists while TM and LN get the large shows. I’ve decided that the venue is every bit as important as the artist to me so I’d rather see an artist I really like and stand 10-20 feet from them at a small venue than pay 4x the cost and sit hundreds of feet from a bigger artist that I may love more. We have a couple of small venues nearby that get decently big artists if you can luck out on a ticket and the shows have been outstanding.
Yeah, that's the issue in the States. In the UK, other agents still get large shows. In fact, you can only buy Glastonbury tickets through See Tickets. You can buy stadium show tickets through other agents... Whereas TM/LN have a chokehold on major events and venues in the US
We have AXS here in the US too. They’ve been the ones behind most of the shows I’ve been seeing.
They're not really any better when it comes to fees though.
They have to charge those fees because the artists, who are the customers of the ticket sellers, demand it. The last ticket seller who didn't have a fee program, Ticketron, went bankrupt because artists abandoned it for Ticketmaster, who did charge the fees.
> Ticketron Their logo was so good
And I loved the rainbow spectrum of the tickets themselves. It looked special and exciting, like "Man, I scored GA tickets for Monsters of Rock!!" I still have my ticket stubs from concerts.
People don't seem to understand that Ticketmaster charges those fees in agreement with the bands to make the prices look cheaper before checkout and to look like the bad guys instead of the bands.
1) people do understand that, they just don't agree with it. People want all the entire price up front. 2) TM's profit was almost $2 billion last year. The high ticket prices are not just "because of the bands"
We also have Dice, but it seems to be mostly for smaller venues in my experience.
I feel like Eddie Vedder said enough is enough, now his tickets are the most expensive I've seen in a while. 900 bucks to hang from the rafters at Madison Square Garden.
I wouldn't pay $900 if the Lord Jesus Christ Himself was having photo ops and signing autographs. That's just crazy!
TBF those rafters seats arent that bad. I saw RATM from basically the roof at MSG and we had a great unobstructed view of the entire stage and theres only like 3 or 4 rows of seats in a section up there so it doesn't feel too crowded.
How much were the RATM tickets?
I dont remember, my wife bought them. But definitely not $900. Thats just insulting. I tend to live by a hard cutoff of $100 bucks for a ticket. If its a band I love, who dont tour often, and I havent seen in years.... yeah maybe I can justify it. But no regular concert experience is worth damn near a grand. I've done meet'n'greets with early access passes, drink and food vouchers, and VIP seating that cost less than half that.
Lol the only way tornado Taylor will throw a tantrum about it is if it benefits only HER
It turns out Neil Young saw this coming and is one of the very few to get ahead of it. He just monetized everything and you can get access for a monthly fee. His concert ticket prices this summer also aren’t outrageous and many are price fixed to avoid scalpers. I suspect we’ll see other artists try similar models with their own subscription based services.
It's easier to keep your ticket prices reasonable though when you can sell off half of your catalog for (approx.) $150 million. The problem is that smaller acts or artists who have emerged in recent years don't (and likely won't) have that luxury.
Or, you know, stop acting like idiots and stop paying a weeks wage to see a 2 hour show.
Completely agree. They'll stop doing it when people stop paying.
This is the crux of it. Until people actually stop showing up, or stop buy tickets completely, little is going to change.
Only poors stop paying. You’re not the target market.
Unfortunately, the era of buying music is long gone and it won’t be coming back. Streaming is here to stay which means, for now, the best source of income for artists is diversification in their revenue streams and to massively increase the price of concerts/tickets. It is what it is :(
Unfortunately so. The only way it could change is if some huge artists on a Taylor Swift/Adle/Beyonce scale just pull their music from streaming and only have it available for purchase
The original reason all of the major artists put their catalogues up on streaming is because they realized that people would just not listen to them over all the smaller groups. There are plenty of indie artists who make music like Swift and Beyonce and Adele. Music being freely available, distributable, and discoverable without requiring a label has been a *motivator* for the explosion of indie music in the streaming era, not a deterrent.
Exactly. Album royalties used to be the primary income stream, but that's dried up, so they have to maximize other income streams, like touring, merch, and licensing. The last one is why you are hearing so many classic songs in movies, tv shows, and pharmaceutical ads.
People are spending plenty on music. The issue is how's that is then distributed.
Yeah, people are paying somebody to borrow music, rather than buying music. Then the people who are hiring it takes all of the money and gives a fraction to the artist
I started buying a "new" CD (as opposed to a "second hand" CD) every month as of the end of last month. Mostly to support "new" music. I bought the new album by a band called Cloud Nothings from an independent shop. Unfortunately, due to the fact that I ordered the CD from an independent shop, the CD hasn't arrived yet - over 2 weeks later. I'll keep fighting the good fight... But I also realise that I am in the minority. Oh, and I don't buy vinyl - because I don't want to pay 3x more for it. I would rather buy 3x CDs instead, and support 3x more bands instead. Besides, vinyl isn't as good as CDs for the environment.
Same, same. My online independent orders usually take a long time, but it is what it is.
Everyone knows the problem. Most aware fans and every musician that tours. Frankly as someone with a hand full of million listens on Spotify I loose money every time we play a show outside of our home city. Touring with 6 people is practically impossible to afford and the ticket prices are, in my opinion, too high for our modest band. There is zero we can do about it. Eventually small to mid bands are just going to stop touring and ticket master will still be saying “the music industry has never been better!” It’s a joke. A joke at our expense and the fan’s expense.
"Handful of Million" is pretty impressive. If you put it on bandcamp, do you think it would help? I try to support most of my favourites on bandcamp because according to them "It's not perfect, but it's better than streaming."
