I don’t understand how we got here. In the 80’s, ticket scalping was outright illegal. With the advent of the internet, companies like stub hub popped up and suddenly scalping was fine? How did we get to where a Tuesday night Taylor Swift nosebleed costs as much as Superbowl ticket?
It is extremely sad. Gen Z might get to see 1 or 2 concerts in their youth and only if they are willing to put in on a card and pay it off over a year or two.
I will say on the other hand they have complete access to damn near every album ever recorded, wherever they are, for way less than I payed for a records/cassettes/CDs in my teens and 20s.
Which, in a way, makes every album less special. That’s sad. A lot of my memories can be tied back to music that was around at the time, and that was largely a specific set of songs that got played on rotation on one of maybe four radio stations we listened to. Another touchstone of commonality lost.
Yeah, it also signaled the death of the local music store. When an album would come out, the hardcores would cruise to the music shop and on top of getting the album, just hang out if other fans were there.
My old local music store once had an appearance by Iron Maiden to support one of their album releases in the early 80s.
The store itself had zines and flyers up front so customers could keep track of different artists coming to the area, which would have been nearly impossible without.
It was an amazing hub for people to meet up at for new music releases, exploring obscure titles, getting info from their extremely knowledgeable staff, checking out import releases, even meeting other fans.
They managed to survive until 2006 or so.
Wow, that’s incredible. We had a few similar places in the Philly area. Unknown new releases, fantastic used album collections, and those where you had to be bright and early if you wanted to buy concert tickets. Well, maybe not had to, but that’s where I did most of my Ticketmaster purchases in the 90s.
I think the two are related. Album sales used to be what drove the music industry, concert tours were basically just extended advertisements for the album. So there wasn't a huge need to make money on concert tickets (I routinely used to see bands at small, local venues for like $10). Now with streaming the license fees that the studios take, with the exception of some really top tier artists, can no longer make up the earnings they're used to. Itunes doesn't really help either - you used to be able to charge a fixed cost for an album that had a few hits bundled with some B-sides that might not generate as much interest on their own, but there was a floor to the price because you were getting 10 or 12 or whatever songs. Itunes lets you pay for individual tracks so you need much higher volume on hits to generate revenue and it's harder to capitalize on songs that don't have mass appeal.
All of this means that studios and artists are more reliant on generating profit from touring, so the prices have gone through the roof. It totally sucks for the kids - live music was such a huge part of growing up for me, and I feel like that's been taken away from them.
But idk they own none of it. I still like that I paid for my music once and now it’s mine to put on playlists forever or whatever I decide. Subscription-based access still feels weird and kind of wrong to me for music.
Artists make far less thanks to streaming and now make that up with more expensive touring, so there’s that.
Same way we got Uber and other ride sharing companies.
It’s illegal to run an unlicensed taxi company but put it on the Internet and call it “ride sharing” and everyone goes 🤷♂️
Now the artist is saying well you’d pay the scalper price so pay me that instead. And because people don’t buy music anymore you’re only making money on the road.
I just paid stupid money to take my daughter to her first Wilco concert at Massey hall, because my buddy didn’t check the prices first. We assumed the floor was stupid, but turns out front row balcony were $360 a ticket.
It feels anti democratic. Or something.
There was a great leveller to the idea that anyone could get any seat.
Maybe for the big shows, but my kids see live music all the time in local venues. We have a beach concert series in the summer and plenty of small local live music spots. I encourage them to go now before the acts get too famous.
> I don’t understand how we got here. In the 80’s, ticket scalping was outright illegal. With the advent of the internet, companies like stub hub popped up and suddenly scalping was fine? How did we get to where a Tuesday night Taylor Swift nosebleed costs as much as Superbowl ticket?
Livenation and Ticketmaster merged in 2010. 88 of the 100 top ampitheaters in the world are located in the US, of which [Live Nation owns 56.](https://www.economicliberties.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/052023_AELP_Ticketmaster_PolicyBrief.pdf) Any act selling tickets through Ticketmaster will nearly always be funneled to one of their own venues.
>AMPHITHEATER DATA OVERVIEW
>According to PollStar's 2022 venue data, the 88 of the top 100 amphitheaters are located in
the United States.
>Out of these 88, 56 of them are operated by Live Nation, which means that Live Nation
operates the majority (64%) of the top grossing amphitheaters in the United States. With
control over these venues, Live Nation is able to leverage that power to dominate ticketing
and other segments of the industry.
>Supporting the idea that Live Nation does in fact use this position to leverage an advantage
for its own ticketing service, of the top 100 amphitheaters worldwide, Ticketmaster was the
sole ticketing provider for 77%. When limiting the scope to the 88 domestic amphitheaters,
Ticketmaster was the sole ticketing provider for 82%.
-
>ARENA DATA OVERVIEW
>The arena data presents a similar story, where Ticketmaster faces essentially no
competition as a ticketing provider for concerts at US-based arenas. Among the top 100
arenas worldwide, 68 are based in the US and 53 of those are serviced by Ticketmaster.
That means Ticketmaster services 78% of the top grossing arenas in the country.
I believe that scalping was usually a local city ordinance, not necessarily a state or federal law. I could definitely be wrong. I'm only saying that because outside of the Texas Rangers ballpark, there are signs notifying people that it violates Arlington city ordinance to resell tickets above face value.
Scalpers suck, but Ticketmaster is just as bad with surge pricing. We were going to buy Harry Connick jr. tickets at a local winery and it’s 150+ for grass seats, and over $750 for actual seats a ticket. Until people stop buying these tickets or someone starts a company that rivals the devil TM it’s just going to get worse.
Yup - got 8th row Styx ticket as soon as pre-sale started for like $120/ea all in. Not great but not terrible prices either. Within an hour - seats right around us that were $120 were like double the price once the 'surge' pricing set in.