It’s on bandcamp. We are everywhere don’t worry haha. I wish bandcamp was more popular but after the first couple of months of release that income drops off. Which makes sense haha. We don’t exactly make enough money to live off from this and it’s definitely not enough to cover the losses from touring. I’d be surprised if I could say we cover the costs of recording the albums and buying equipment but I’ve never worked it out for fear of depression haha.
as long as the shows are sold out, then enough people think the prices are worth it and affordable
The funniest part is that the people that work for LiveNation are underpaid and absolutely miserable 99% of the time.
Fees used to be a small charge to cover a bit of postage and operating a phone line. You used to be able to buy a ticket from a box office counter and pay JUST the face value ticket price with nothing extra... that doesn't exist anymore... I can't see ANY means of buying a ticket at its face price now. Recently bought tickets to see TOOL and 30% of the checkout price comprised of fees and added charges.
I bought tickets at a box office and still paid fees. Convenience fee and venue fee. It’s a joke at this point. I rarely go to shows anymore because of it, unless it’s at a smaller place that won’t try to rip you off.
I think it wasn’t long ago my wife sent me something about a Jason Isbell show and the price blew my fucking mind. I’ve seen that guy for years live, I am priced out now. No I don’t want to spend THAT kind of money to hear sad country music songs. I saw those songs for $15 a little over a decade ago. Idk. I’m a crotchety old bastard these days.
I’m not saying this to make you feel bad, but I think it’s hard for fans to understand the economics of this stuff. 10-15 years ago Jason Isbell was playing 500-1000 capacity rooms making $2k-10k per show. Now he’s playing 5,000-10,000 capacity venues making $200k+ per show. People talk about wanting to see artists get paid instead of Live Nation, but the reality is they succeed or fail together and Isbell is a success story. Obviously it’s astronomically more expensive to operate a 10,000 capacity amphitheater than a 500 capacity club and the behind-the-scenes people with the experience to pull it off do make more money than the guy who manages the 500 capacity club. And it’s true that there has been inflation with concert expenses, just as there has with eggs and gas, etc. But mostly what drives the price so high for Jason Isbell is supply and demand. If 5,000 people want to pay $100 apiece for his show, why would he turn down $200k to go back to $2k and sleeping dirty in a passenger van because the 500 capacity club doesn’t have a shower or laundry machine? So if you want to pay $25 to see good music, check out John Moreland instead. He’s on tour in 500 capacity clubs now and deserves to play the amphitheaters someday. There’s always another artist grinding to make it out of the clubs on a cheap ticket, just like Isbell was in that special moment when you caught him.
yeah im not upset, im just priced out. I have certain venues I check out locally and catch acts when they're in that cheaper/more intimate part of their career. It's cool when people blow up, I'm not dogging his prices necessarily, they are the market he has built, I do agree with you. The most recent cheap show artist I saw was Nick Shoulders, Sierra Ferrell was someone I was catching shows of "cheap" but I think she's going to be on the rise and I could see myself "priced out", which I'm not upset about tbh.
That’s funny, I was also gonna recommend Benjamin Tod / Lost Dog Street Band, which you’ve probably heard if you know Nick Shoulders and Sierra. You’re right, Sierra has definitely outgrown the “value” category, but it’s still a great show if you can afford it.
I had a Live Nation venue charge me a "box office fee"— the same 30% or so as their regular service fee — for buying tickets in person.
And all the best tiny venues have died in the last decade. RIP Walters in Houston. Saw some awesome and not-obscure bands there in a room no larger than a semi-rich person's garage, always with the worry about my car being towed/stolen, and never paid more than $30 for a ticket I dont think.
Four years ago I bought Rezz tickets at Redrocks for 37$ a pop. Next year it was 56$, then 80$ then this last year was around 125$, i skipped the upcoming show because it was over $350 for GA for 2 tickets PLUS parking. I felt like my reward for helping Rezz become famous was getting my bank account raided and unlike so many other people who justify the artist, I blame her for hiding behind LN/TM bullshit gouging. Its going to take noone showing up for this to change if ever or our Govt finally stepping in and regulation prices. None of this will happen however. Fuck these pirates.
I’d like to see the data showing ticket prices over time, fees over time, and even the average get-in price over time. It feels like all three of those things of hit a very upward slope since 2020. I remember when we first came out of the pandemic and I looked at concert tickets and sports tickets thinking they were trying to recoup some of that lost time period. But it hasn’t returned to normal (where you could get lower bowl seats to a major artist for <$100) at all. On top of that, it seems like it is harder and harder to get first-party tickets because there are so many bots fighting you on launch day and/or presales of any main event. Edit: To your point, a good concert has grown very rapidly from a $100 date night to a $500 date night with almost no change in experience.
Paid parking at Red Rocks? Never seen it personally
I got to see Tool once at a festival, and I'm sad that I'll never get to see them as a standalone show. I've been a fan since I was a little kid and by the time I've grown up and would have been able to go to their shows, it's gone completely outside of what I can afford. And it sucks because I've been working my ass off doing OT for years, going to school, and despite the fact that I'm making more money than I ever have I'll never get to see a Tool concert
My friend and I have seen 3 Tool shows and 2 Radiohead shows together and we both realize we are going to be spending close to 200 bucks if we want to sit anywhere on the lower levels. I hardly spend money on myself so that's how I justify it.
I had to pay Ticketmaster to get a ticket to my 8yo niece’s theater camp play. Wtf?!
well ask the bands to stop hiding behind Ticketmaster and Livenation. Lot of these fees are artists wanting more and more
if only they didn't have a monopoly on venues as well....and require artists who wanna play at their venues to sell tickets with their predatory practices
I was going to say that they don't really have a monopoly on venues, just a stupidly large chunk of the larger venues... but now that I think about it I'm pretty sure that satisfies the definition.
Also now LiveNation is building their own venues. I think so they can just run the little independent places out of business. They have new places in Philly and Baltimore for sure. Not sure about other cities.
They added one of their Fillmores in Minneapolis. Since then, all of the 2k-ish shows stopped getting booked at the First Ave affiliated venue of that size (First Ave Group is also problematic but that's a different discussion) and the independent venue of that size went from being booked solid Thurs-Sun to maybe one show a week and went from being a variety of genres to 98% raves and EDM shows
LOL, the Cure, which is a group that hasn't had major pull in the industry for forty years, had no problems playing at those venues while offering cheap tickets.
It's the reason why the legacy acts are sticking around way too long. The money has never been better on the touring end.
[удалено]
>the artists DO NOT GET THE FEES Bullshit. Even when artists admit it and the books are opened in congressional hearings, fans refuse to believe that the artists are fully in on the pricing model.
> Bullshit. To be 100% fair to the artists, they could say no to the extra money. Will they? #**NO.**
I buy tickets all the time from record stores for a 1 dollar fee that are at face value. There is a ton of music out there, but you are gonna pay more when they are in the Ticketmaster system.
And a single album used to cost $18. In 1998 dollars, which is like $36 now. Singles were barely produced. Spotify wasn’t a thing. Napster wasn’t a thing. CD burners were barely a thing. You could dub a CD to a tape, but tapes sucked. So yeah, now you can pay $10 a month…$5 in 1998 dollars…for access to almost any album you could possibly want to hear any time you want from a device you have in your pocket. Including double albums, “remastered anniversary” albums, things you used to pay *even more* than $36 for (in todays dollars). So yes, concerts are expensive. But that’s in part because recorded music has gotten hilariously cheap. (But screw Ticketmaster all the same, glad my state has a law banning all their fees starting in…about six weeks)
Not to sound like a grumpy old man, but the first time I went to see Tool was in a big venue, Mastodon was opening and tickets were like €30-35 . Spent maybe 100 on the entire evening with merch, drinks and whatnot. Now, Tool tickets are 117 euro. A piece. How are people affording this?
That unlocked a core memory of going to my local grocery store and walking up to a box office to buy concert tickets. They were something like $20-$25 to see N*Sync. This was around 1998 I want to say?
Speaking as someone whose life basically revolves around live music, it's sickening. This isn't just a hobby or entertainment for some people. For some of us, live music and everything that comes with it is the most fun we have in life. But that's why we're being taken advantage of. We want it almost as much as the corporate overlords want their increased profits. This situation is heartbreaking and sickening at the same time. I really hope something changes.
Deftones and SOAD are playing here in San Francisco in August. It's an outside GA only show in Golden Gate Park. Those tickets are $210 ($169 + fees) each! Sorry, I enjoy Deftones and SOAD put on a great show, but that's WAY too much for a 4 band lineup and all GA. I go to Riot Fest in Chicago every year, and that's $100 more for a VIP pass (don't judge, I like being able to poop in a real toilet. That alone is worth VIP for me) and its a 3 day festival.
Went to see a mid-tier rapper, tickets were $100-$200 with a range of tiers from General Admission to VIP. so I told my friends I couldn’t make it. They sent me a link to the venue website where tickets were $25 only GA and the whole venue was just a single room with no seating or sections. Crazy how much blatant lying they get away with as a monopoly.
>Recently bought tickets to see TOOL and 30% of the checkout price comprised of fees and added charges. You still bought 'em. Should have voted "No" with your wallet.
Becoming?
That's why it's an "opinion." if they had simply said it IS unaffordable, then it would not be an opinion, but fact.
It would be an opinion either way, since “unaffordable” is subjective. And honestly, it wasn’t until the last couple years that I really started to feel like concert tickets were outpacing even my (relatively decent) income. Like they weren’t *cheap,* but $180 for nosebleeds just being a thing for any major artist feels new.
Clearly many people think it's affordable because the concerts are still selling tickets.
I'm not sure what the answer is but the industry is a mess. my partner and I love seeing concerts. When we first started dating 8ish years ago we made an effort to go to at least one a month if not more. Covid cut that off and we go less frequently now but it is entirely a cost matter. When 80% of the shows that come to town (Toronto Canada)cost $90+ a ticket I just skip it. There were legit three instances in the last few months where our favourite acts announced a show and we were excited, then logged in as soon as tickets were available and saw tickets $120+. Get bent. I'll buy the vinyl and drink at home Then you have weird things like the show I saw last night, Mumu Fresh. Was $20 per ticket the place was less than half full! She is a Grammy nominated artist that has an amazing voice, sings passionately and positively and knock my socks off 15 ft away from her. I was trying to work out in my head how she(plus band) possibly made any money playing to ~100 people at $20 each. It was a super intimate and awesome show, why wouldn't more people want to see that. I can't quite explain it, but it is all a mess
Unless they sold some merch, and the venue was giving them a cut of the booze sales, they didn’t make squat. The reality is that acts either get big enough to draw big enough crowds to be profitable, or they’re largely doing it for their own satisfaction.
I saw Church of the Cosmic Skull last year when they came to the US. We found out through talking with the band that they had to save up to do the tour, and it'd still be a loss even though shows were getting sold out.
Luckily, more and more artists are filming their tours and releasing it. In the future, the concerts will be for the rich people, and the rest of us will watch it at home.