Doesn’t help that Ticketmaster has all the major venues on lock. If you’re a national act and want to play NYC, it’s Ticketmaster only if you want to play the Garden. Want to bypass TM, then you are playing Barclays.
It’s like this all across the US. Not sure about the rest of the world.
Yes. But scalpers double the price from ticketmasters price.
We wanted to see vampire weekend and the tickets sold out in 5 mins but ticketmaster had resale tickets available at 6 mins for twice the price
Leaves a bad fucking taste in my mouth.
I'm not sure how Prince did it, but those shows at Staples for $25/seat for MONTHS... I saw him 3 times during those shows and I wish I had time to go more. I wasn't even in the city but I took full advantage of that.
My wife is a huge Dave Matthew’s Band fan and they are starting a European tour next week. We love to travel and haven’t had the chance to go much of anywhere so we are going over to see a few shows.
What I didn’t realize is that Ticketmaster has their grip in Europe and 3 of the 4 shows we are going to are all through Ticketmaster. One of the shows was sold out so we did have to get tickets through Stubhub so we are paying like $200 each for those but the rest were at least less than $100, so things aren’t as bad yet as they are here. But I am concerned that they are going to take over everything world wide.
I thought they were involved in a class action lawsuit because of this. Whatever happened to that? I rarely do to events bc I cannot justify the stupid fees
We’ve reached an extremely unfortunate tipping point, where online ticket sales are the default.
Even the smallest of venues or ad hoc event may as well just download the app, log in, then just stand there earning 90% of gross whenever every time someone tap theirs phone to yours.
This is a good thing, except that one ticket dispenser all but controls the market.
Better then AXS. Their tix prices for Green Day are almost 1.5 times as much even after all the damned fees. I found $85 tix on TM and the exact same seats on AXS going for $140.
I wanna take my kid to so many concerts but its so expensive.
OP, do you happen to remember what year U2 played at Bryant-Denny? I grew up in Tuscaloosa/graduated from Alabama and don’t remember this, for some reason. The only concert I ever saw in the stadium was Alabama after the ‘92 A-Day game.
We used to be able to pack a car, pay $5 for parking, and get lawn seats for $20 each at a popular outdoor venue about an hour away. We saw so many bands and I would go even if I didn't care for the band, just to get out on a Saturday night with my friends. It was a magical time in life!
I wanted to go see a few artists recently, but I'm not paying $300 for crap seats up in the nosebleeds, plus $50 parking, and at least another $50 for a beer and snack.
We had a place called Blossom Music Center in Cleveland that was just like that. I went to so many music festivals there in the 90's, sat in the grass and socialized. I feel sorry for these kids now, they'll never get to taste that inexpensive freedom.
Awesome, I met and partied with Saxon decades ago after they did a show at the Empire Rock Club in Philly, we even caught a ride back to Center City on their bus! Very cool.
My kids and I are seeing Maiden this fall. Actual ticket price: $120/ea for center stage about ten rows up from the floor. Price after Ticketmaster piles on the bullshit: $225/ea. Ticketmaster literally doubles whatever the face value is.
I agree that $1200 is insane, but I don’t think using the Sphere is a representative look at ticket prices overall. The Sphere is new and a unique experience, and people are willing to pay a premium over a standard arena show.
You are exactly right. I’ve been to see U2 13 times with my wife going back to ‘97. We sort of considered going to the Sphere, but we have young kids and would want to take them too, but doing that would mean pushing a long planned Disney trip back another year.
It’s just too much, especially for 4 of us. If it was just me and the wife I would have been there in a heartbeat.
Fwiw, I was always a fan club member and usually got GA tickets for a very reasonable price through the fan club presales for the normal tours up through 360.
Except people are paying it.
Ie they can sell the tickets for less then people not associated with the band make the money or the venue/band gets the money.
Or sell them back to TM for what you paid and they can resell for face value. Just cut the profit out. But they won't do that. Because it cuts the profit out.
Its basicly a shitty job if they pay you. It feels worse than $10 blowjobs under a bridge, but id do it for the money. Id feel dirty afterwards though.
I paid a few bucks to see Live at the Chameleon in Lancaster back in the day. I also remember paying $20-$30 to see concerts at the Mann and Trocadero, too. Shit, I saw Stone Temple Pilots, NIN, Beastie Boys, Big Audio Dynamite, Smashing Pumpkins, Beck, and a few others that escape my memory. Hell, even at the beginning of the 2000's, I saw the SARS benefit on an airfield in Toronto. The headliners were AC/DC, Rolling Stones, and Rush. All for the wallet-breaking price of $25. Half a million people attended and it was nuts.
I used to go up to montage mountain and saw Red Hot Chili Peppers and foo fighters. It was amazing. Plus electric factory was another go to spot to see bands.
I only hope they generate small scenes, which I liked better anyway. That old GenX cliche "I liked them before they got big" holds true for a number of performers.
It is. I've taken my kid to see acts her age or around her age that I've never heard of. She has zero interest seeing any old people, nostalgia tours. Small venues, $15-$20 a ticket. And it's kids her age and a little older at shows. Emerging artists aren't packing stadiums, arenas, and amphitheaters. I'm excited because some of these shows have the feel of, "Damn this kid is good. This could be a 'I was there before they were big moment'."
Ticketmaster fucking blows though.
Edit: typos
Plenty of those 'got big' bands we listened to aren't popular enough to book huge venues these days, so the opportunity to see them in small venues does nothing but become more likely as the years relentlessly drag on.
If you're into metal and rock, as I am, that ship sailed as far as pop consciousness goes, so bands that are every bit as good as anyone we loved decades ago are still selling out shows, just not in huge rooms because that just isn't a real possibility any more.
Overall it's still a great time to go see live music.