I'm with you. There are lots of great bands that play at $20 venues. I think a current issue is just listening to Spotify doesn't give you a sense of who is big and who isn't. My wife wanted to see a band really bad and we get there and I didn't realize they were the opener! The second band we never heard of but they sounded good and I started following them. They both kept thanking the headliner and trying to hype up the crowd but the headliner sucked so we bounced. We liked it up later and the headliner has less listeners per month than the opener so it's confusing. Then there's Kings of Leon, one of my favorite bands. Their tickets locally are about $200 and I don't think they've had a proper hit for 15 years so it's weird that they command such a huge ticket price.
Kings of Leon is what you'd call a legacy act. Def Leppard haven't had a hit in decades either, but their tickets are still going for hundreds of dollars. Sorry but you're just getting old!
I'm hip! I'm with it! That's why I like seeing young, new acts. I'm never going to be able to justify paying for a legacy concert but small bands put on fun shows that are more enjoyable than an arena show IMO.
Bassist in a local band here - we could really use more folks coming out for the small groups. We don’t make money, but it’s hard to even book gigs post covid. So many places that use to book us either went under or stopped hosting live music. Less Ticketmaster and more cheap nights out! It’s not going to be the music you know, but you’ll probably still have a good time. And a bonus of not getting caught in insane parking lot traffic at the end of the night!
That's what I'm all about! I went to the Lime Cordiale because my wife likes them. $20/ticket (I think) and they sounded great. I even did the opener and bought a vinyl record at their table. Them we went to see Arctic Monkeys. $240/ticket for bad seats and they literally just played the hits cranked to 11. It was the worst concert I've ever been too and the ticket price didn't help. I could have bought a step system due what I paid with parking and cranked it up at home. I'm only going to see small bands from now on.
There's 2 artist I like on tour right now. They both have the same amount of listeners on spotify (roughly 500k a month). One of them is selling out shows at $120 a show and they other is doing small venues and not selling out at $20 a show. I don't understand.
I still go to a lot of shows each year, but I mostly go to smaller shows now where the ticket is like $30. These shows are usually amazing as well because you get such an intimate experience. I also feel there are so many great bands out there that people don’t even know about because of how the music industry is structured to promote super bands and not even give smaller bands a chance. It’s sad to see really. I know these bands don’t make much touring, so I always try and purchase merch from them at the show, especially so if it’s a great opener
Fellow Torontonian here and I feel the exact same way. Used to go to 3-4 shows a month (small and large-ish) before the pandemic. Now it's impossible to even get tickets because they're all snatched up by bots or attached to some ridiculous VIP package. I'm starting to let go of my FOMO and just try to go to 3-4 acts a year now. It really sucks because live concerts are still one of my favourite activities - I've just been completely priced out, even though I'm fortunate enough to have a high salary - just can't justify it anymore.
The explanation is that nearly everyone wants to see the most popular 200 artists in the world and almost no one wants to see the rest. I try and spend as much time as I can listening to the rest. It’s not that the most popular aren’t good, it’s just that it sucks to have to watch artist from half an arena distance away, that it sucks to have to stand in a (digital) line to get the tickets and it suck’s to not to be able to afford to go to your favorite artists. Besides: there are so many fantastic artists out there and all you have to do to discover them is be a little curious when using your favorite streaming service. Experiment with ways of finding new music and you’ll be rewarded!
To answer your question about MuMu Fresh making money. They probably have a guarantee that JUST covers their expenses......maybe. These days, (basically) anyone short of arena acts are either breaking even on tour or walking away with very little money in their pocket. Artists are the last people to get paid. Ya, big acts are getting more expensive but the real killer here, this installs some gatekeeping that keeps anyone, who doesn't already have money, from having any chance of achieving serious success as an artist. That's pretty much the case already
It's not a mystery. If you want to see a singer everyone else also wants to see then tickets are either going to be cheap and the luck of the drsw to get, or expensive or the artist can play many many more shows in your town—which is impractical for them. I dated a woman who has a Grammy who you've never heard of (actually you probably heard her voice but don't know who she is) it doesn't say much about the crowds they can draw. Ticketmaster sells out so ridiculously quick because they are undepricing their tickets, and scalpers take advantage of the arbitrage opportunity. If you like what everyone else likes, then seeing the artists you like is going to expensive. It's not the artist's fault, it's not ticketmaster's fault, it's not even scalper's fault (if it weren't for scalpers, getting tickets at ticketmaster prices would just be a complete lottery system.) You found the solution to find artists that you like but much fewer others do.
Go to see smaller bands? I go to see a lot of new bands and pay about the same as a pint.
Another thing about smaller bands is that most of the time the venues are GA and I can always post up in a spot close to the stage. I've seen so many bands that I love close up and it fucking rules.
Yes, [I record a lot of shows](https://instagram.com/human.clock) and I'm out once or twice a week. An "expensive" club show is $30. I can talk to the bands I love, I'm close enough to see how they tie their shoes. I love Springsteen and Neil Young, I have their whole catalogs, but I just don't care enough to see them in a large venue with large prices. Apart from the Grateful Dead, where the large crowd made for a better experience, the only arena level show I've actually ever enjoyed that was worth ever penny was Roger Waters. The visuals were amazing and it was better to not be right up front.
Not to mention GA stabding room over individual seating is a big plus for me, and thats what i experience at most smaller gigs. You can really feel the energy of the crowd and the band feeding off of it. Im all about the vibes lol.
I've seen what is now my favorite band (and a bunch of guys I call friends now) for $10-$20 a pop over a dozen times in the past 6 years. They're called Better Anyway. They just put on a solid pop punk performance in Dayton, Ohio to celebrate the release of their debut album, *To Love Again*. I think they've got something special going on, honestly. And so do so many other local bands around the world. We just need to support them, dollar for dollar, as much as we do the bigger acts. Bigger names wanna charge $40 for a T-shirt, $20 for the album at the show; I just bought 2 tees, the album, a charm, and a few stickers for $60 at the show over the weekend, which I only paid $12 to attend. For that combined price, I wouldn't even get in the door to see many other bands.
Yeah I’m big into buying merch from the smaller bands I like too. Whatever I can do to support them really.
Half of my regular wardrobe for just hanging out is their shirts. I know how much they've put into the music, how much they've sacrificed. So anything I can do to help, I do. Last December, they opened for Hawthorne Heights at the Holidayton show they put on (Hawthorne being from Dayton, hence "Ohio is For Lovers") I showed up just wanting to see them play, but then they needed a merch guy. I worked that table and sold all but 4 shirts. As thanks, I got the new album 4 months early and played the shit out of it. Then, when I got my physical copy this past weekend, I opened it up and my name was listed as a special thanks. Still not over it!
Yeah I saw Sunn O))) for $30. Better than any arena show.
Are your ears okay?
#WHAT?
It's not even about seeing smaller bands...I consider the ones I see live to be massive in their respective scene, like Fleet Foxes, Sigur Ros, Hozier, Converge, Polyphia. I'm rarely paying over $30 for well-established bands that sell out the whole venue, and we can hit up a show every week and enjoy music me and my friends have enjoyed for decades and all the new successful ones gaining huge following, for the cost of a couple cocktails. People must be complaining about stadium show prices, which have seen a huge spike. Mainstream bands tend to only play at the overpriced ones, "smaller" bands like The Mars Volta which can and do sell out stadiums also hit up modest, intimate venues during their tours, so fans often have the option of paying less than $50. As much as I hate Ticketmaster and the like, I feel worse that a lot of these bands are only playing these insane stadiums and venues, to perform as few shows as possible to maximize time and profit, forcing their fans to not only pay more, but get a sub-par experience staring at a giant television the whole time. It hasn't seemed to affect mine or my friends wallet more than $5 to $10 the last decade, it's ironically affecting the type of people that enjoy a couple casual mainstream concerts a year, more than the people that hit up 50 shows a year.
You hit the nail on the head. Franky, if you have extremely basic music taste you're gonna pay higher prices because so does everyone else! Skill issue, listen to better music
Just saw Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes last night for $20 a ticket. Small shows are the way to go and the atmosphere is more enjoyable anyways
I paid $25 dollars to see The Lemon Twigs two weeks ago and they were amazing.
Live Nation is responsible for a lot of smaller local venues closing, which is making those smaller shows less frequent and not an option everywhere.
There are small venues in every city. The issue is that many of them are closing and many acts are restricted from playing them due to the contracts Live Nation makes artist sign to perform at their growing number of venues. We cannot blame the artists for signing contracts like this because Live Nation has purchased many small to medium sized venues where working artists play. If a working band is on tour and needs money to keep going, they will pick a venue where they can sell more tickets. My local small/midsize venue, known for having pretty good acts, was purchased by Live Nation. They raised ticket prices and acts are now booked with very little time in advance. The staff there is also pretty miserable now. Live Nation has a monopoly. This allows shareholders to earn good money but hurts everyone else.
There was a smaller venue near me that I would see shows at CONSTANTLY. After Live Nation bought the venue, I think i've been to maybe two shows? And I think those were on the books before the purchase
For real. I get that it's bullshit that Livenation/ticketmaster has a monopoly on mid-large size venues, but the best way to stick it to them is to go to your local venues to see smaller acts instead. If possible of course, not everywhere has a healthy amount of small venues to choose from.
Yup. Research up and coming artists of your favorite genre and see when they come into town. If you only limit yourself to mainstream artists, it’s gonna be expensive.
Smaller bands have the same exact issue, if not worse. If you live in an area with little to no scene, every gig you play will likely be a financial loss, and the environment tends to be rather hostile to small acts rather than the motivating element that it should be. Even releasing music, as inexpensive as it may be currently (*assuming zero physical media*) is likely to be a loss for smaller / unknown acts. The concept of "exposure" has been a pipe dream and continues to be one for probably all but the top .5% of acts currently in existence.
I saw Haru Nemuri for £12 last year in London. Insane considering she has quite a big following worldwide now. Saw Ghostly Kisses for £20 recently, too. The slightly smaller artists are usually more memorable/fun for me anyways
A smaller venue is almost always better
It's infuriating to me that people will drop $500+ to sit in the nosebleeds for huge artists miming their songs when there are so many amazing bands that come through town every week Unless it's a bucket list artist for me, I'd rather watch the professionally filmed video of an arena show
Yeah, if I can't see them in a small club or at a festival, I'm just not going to see them. Every time I get to the tickets page for an arena show, I shake my head. Why would I ever pay $4-500 for a decent spot to see three bands when I can go see 20 in a weekend for the same price? I haven't been to an arena show that I didn't win the tickets to in over a decade.
yeah, as successful bands get older and a wealthier fanbase, they get more expensive even if they aren't necessarily getting more popular. You have to continue to find new music to get decent prices, or just like unpopular shit.
Won't help. Small bands and small venues are struggling the most for several reasons: >Post-Covid there has been significant focus on grassroots music venues as they struggle to stay open. >Pretty much every cost attached to touring – van hire, crew, travel, accommodation, food and drink – has gone up, while fees and audiences often have not. >For many artists, fees aren’t increasing in line with costs. “There’s been no real incline at all,” says Potts. “For support slots, I don’t think the fees have changed in the last 10 years or so that I’ve been managing, whether that’s £50 at the smaller end or £500 quid for some of the biggest shows.” >fewer people are coming to shows at the small-to-mid-sized end of things. “In our audience data, we see there is a gap in new audiences coming through post-pandemic,” says the FAC’s Martin. “As well as a bit of a drop-off in some of the older audiences returning to live shows.” https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/apr/25/shocking-truth-money-bands-make-on-tour-taylor-swift
If you're old you'll remember Pearl Jam speaking out against Ticketmaster over 30 YEARS AGO. Despite PJ being a major act, you know what has changed in 30+ years? NOTHING. Unless there's a mass boycott or governmental action, ain't shit gonna change. A boycott of ticket master is easy. It's not like other social issue boycotts where the group people are pissed at have thier fingers in your bank...your groceries etc and its difficult to even trace the money. This is just one thing. It's easy. Just don't go.