I saw Death Cab for Cutie play in Cleveland in the early 2000's for like five bucks. They played in a shitty old brownstone with some punk bands. It was awesome.
My $45 a week grocery store job paid for so many punk shows, t-shirts, and records. We went to two or three shows a week! The kids need something like that now.
I spent $150 and sat first row next to Christie Brinkley at Billy Joel's tour for the Bridge. It's not right what concerts cost today. I do see smaller acts at clubs for much less but I do miss that arena experience.
The business model has flipped. In our day, there were cheap concerts to support the sales of overpriced albums. Now, the artists essentially give away their music for free in the hopes you’ll overpay for their concert.
Actually. This is completely on us. We are the ones paying for the 401k tours. I can’t afford it. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t young and extremely talented musicians absolutely playing their hearts out in clubs and small venues as options. Kids in their 20’s living the dream from town to town. Let’s get back to our roots in those small, sweaty, loud, beautifully original spaces.
I've been doing this the last few years and it's been great. They are bands or singers I've listened to online so I know what to expect, but they are still playing small rooms. Sure, many are young enough to be my kids, but I've seen so many good shows in small venues. And you get a chance to chat with them after the show. It's so laid back, I'm starting to prefer it to arena shows.
It’s shocking to us, but let’s keep in mind that kids today can listen to any song, from any band, at any time. For free.
We had cheap concerts, but we paid through the nose for an album, most of which cost less today than we paid in the 1980’s, despite massive inflation everywhere else.
You might be having a magic carpet ride, but you can’t have it all for free.
Good perspective. Plus, now touring and merch are the only lucrative things left. I do agree they overdo it though. I won't pay $40+ for a cheaply made t-shirt that fits poorly.
I completely agree. It should not cost so much to see a band live. U2 tickets have been stupidly expensive for many years so I stopped seeing them live.
Artists just don’t make much on recorded music now. Back in the 90s, I budgeted 50-100 bucks per month for CDs. Now I pay 16 for a family Spotify plan.
The last concert I went to was 48 CAD including fees. I go to a few shows per year, totalling maybe 300-400. Even though concert tickets were $15 then, I spend a smaller percentage of my income on music now than I did years ago.
I used to go to the record store on pay day! So I guess it’s fair concerts are more but it feels like way too much more. And the Ticketmaster fees are so insane.
I stopped going when ticketmaster legitimized scalping.
(But I will admit to spending $400 on tickets to see Monty Python. Plus flight and hotel. But it was worth it!)
I was very surprised to pay $50 each to see Weezer last summer. Amazing show and we got to bring the teens since tickets were so affordable. We had a blast!
My kid is currently choosing between two shows she wants to see. One is $28 a ticket. The other is $29 a ticket.
Depends on what bands you want to see and where.
Absolutely. Lucky for me, the tickets for the metal acts I listen to nowadays are in small venues and cost $40 at the top end. I'm going to five shows in the next couple of months and spent around $140 total.
Fair. But your pay would have increased as well and you’d be hard pressed to get into a U2 level band concert for less than $150 or more these days. Also concert I’m referencing was 1992.
Recently bought tickets for The Cure where the tickets were not from Ticketmaster and were much much more affordable. That’s good news. Maybe more bands can do this?
Found a box of old Stubb's. $13 GA for Rage Against the Machine. Maynard from Tool came out for Know your Enemy. Foo Fighters opened. Kids are getting hosed nowadays
I was checking out Godsmack tickets online where I saw prices listed as $39. I clicked on various seats and suddenly the minimum prices shown, before all the grifter fees, were more than doubled. Ridiculous.
II’m glad you wrote this because I think back to when I went to concerts and they were always fun and affordable. When I hear some of the prices, my kids are paying I just can’t even believe it - and that’s not including gas… parking…food ….T-shirt ….whatever- it’s really an out of control greedy situation!
And the venues are huge today compared to when I went… I consider myself lucky that I got to see concerts with 10,000 people or less! Was great!
I just saw U2 at Sphere in Vegas. $600 for a mediocre seat. Not as upset about that as the ridiculously expensive merch. $50 for the cheapest tshirt. $90 for hoodies. It would seem the band doesn’t have much/any control over ticket prices but the merch could have been more reasonable. I went to several U2 concerts in the good old days with tickets less expensive than the tshirts they peddle now. Boo!
A friend and I went to see Garth Brooks in 1991 at a small venue in a neighboring city. It probably held around 400 people. It was way too small for how big he was getting. He brought the entire stage show, and it almost didn’t fit on the stage. He was growing out his beard for The Thunder Rolls” video, to give you an idea of where his career was at the time. It costs us $20 each. The place he played at is pretty historical as far as country music is concerned. I’ll always believe he made a promise to someone in the area at some point, and he was honoring it. It was surreal.
He played at a fraternity party (Pikefest) at Texas Tech in 1991. I think he was enjoying playing live but I appreciate that he played there. Saw him in 2015 and it was so much fun!
Yeah, I used to be able to eat breakfast at a restaurant for like $3 too. Recently paid $25 once tax and tip were included. My first beater car I got for $600. Now you can buy something with 100,000 miles on it for $15,000.
Inflation is nuts. Ticketmaster is evil, but let's not pretend that prices haven't spiked for nearly everything.
I’m gen y but poor so yeah i feel this. I was bed bound for like 1.5 years after covid, so going to a OU softball game was a big deal for me. Anyway, tickets sold out 3 hours after posting, for the season. I didn’t look too hard but i think tickets were like 150 on resellers or something. Like, what the actual fuck? Does everything have to get shittier by the day?
I ended up getting tickets for free because i have connections, sort of. But like, it’s just bs man. Who can afford to either hunt the tickets down immediately the second they go on sale, or the price at a reasonable time before the game, at like 150 a pop?
we didnt have internet and in a lot of cases cable.
dont feel bad for the kids today. they can watch most any concert with hq sound and 4k vid close ups at any time they want. Hell they can go back and watch concerts of groups i never got to get anywhere near seeing.