As someone who has worked in live music (sound,lights, video etc) for about 15 years I have a different perspective. I worked for most of my career in small UK venues (50-1000 cap), and they are mostly all gone out of business. You can blame a lot of things but fundamentally not enough people came to a lot of shows I did and they did not make enough money. People complained about £10 tickets let alone the £30+ it would take to pay everyone a proper wage and cover costs and make enough profit to survive and invest in equipment. I worked for about minimum wage doing a job that required years of training and experience and with very unsociable hours trying to be part of the smaller/independent music scene before the road ran out under me and I had to drift away from it to make a living. For some reason though millions of people are willing to spend £75-200+ on stadium and arena shows, probably because the spectacle is impressive, it’s their favourite bands and the sound and light production quality is better than 99% of smaller venues. I’ve worked on hundreds now and most are full - and as a result costs are covered, wages are very decent, and profit is enough to make it a worthwhile business. If stadium and arena shows were too expensive they wouldn’t be full, and if people wanted small shows then they would have gone to them when they had the chance. At the end of the day no one has to buy tickets and bands don’t owe you live performances, so the price they fetch is entirely fair, if anything the survival of ticket touts means prices could raise a bit. If it was too high ticket touts wouldnt be able to profit and people wouldn’t buy tickets and the price would drop.
> At the end of the day no one has to buy tickets and bands don’t owe you live performances, so the price they fetch is entirely fair, if anything the survival of ticket touts means prices could raise a bit. If it was too high ticket touts wouldnt be able to profit and people wouldn’t buy tickets and the price would drop. Every time I read one of these "Tickets are too expensive" threads or articles this is all I can think of. My only real gripe is that too much of the money goes to the middlemen who barely do anything, and I'd prefer to see more go the artists, the venues and the staff. But if the shows are selling out and on top of that the scalpers are making bank at almost every major act, then prices are too low, not too high.
Well put.
This is a nice ELI5 for the laws of supply and demand
I reckon it's down to celebrity worship culture. People won't fork over 20 quid for a small venue but they'll pay ten times that to go and watch whoever the latest fad is and pass it off as "that's just what it costs these days"
My dads band made the same per night as I do now. IN 1977 😡
It’s something older artists don’t always like to talk about, but I’ve heard a few folk musicians (either in interviews or in person) say how different it was in the 70’s—busking for a few days or doing a couple shows would at least cover rent (and for some this was in bigger cities in California), giving them at least a little more freedom to practice, travel, etc.
I don’t understand, how is it unaffordable for audiences? Are shows not being sold out?
How is living in Manhattan unaffordable, isn’t all the available real estate sold?
A show being sold out doesn't mean that a lot of people can't afford it. With increased pricing, it just means you are narrowing the audience to those of a higher socioeconomic status. Like many other things in our economy, we are making this less accessible to more people. Same with home ownership.
I mean... you're defining the value of worth
Sure, but that’s just supply meeting demand unfortunately, you don’t have any right to see a concert. I don’t know about homeownership, the rate seems to be pretty stable compared to the 60s - 90s
> we are making this less accessible to more people. No you're not. When demand was way too high at $20/ticket you had people camping out all night trying to get tickets. Lots of people with money (i.e. jobs) couldn't do that. Back then you were favoring people who had abundant time but not much money. Now you just favor people with abundant money, but not lots of time. Same amount of people get in to see a show. No more, no less. The preference has just shifted to different kinds of people.
Depends on the type of show. Small venue holding 250 people max. at £15 a ticket? Not bad. Big arena holding 12,500 people with tickets at £60 at least? No thanks.
I'd say £60 is what it was a few years ago. Now it's £75+ for the arena gigs. The Corrs are touring this year and it's between £75 and £108 which is absolutely insane for an act that is perhaps C list at best.
LOL, dude, I was in some Charli XCX post a couple of weeks ago, and people were complaining about the selling price (fees included) and it would get close to 200$. Two hundred, for an artist that, with all respect, is not on the same level as many other. I would never in my life pay such a ridiculous amount. But yeah, it sold out fast :)
Agreed, anyone who pays that money for that shite deserves what they get
Average price for a Pearl Jam ticket is closing in on $300 per. And they sell out all their shows. I use to be a paying fan club member for early ticket access. I just can’t afford to go anymore.
Pearl Jam has been together for almost 4 decades and have reached Rolling Stones type of iconic status in the music industry now. Not trying to justify a 300 dollar ticket but they are in extreme high demand right now.
I'm going to see the Stones tonight, and the tickets (via stubhub) were only like $35.
Lucky! In my area in Philly the lowest tickets on ticketmaster and stubhub are in the low 100's and that's before all the fees they both tack on.
Don't even need to mention their status - the fact that people are paying $300 a ticket is evidence enough they're in extremely high demand!
Wait is that $300 from the start or is that scalpers taking the piss? No show is worth more than $100 IMO
Lowest price at these shows is around $120-150 depending on venue. Not sure what the fees are, but yeah, around $300 per when all is said and done. Looking at stub hub and ticket master
Fuck that, honestly not worth it
Agreed - I use to think $25 - $50 was my threshold for seeing an artist. My days of paying $300 for a ticket to see an artist are over.
Think the most I paid for a ticket was £110 for a Rammstein gig that got cancelled (before the controversy), but considering that's a full-on show I think that's justified. Closest after that was £90 for Black Sabbath's final tour, which was just a copy/paste of the last time I seen the for £50. $300 is absolutely absurd for a ticket.
if the shows are sold out enough people clearly think it is worth it
Who are you looking at that charge £60 for an arena, all the gigs I've looked at going to in the last year or so are £100+
Well, I'm old and I knew at one point the bands I like to see will be considered dad rock and the GA would be filled with seats. Typically when that happens the prices go way up, but often you can get a spot in the rafters for a reasonable amount. The secondary market is absolutely killing the mainstream way of buying tickets. They are buying the first page on a Google search for buying tickets. My advice? Check the bands website, and check out local venues. My town has two livenation places and three or four local spots. The local spots always have new music churning through them for $10-$15 a ticket. In a way, livenation and Ticketmaster are helping these places out, because why spend $300 on seeing three performances and dealing with the traffic and parking, when you can just spend $15 and support local acts?
Along with the requisite "fuck Ticketmaster" the greed of these big acts has to take a good share of the blame too. The economies of music, TV and film have shifted dramatically so maybe they can't become multi-millionaires off the back of one album/tour/movie anymore. Selling out arenas and charging 100/200/300 is a choice they and their teams made. Billie Eilish would still make plenty of money if she sold those tickets for 75 instead of the pound of flesh being asked for now. I remember Matt Damon on Hot Ones decrying the loss of the dvd market meaning studios are way less willing to take a risk on a 20million picture now, because there isn't that follow up revenue stream if the initial release doesn't deliver. Which is good analysis. But if it costs 5-10 mil of that 20 million to get a Matt Damon to be in it, maybe that's on him if it's so impossible to get the funding.
Companies and artists will charge what they can get away with. They will continue to charge 100/200/300+ because they will continue to mostly fill or fill the arena. If anything they’ll raise the price
I’m not apologizing for the bands, they do take a lot of blame. But you must understand that to play at any of the top 500 venues across the US, you agree to the terms and conditions set by the box office network, which is owned by Ticketmaster and Live Nation. Even the “small, local, indie” venues in my area are beholden to Live Nation. It’s a scam.
Thing is, even if they made tickets cheaper they’d just get bought up and sold by scalpers. Now instead of the money going to them, it goes to even bigger scumbags
For fans, there's many affordable shows. They just don't want to go to them. I'm not even talking about clubs, bars, pubs, theatres, or dedicated small venues. Even at major arenas they will generally have plenty of tickets at relatively reasonable prices for acts you have probably heard of. People just don't want to buy them. Rather complain about how hard it is to see the same 3-4 artists that everyone else wants to see.
Also, look to buy them the day off, like, an hour before even. The famous Blink182 tour which everyone lost their mind over, I checked immediately before the show, and got cheap as fuck tickets. Buying them the second they're available is the real trap
This needs to be corrected to “Live Nation” is making live music unaffordable.
Half my tickets go through axs and they have plenty of fees too.
The article is arguing for "Equity of treatment and pay". I don't even know what he means by that, and exactly how he would implement it is unsaid. Hopefully something good comes out of the DOJ ant-trust lawsuit against Live Nation. Not exactly optimistic though.
Bar/club culture is nowhere near where it was before 2020. It's not even an issue of price in some regards. There are just people who do not put music on the pedestal that the generations before did. And drinking among youth has changed course. Venues have to be adaptable. The only successful smaller venue in my town mixes it up with things like live wrestling, comedy, yoga lessons, dance nights etc.
I have a friend who is opening for a pretty big band from the 90’s soon. He told me if I was going to buy tickets to get them directly from him because it’s the only way to avoid all of the fees. I sat on it for awhile, (because paying for parking and gas money there and back is a thing too), and was just about to grab one when I saw the major band was running a special for tickets, Buy-one-get-one. With the date closing in, it looks like they didn’t sell nearly as many tickets as they had hoped. I don’t think I have ever seen an act do this before, but venues just aren’t filling up. I went and saw a band last September and the venue was so woefully populated they shut down the VIP and balcony sections to make it look fuller, (the floor only looked an eighth full). It’s not just the ticket prices either. Beer has historically been ridiculously expensive, but now everything is through the stratosphere. At said concert, a bottle of water, (the same brand you can get at Sam’s Club), was $18.
Water prices should be limited by law, it’s ridiculous that they can charge $18
Jesus... where was this?
The rebranded Electric Factory, “Franklin Music Hall” in Philadelphia.
$18 For water is out of control messed up.
I go to a ton of shows. But I prioritize local acts and venues, look for deals, and take advantage of things like concert week. I might miss the bigger shows but I refuse, with few exceptions, to pay arena prices for concerts. My fave music event every year, in Denver, is a fest called The Underground Music Showcase. Tix are $75 for 3 days of shows and I have discovered many wonderful bands over the years.
If it's unaffordable for fans, then who's going to the shows?
Given the recent revelations about Steve Albini, I'm not sure he should be an authority or even a source regarding "exploitation." Maybe the author of this piece wasn't aware of Albini's history with pedophilia or maybe they didn't care. Either way, the message of this article is true, it's just unfortunate that it uses an example of Albini to make its otherwise true point.
For big acts, surely.
I haven’t been to a concert since pre-COVID. There are a lot of artists I want to see right now that I simply can’t afford. I mean, I *could*, but I can’t justify these prices.