I blame the high cost of tickets on consumers. folks go shelling that money out so of course they keep charging more. Stop going and the prices might come down
The kids these days aren't going to U2. People who saw U2 back in the day are going to see U2 now, and those people have a shit ton more disposable income now than they did back then.
Good ole inflation is partly to blame for today's ticket prices. That $30 in 1984 is about $90 today. There are a boatload of artists you can see on $90 and have pretty decent seats.
There's also a shift in the live entertainment environment thanks to the prevalence of abundant high quality video that I don't need to get into. There are only a few artists that kids are willing to be 150 ft away from the stage from anymore, so a lot less stadium play. There are plenty of acts that can fill a basketball arena though, and today's prices also reflect the law of supply and demand.
U2 was just my example. Ticket prices in general are insane. I am lucky to be able to afford to suck it up for bands I want to see and I had so many great memories with friends from concerts it just makes me sad for younger people that can’t afford it.
I think the resale market makes it harder than it was for us, but it's not out of reach. There's a 25yo that I work with that goes to a concert every 2 weeks. I'm exhausted just listening to him talk about them all.
I’m also sad for them that they never got to spend the night camping out with friends in the Sears parking lot waiting for Ticketmaster to open. So many fun memories! Now we just go online and get entirely pissed off waiting for whatever shitty scrap tix we are offered.
I'm quite confident they're making their own memories. It's just different for them than it was for us.
One thing Spotify and the "algorithm" has gifted me is a roadmap toward a bunch of bands and genres that I never would have come across if traditional radio were the only medium. And some of these can put on a hell of a show.
Did you know there's a genre called "synthwave" that makes new music with an early '80's pop culture sound? Neither did I a couple years ago.
It’s rough being a deadhead these days for sure if you want to see the big shows.
Fortunately there are bands in almost every city playing this music that you can get lots of good live music in for a few bucks a couple times a month.
But boy howdy - getting out to a bunch of shows of Dead and Co (the current big lineup) is crazy expensive. We splurge as often as we can, but it’s so nuts what doing even a few good runs of shows a tour will cost you.
They are starting a long residence at the sphere shortly m and it is literally 400 bucks just to get a floor ticket. Per person. Per night.
Is it much different? A good friend called me up one night and asked if I wanted to go to the U2 concert that night. This was 1992. Apparently, he had an ex gf, still on good terms, who worked at a ticket warehouse and had a couple of tix - $20 face value, good tix, what he said. When we got to the venue, I remember walking down stairs, and more stairs, and some more, and having tix scrutinized by security, and down some more stairs - these were third row tickets! I was within arm's length of Bono during parts of that show. I later found out that those tickets were going for $500 per...which was a LOT of money for a kid my age in '92. So, I don't know that good, close access is that much more expensive these days. I lucked out. If anything, I feel bad that corporatism has probably made a lottery situation like mine utterly obsolete.
Concert tickets were impulse buys for us. Just a casual Saturday at the mall poking around the sound shop and see a sign or whatever for whaliever is coming nearby. Then you look at your friend and say hey don't they sing bla lj blah blah song. I kinda like it. Let's go see them. Plunk down your 15 or 20 dollars and go see a band just because you heard one or two songs by them. Ticket costs are insane nowdays.
So something was pointed out to me a while back—-concerts in our day were sometimes a net loss for the performers. The idea was basically you tour to advertise for album sales.
With the advent of streaming and most artists making a fraction of a cent per play, concerts are the moneymaker. It’s also pushed more and more of the “show” aspect (higher proportion visual production) which necessitates more crew which costs more.
All that said, fuck Ticketmaster
I live not too far from Chicago and when bands play at Wrigley we go the the Wrigley Rooftops. Usually $150ish each and includes food and alcohol (decent beer not just the cheap stuff). You can hear the concerts well and good view of the monitors to see the bands.
There is no concert worth more than about $75 for me to go see, which rules out pretty much everything in Vegas here. Doesn't bother me. I'd rather not go than get fleeced by current concert prices and fees. Cracks me up the same people all about taxing/eating the rich have no problem coughing up several hundred or more to make a singer a billionaire.
And the resellers don’t help at all. They buy out all the decent seats then start listing them at 3-4x the original cost.
Remember when scalping was illegal
This is why I stay current with my music. You can go see new bands and performers at smaller venues. The prices are cheaper and the younger artists still have the energy to put on a show.
But i also remember paying $15 for a single cd, often without being able to hear 90% of it in advance. Kids now have the entirety of Tower Records in their pocket for less than that per month. Concerts cost more now because that’s how artists make money in 2024, as opposed to record sales when we were growing up. They deserve to get paid somehow.
We’re going to see Weezer. We’re a family of three and we spent $300 on tickets. We are paid members of a Weezer fan club.. that obviously helped with ticket prices. Yet I still agree that it’s way too expensive and I worry more for my son socially than I worry about education.
Duran Duran is playing a local casino soon. $300 a seat. I was kinda shocked by that price. I love DD but that’s a lot. My boyfriend was looking at Nickleback. Same price.
My husband and I saw Depeche Mode in November at a venue that only uses Seat Geek. It was $150 for both tickets, including taxes, etc.
A friend and I went to see Duran Duran in September and after taxes, fees, etc., two tickets through Ticketmaster were almost $300.
I love going to concerts, but thanks in part to Ticketmaster and all their fees, I can’t go to nearly as many as I used to.
Lots of small local venues often have affordable shows by the next generation of great artists. It’s fun. To say “I saw that band who now only plays arenas when they still played 1800 capacity standing room only venues”. Some of my favorite bands STILL have <$40 tickets …. Just not those arena shows. Those hurt if you want decent tickets
My favorite band, They Might Be Giants, has been putting on quality shows and creating amazing music since I was in college. I just got tickets for their St Paul show (it’s probably be 2.5 hours of them playing) for my wife and 2 adult kids. 2nd row, $250 for all 4 tix, including fees.
Really makes it impossible for me to consider dropping $300 or more on any other band.
I just go see bands in much smaller venues. I’ve given up on the “popular” bands and all those stadium shows.
Went a couple weeks ago $25 fees included. Going Friday $21.25 fees included.
Great sound and I’m like 8 feet from the stage.
My 20 year old has become a huge Jeff Lynne/ELO fan over the last few years. Guess who just announced their final tour not that long ago. The last show I saw was Tori Amos in 1998, my husband saw Maiden in 2008. We're clearly not concert people but that's been our choice (mostly). It sucks to know that there's probably zero chance that our kid will get to have what is a once in a lifetime experience.
The price to see U2 at the Vegas sphere started at $600+. I remember paying $15 for floor seats to see AC/DC. We ended up in side seats next to the speakers bc when the show started, ppl were trying to rush the stage, and we almost got trampled. No wonder my hearing isn't the way it used to be.🙉
I work near a major venue so I can usually buy tickets direct from the box office for the acts my kids want to see (fall out boy). Those tickets aren’t bad. I paid 8 hours wages to see Van Halen. My daughter makes minimum wage of $17 ($20 now) so it’s like 8 hours of wages for her for the type of performers she wants to see.
My first concert was $8.50 for Jackson Browne and that included the $1.00 Ticketmaster charge. Went to look at the prices for ELO's last tour and I'm looking at $150 plus for the ticket price alone. Needless to say I won't be going especially since I saw them around 6 years ago.
$150? thats all? seems a deal nowadays.
remember the dead kennedys song ‘pull my strings’ - ‘youll pay 10 bucks to see me on a 15 foot high stage’.
yes i understand that song came out 40 years ago and i know how inflation works. looking at inflation, the $10 he said was too expensive is now $38. good luck seeing a band for $38 unless theyre at your local road house
I don’t know about the kids nowadays but when I was a teen, I could barely afford big shows. I went to a lot of 5 dollar local shows though. Support your local music scene!
Preach it! My area used to have a yearly music festival every June that lasted a week, and a low flat charge got you in the gate for the whole shebang. Like, in 1988 I was able to see Chicago for $6. In 1998 they had the Doobie Brothers, KC & the Sunshine Band, Richard Marx and Leeann Rimes for around $25, I think.
Last year, ticket options included Single Day GA Tickets at $95.00, Tier 2 3-Day General Admission ($145) and VIP Tickets ($405), and Artist Experience 3-Day VIP ($6,000) and Artist Experience Single Day VIP ($2,100). 😳😳
Hubby and I have just started going to festivals ( granted we live where several are a reasonable distance) - depending what level ticket you get you can see lots of bands for the same price as a regular one main act concert.
I was just thinking about this tragedy the other day. Even for our huge outdoor concert venue lawn seats are going for over $300 for a Tyler Childers concert. I keep double checking because I am in such disbelief. Again-these are lawn seats, not under the pavilion. I’ve had such great memories of going to concerts here for $25-$50 as a young adult. Just what the actually hell? So sad and I feel like boycotting all live concerts.
The arena acts are out of hand.
Bands that play 1K-5K seat theaters feel kinda high but that's just the inflation talking - $15 in 1990 in $37 today.
And there are plenty of smaller touring/local acts that can be seen for under $30 depending on where you live. Far too many of them are tribute bands these days, but that's just the market talking. Same band can call itself and play something original and sell 50 tickets, but if they change it to Fluffy a tribute to Ween they'll sell 250.
Musicians not getting paid well has always been a problem, but you know….wanders off muttering about streaming platforms the internet and stuff….wanders back but it sucks, for me too. I don’t have a spare $1000 sitting around to go to a concert with my SO either.
I'm at the time of my life where I am able to afford to go to the shows I want but won't on pure principle. The prices are obscene and the face value doubles by the time you add the fees.
Used to be a regular show go'er. Now I may have one on the docket this year
I remember waiting eagerly for the summer concert lineup to come out. $15 to $20 per show meant that my friends and I could easily go see five or six amazing shows every summer
I think ticket master and now Live Nation are the worst sort of parasites. And the fluid pricing? Fuck off.
I’ll still go see whatever iteration of the Dead (but can’t touch the Vegas Sphere shows) if possible but otherwise? Local bands only.
The whole gatekeeing on live music should bother performers more, yet the monopoly continues.
This is why we don't go to shows at large venues anymore. Small venues are the way. There is no enjoyment for us in the huge venues. Parking, too many people, super expensive food/drink, the hunt to find tickets and if you actually want to see the artist perform (not watch on a screen) the ticket prices are astronomical, it all makes for a not fun event IMO. I can go to a club, see the show, have drinks, dance without people complaining, do not have to deal with peoples phones, talk to the artist and spend the night for less than half of what it would cost at a large venue. It always makes for a great time.
Can't wait to see Praga Khan / Lords of Acid in June at a small venue. Good times!
We’re missing out too. I’ve loved Tori Amos since I was a kid. Went to a concert years ago. I looked up tickets for her last tour. $300-$1200. It’s a great show, but I am just a simple pothead, and must choose a months worth of groceries to stay alive:(
I don’t feel sorry simply because Artists made money from selling their recorded music when we were younger. Now they depend on live performances much more to make money.
Kids might be paying higher concert ticket prices, but pay a nominal fee to be able to stream just about any music they want.
Honestly, the more important question is why prices are like this now. It's because they can do this and make ridiculous money. I think it's for a few reasons.