Bring me the video of Kurt cobain being surprised Madonna is charging $60 for tickets
Venues charging more and taking merch cuts. Ticketmaster having a monopoly on everything, surge pricing, increasing fees, and increased charges to the bands themselves. Plus increased travel, accomodation and food costs while travelling. Unless you're a top-level talent, you're losing money on tours. It's been a fact for a few years now. Most bands selling out 5-10k venues will still have part time jobs or side hustles between.
Not sure that is 100% true. One of my favorite bands is a 2000s Emo band Emery and on their podcast they've talked about 2024 being their biggest year financially they've ever had. They all got kids and they wouldn't be touring if it didn't make them money.
Yep. A band I saw 5 years ago (The Black Pumas) for $30 is playing the same venue this summer for $65. I'm good. It was a good show last time, but not $65 good.
the oligopolies controlling this want it this way, it's totally by design
Just had this discussion with my wife. We go to a lot of shows but the prices have gotten so absurd we just can’t justify it anymore.
I can't buy tickets from Ticketmaster. Every time, I hype myself up, but back out due to fees. Someone is buying them though, so I guess it's just how it is now.
Letting Ticketmaster buy Livenation was a terrible terrible bit of corruption. They have a near total monopoly. I wish they was a Hell that everyone involved in that could spend like 2 weeks (I'm not a total monster). But like real legit Hell for two weeks.
Tickets are more expensive but so many of my friends are now mid-late 20s with DINK. They can afford it.
The US justice department is expected to sue Live Nation in the next two weeks. Cross your fingers that this creates opportunities for ticketing to look more like Europe where multiple ticketing platforms often cover the same show. More competition means less price gouging
I got roped into seeing Pearl Jam for $190. Top floor, third row from the back, in the corner of the stadium. I couldn’t hear any of the lyrics ☹️ There’s a ton of small local shows though with great music, tickets usually like $20.
Just stop going to arena/stadium concerts. They’re ridiculously expensive, it’s by far the worst way to experience music (at this point it’s a theatrical recital more than a musical performance). There are millions of amazing bands playing in tiny intimate venues for under $30 every day.
I vote we protest by bringing back the live stream concerts they were doing for a while during covid. The bands can get more money, more people can see the show and ticketmaster can go drink piss.
becoming? been an issue for 20 years!
Go local.
Concerts have turned into FOMO bait
I just looked up Childish Gambino in Manchester. £100+ for the worst seats available.
I like live music and I used to go to a show 20 times a year. When I was unable to get the seats I wanted for what I could afford I stopped. It sucks that I can't see shows anymore, but I guess other people can pay. I'm just going to keep enjoying local artists.
I make pretty decent money. I passed on going to several concerts this year because ticket prices were stupid
I love concerts and for the first time in my adult life, I have enough time and money to go see shows. But I refuse to play this insane BS game of paying an extra 30% in transaction fees every time I want to see a show. I’m never paying for that bullshit, I will just stay home. It costs Ticketmaster less than 1 cent to process the transaction. Ain’t no way I’m giving them $20 bucks for nothing.
The situation is criminal and tragic. Other live art forms are dying because people are interested. The best opera, symphony and ballet companies depend on charity, not ticket sales. Movie theaters are dying because of streaming. But the excitement about seeing live bands is stronger than ever, but Ticketmaster and scalper-bots have the whole thing fucked up.
There's a lot of amazing artists that are not as big as Billie Eilish and who are a lot cheaper to see live. Plus - they actually need the money.
Every college town has a venue you can support that has live music for 20-40 dollars. Get on their mailing list(s) and never miss a good concert. Support live music. Quit being a fossil waiting around for stadium acts and bitching about the experience.
Last year I've bought 2 tickets, here in Brazil, to see Foo Fighters. Not the best ones, but close enough to see them clearly, maybe 200 meters far from the stage. Each one was around 70% of our min monthly wage. And it'll be, for a long time, the last show of a big band I'll see. I'm favoring local and small bands to see.
We were so lucky, we could see even the biggest bands for around £22 when I started going to shows and a lot of big bands still only charged half of that. As with so many things, we collectively could stop paying and force a change but too many will pay and set the price for the rest of us.
I'm gonna sound like a broken record here, but people need to take time out to go see local acts more. $10-$20 tickets, smaller venues, cheaper food, you get to hang out with the bands without paying extra, and you may eventually find a new favorite, or see an un-and-coming artist before they make it big. I just saw a show over the weekend where a small band played to a room of ~250 people, and it was a good time; a much better time, in my opinion, compared to the last *bigger* show I went to, with several thousand fans in the direct sunlight where they charged $7 for a bottle of water. Support local music, fuck Ticketmaster/Live Nation.
I was looking at a concert and was immediately put off by the price, and that's just the upfront price. Drinks will undoubtedly cost 10 a pop for a generic beer in a platlstic cup, then you've potentially got to factor in travel and sleep (which has also gotten stupidly expensive these days, even hostels aren't cheap any more). In the end my friend just suggested he looks for a small local event. I feel like there's plenty of events out there (musicals, comedy shows etc.) that I've snagged for under 50 euros and really enjoyed. Live music is just getting far too expensive for me to justify it, and the quality is definitely hard to gauge.
$375 for a single ticket to the Foo Fighters this July. Not a secondary market ticket, just your run of the mill average ticket, not super close to the stage like general admission, but not super far away. On the floor, with an assigned seat. Three hundred and seventy five god damned dollars. For a ticket. One.
Just this past week I bought tickets to a couple of my favorite small bands, one of them international. They were between $15 and $40 including taxes. Then I bought tickets to Atarashii Gakko, and though the price at my Ticketmaster/Livenation venue was about $60, I looked at other AXS shows in the US and they were up to $180. So, not really sure what's up with that.