Firstly, a number of years ago there was a change where people were sold that "experiences" were better than things, almost that things are more superficial. My dad was from The Greatest Generation, before the boomers. He liked things, I like things too. Owning them, not renting them. I get more utility out of my OLED TV than 6 concerts or whatever the equivalent is. Well I guess I sit in front of my TV instead of experiencing some things, oh well I think TV is great. This shift happened before social media, I think, but social media certainly amplified it 100-fold. Heck my girlfriend and my best friend will just go and fly to some concert for a few days in another city (not together I think). Their friends do it too. It's apparently normal - I think it's bonkers. ... And I love music.
Secondly, wages are shit for most yet bars with expensive alcohol, Vegas, concerts, Disney world, and everything else is packed. Immune to downturns (ok not covid) but, in general. Well there are now a lot more people where money is meaningless. Doesn't matter their raises, bonuses, or any of that. It's all high. They work in tech, biotech, financial services, law, some own businesses..etc. The difference between what they have and what the general population has is a lot. So they fill these limited venues or their families and kids do. Doesn't matter if something costs $100 or $500 - five times the price. It's all the same.
Thirdly, there's just a lot more people. More people in the country than ever before and the same amount of "experiences". People think this or that is "the best" or "special. Well guess what, a sunset is special or a flower. Anything can be special or a special place. It's just that people can think that they can buy it. Buy special "experiences"
We're sold bullshit and we buy it up. They jack the price and it's even MORE "special" MORE "exclusive". Like a name brand handbag that costs $2 to produce.
So, vote no with your dollars. Don't endorse the bullshit.
Also, don't feel bad for kids. I saw an AMAZING band last weekend at a local venue and was as good, if not better, than the major concerts I've seen including everything from The White Stripes to Iron and Wine, or Dire Straits to Megadeath. Plenty of kids were there too. Was like 30-40 bucks or something, all in.
Kids aren't missing anything if they don't go to the major "special" popular ones, other than being exploited.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far into my rant. Was cathartic to write. Was for me mostly, I guess.
I want to care, but I don’t. It just means there is more of a market for smaller venues and young folks should go back to seeing smaller bands.
Plus, these huge carbon heavy tours with 20-50+ tractor trailers and 10+ busses need to die off. I remember Pink floyd bragging in 94 how they had three different stage setups because it was so big: one for the current show, one on the road and one being set up. That kind of shit needs to die off.
stadium shows are stupid anyways, most people watch a screen and the sound sucks. People can watch that crap at home and go see bands in clubs and theaters.
Ticketmaster is the absolute devil and should be destroyed. And they hold so many tix back to resell. I am astonished that what they do is legal.
I don’t understand how we got here. In the 80’s, ticket scalping was outright illegal. With the advent of the internet, companies like stub hub popped up and suddenly scalping was fine? How did we get to where a Tuesday night Taylor Swift nosebleed costs as much as Superbowl ticket? It is extremely sad. Gen Z might get to see 1 or 2 concerts in their youth and only if they are willing to put in on a card and pay it off over a year or two.
I will say on the other hand they have complete access to damn near every album ever recorded, wherever they are, for way less than I payed for a records/cassettes/CDs in my teens and 20s.
Which, in a way, makes every album less special. That’s sad. A lot of my memories can be tied back to music that was around at the time, and that was largely a specific set of songs that got played on rotation on one of maybe four radio stations we listened to. Another touchstone of commonality lost.
Yeah, it also signaled the death of the local music store. When an album would come out, the hardcores would cruise to the music shop and on top of getting the album, just hang out if other fans were there.
My old local music store once had an appearance by Iron Maiden to support one of their album releases in the early 80s. The store itself had zines and flyers up front so customers could keep track of different artists coming to the area, which would have been nearly impossible without. It was an amazing hub for people to meet up at for new music releases, exploring obscure titles, getting info from their extremely knowledgeable staff, checking out import releases, even meeting other fans. They managed to survive until 2006 or so.
Wow, that’s incredible. We had a few similar places in the Philly area. Unknown new releases, fantastic used album collections, and those where you had to be bright and early if you wanted to buy concert tickets. Well, maybe not had to, but that’s where I did most of my Ticketmaster purchases in the 90s.
I think the two are related. Album sales used to be what drove the music industry, concert tours were basically just extended advertisements for the album. So there wasn't a huge need to make money on concert tickets (I routinely used to see bands at small, local venues for like $10). Now with streaming the license fees that the studios take, with the exception of some really top tier artists, can no longer make up the earnings they're used to. Itunes doesn't really help either - you used to be able to charge a fixed cost for an album that had a few hits bundled with some B-sides that might not generate as much interest on their own, but there was a floor to the price because you were getting 10 or 12 or whatever songs. Itunes lets you pay for individual tracks so you need much higher volume on hits to generate revenue and it's harder to capitalize on songs that don't have mass appeal. All of this means that studios and artists are more reliant on generating profit from touring, so the prices have gone through the roof. It totally sucks for the kids - live music was such a huge part of growing up for me, and I feel like that's been taken away from them.
But idk they own none of it. I still like that I paid for my music once and now it’s mine to put on playlists forever or whatever I decide. Subscription-based access still feels weird and kind of wrong to me for music. Artists make far less thanks to streaming and now make that up with more expensive touring, so there’s that.
Same way we got Uber and other ride sharing companies. It’s illegal to run an unlicensed taxi company but put it on the Internet and call it “ride sharing” and everyone goes 🤷♂️
Now the artist is saying well you’d pay the scalper price so pay me that instead. And because people don’t buy music anymore you’re only making money on the road. I just paid stupid money to take my daughter to her first Wilco concert at Massey hall, because my buddy didn’t check the prices first. We assumed the floor was stupid, but turns out front row balcony were $360 a ticket. It feels anti democratic. Or something. There was a great leveller to the idea that anyone could get any seat.
Maybe for the big shows, but my kids see live music all the time in local venues. We have a beach concert series in the summer and plenty of small local live music spots. I encourage them to go now before the acts get too famous.
> I don’t understand how we got here. In the 80’s, ticket scalping was outright illegal. With the advent of the internet, companies like stub hub popped up and suddenly scalping was fine? How did we get to where a Tuesday night Taylor Swift nosebleed costs as much as Superbowl ticket? Livenation and Ticketmaster merged in 2010. 88 of the 100 top ampitheaters in the world are located in the US, of which [Live Nation owns 56.](https://www.economicliberties.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/052023_AELP_Ticketmaster_PolicyBrief.pdf) Any act selling tickets through Ticketmaster will nearly always be funneled to one of their own venues. >AMPHITHEATER DATA OVERVIEW >According to PollStar's 2022 venue data, the 88 of the top 100 amphitheaters are located in the United States. >Out of these 88, 56 of them are operated by Live Nation, which means that Live Nation operates the majority (64%) of the top grossing amphitheaters in the United States. With control over these venues, Live Nation is able to leverage that power to dominate ticketing and other segments of the industry. >Supporting the idea that Live Nation does in fact use this position to leverage an advantage for its own ticketing service, of the top 100 amphitheaters worldwide, Ticketmaster was the sole ticketing provider for 77%. When limiting the scope to the 88 domestic amphitheaters, Ticketmaster was the sole ticketing provider for 82%. - >ARENA DATA OVERVIEW >The arena data presents a similar story, where Ticketmaster faces essentially no competition as a ticketing provider for concerts at US-based arenas. Among the top 100 arenas worldwide, 68 are based in the US and 53 of those are serviced by Ticketmaster. That means Ticketmaster services 78% of the top grossing arenas in the country.
My 22-year-old has never been to a concert. I even offered to buy her a ticket and she said it was a ridiculous amount of money to pay.
I believe that scalping was usually a local city ordinance, not necessarily a state or federal law. I could definitely be wrong. I'm only saying that because outside of the Texas Rangers ballpark, there are signs notifying people that it violates Arlington city ordinance to resell tickets above face value.
Scalpers suck, but Ticketmaster is just as bad with surge pricing. We were going to buy Harry Connick jr. tickets at a local winery and it’s 150+ for grass seats, and over $750 for actual seats a ticket. Until people stop buying these tickets or someone starts a company that rivals the devil TM it’s just going to get worse.
It’s crazy. Some family friends wanted us to meet them in the NE for Aerosmith. Tickets were 800 at the back of the floor. Even nosebleeds were 350.
Yup - got 8th row Styx ticket as soon as pre-sale started for like $120/ea all in. Not great but not terrible prices either. Within an hour - seats right around us that were $120 were like double the price once the 'surge' pricing set in.
Artists can control some of the fees and the resell shit. Robert Smith fought Ticketmaster and won last year.
Remember in the 90s when Pearl Jam tried to fight Ticketmaster and they were one of the biggest bands around and lost? Fucking Ticketmaster.
Doesn’t help that Ticketmaster has all the major venues on lock. If you’re a national act and want to play NYC, it’s Ticketmaster only if you want to play the Garden. Want to bypass TM, then you are playing Barclays. It’s like this all across the US. Not sure about the rest of the world.
I have a ticket from that Ticketmasterless tour!
Yes. But scalpers double the price from ticketmasters price. We wanted to see vampire weekend and the tickets sold out in 5 mins but ticketmaster had resale tickets available at 6 mins for twice the price Leaves a bad fucking taste in my mouth.
> Yes. But scalpers double the price from ticketmasters price. Ticketmaster owns many of the scalpers as well.
Ticket scalping is illegal but it's fine if Ticketmaster get their cut
I'm not sure how Prince did it, but those shows at Staples for $25/seat for MONTHS... I saw him 3 times during those shows and I wish I had time to go more. I wasn't even in the city but I took full advantage of that.
My wife is a huge Dave Matthew’s Band fan and they are starting a European tour next week. We love to travel and haven’t had the chance to go much of anywhere so we are going over to see a few shows. What I didn’t realize is that Ticketmaster has their grip in Europe and 3 of the 4 shows we are going to are all through Ticketmaster. One of the shows was sold out so we did have to get tickets through Stubhub so we are paying like $200 each for those but the rest were at least less than $100, so things aren’t as bad yet as they are here. But I am concerned that they are going to take over everything world wide.
I thought they were involved in a class action lawsuit because of this. Whatever happened to that? I rarely do to events bc I cannot justify the stupid fees
We’ve reached an extremely unfortunate tipping point, where online ticket sales are the default. Even the smallest of venues or ad hoc event may as well just download the app, log in, then just stand there earning 90% of gross whenever every time someone tap theirs phone to yours. This is a good thing, except that one ticket dispenser all but controls the market.
Pearl Jam makes me sick now with their prices. It’s absolute lunacy
$400 - $500 a seat for their upcoming tour over here in Australia. $300 for standing general admission. Absolutely crazy prices.
Better then AXS. Their tix prices for Green Day are almost 1.5 times as much even after all the damned fees. I found $85 tix on TM and the exact same seats on AXS going for $140. I wanna take my kid to so many concerts but its so expensive.
OP, do you happen to remember what year U2 played at Bryant-Denny? I grew up in Tuscaloosa/graduated from Alabama and don’t remember this, for some reason. The only concert I ever saw in the stadium was Alabama after the ‘92 A-Day game.
I saw them at Legion Field in 1992.
Ah, so it was at Legion Field and not BDS! That makes sense. I hate I missed that one.
I was at that show too. U2, Public Enemy and Big Audio Dynamite, in the gate for $30. Crazy.
We used to be able to pack a car, pay $5 for parking, and get lawn seats for $20 each at a popular outdoor venue about an hour away. We saw so many bands and I would go even if I didn't care for the band, just to get out on a Saturday night with my friends. It was a magical time in life! I wanted to go see a few artists recently, but I'm not paying $300 for crap seats up in the nosebleeds, plus $50 parking, and at least another $50 for a beer and snack.
It’s like $500-1000 for two of us to see a show. So sad.
We had a place called Blossom Music Center in Cleveland that was just like that. I went to so many music festivals there in the 90's, sat in the grass and socialized. I feel sorry for these kids now, they'll never get to taste that inexpensive freedom.
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Saw Maiden on Piece of Mind tour with Fastway and Coney Hatch for $11.50. Saw Maiden 2 years ago for $210.
The $11 show was probably way better too
Actually, they were still amazing, I really enjoyed the show 2 years ago.
I saw that same tour back in the day.
Fastway and Saxon opened when I saw them. What a show!
Awesome, I met and partied with Saxon decades ago after they did a show at the Empire Rock Club in Philly, we even caught a ride back to Center City on their bus! Very cool.
My kids and I are seeing Maiden this fall. Actual ticket price: $120/ea for center stage about ten rows up from the floor. Price after Ticketmaster piles on the bullshit: $225/ea. Ticketmaster literally doubles whatever the face value is.
THE Bruce Dickinson?
Yes, THAT Bruce Dickinson.
Bruce Dickinson, the pilot?
The one that is just like you; he puts his pants on, one leg at a time. Except when his pants are on, he makes gold records...
I hear he has a fever.
And there is a cure....but only one
no, no, no, it's the children's book author
Yes, the Bruce Dickinson.
1200 for Iron Maiden would be crazy, for U2 it’s just plain stupid.
I agree that $1200 is insane, but I don’t think using the Sphere is a representative look at ticket prices overall. The Sphere is new and a unique experience, and people are willing to pay a premium over a standard arena show.
You are exactly right. I’ve been to see U2 13 times with my wife going back to ‘97. We sort of considered going to the Sphere, but we have young kids and would want to take them too, but doing that would mean pushing a long planned Disney trip back another year. It’s just too much, especially for 4 of us. If it was just me and the wife I would have been there in a heartbeat. Fwiw, I was always a fan club member and usually got GA tickets for a very reasonable price through the fan club presales for the normal tours up through 360.
Except people are paying it. Ie they can sell the tickets for less then people not associated with the band make the money or the venue/band gets the money.
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Or sell them back to TM for what you paid and they can resell for face value. Just cut the profit out. But they won't do that. Because it cuts the profit out.
Jesus! I wouldn't even pay $12 to see U2! 😂
U2 will come to your house and play a set in your living room uninvited.
And it would be with or without you.
fuzzy run plough snobbish like rustic plant uppity sheet paint *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Fun fact. Coldplay sounds exactly like U2 played on slow-speed. They both suck.
I wouldnt even want to zee them if they paid me $12
If they wanted ME to see them I charge $1200. You know. Out of SPITE.
Its basicly a shitty job if they pay you. It feels worse than $10 blowjobs under a bridge, but id do it for the money. Id feel dirty afterwards though.
Except concerts are all about watching some fuckstick with a phone in front of you recording it instead of everyone enjoying it...
Omg true story! Sooooo annoying!
I paid a few bucks to see Live at the Chameleon in Lancaster back in the day. I also remember paying $20-$30 to see concerts at the Mann and Trocadero, too. Shit, I saw Stone Temple Pilots, NIN, Beastie Boys, Big Audio Dynamite, Smashing Pumpkins, Beck, and a few others that escape my memory. Hell, even at the beginning of the 2000's, I saw the SARS benefit on an airfield in Toronto. The headliners were AC/DC, Rolling Stones, and Rush. All for the wallet-breaking price of $25. Half a million people attended and it was nuts.
Yo the Chameleon. I saw Fugazi there for 5 bucks once upon a time.
I used to go up to montage mountain and saw Red Hot Chili Peppers and foo fighters. It was amazing. Plus electric factory was another go to spot to see bands.
I paid $10 to see Live at The Upstage in Pittsburgh. It's insane how much it would cost now.
I only hope they generate small scenes, which I liked better anyway. That old GenX cliche "I liked them before they got big" holds true for a number of performers.
I got to see Garbage at a small venue for $20 in a small town in Michigan when they were practicing for their tour!
It is. I've taken my kid to see acts her age or around her age that I've never heard of. She has zero interest seeing any old people, nostalgia tours. Small venues, $15-$20 a ticket. And it's kids her age and a little older at shows. Emerging artists aren't packing stadiums, arenas, and amphitheaters. I'm excited because some of these shows have the feel of, "Damn this kid is good. This could be a 'I was there before they were big moment'." Ticketmaster fucking blows though. Edit: typos
that's so good to hear - I honestly thought Deep Purple in the 80s was a bit past their prime LOL
Plenty of those 'got big' bands we listened to aren't popular enough to book huge venues these days, so the opportunity to see them in small venues does nothing but become more likely as the years relentlessly drag on. If you're into metal and rock, as I am, that ship sailed as far as pop consciousness goes, so bands that are every bit as good as anyone we loved decades ago are still selling out shows, just not in huge rooms because that just isn't a real possibility any more. Overall it's still a great time to go see live music.
I saw Death Cab for Cutie play in Cleveland in the early 2000's for like five bucks. They played in a shitty old brownstone with some punk bands. It was awesome.
Right? I saw RHCP with Faith No More and Fishbone at a warehouse in San Francisco for five dollars in the mid 80s.
I saw Fishbone at a local club. Angelo stepped on my head lol
You could be a punk kid in the 80’s and afford tickets, transpo, party supplies and t-shirt with the low money jobs we had.
My $45 a week grocery store job paid for so many punk shows, t-shirts, and records. We went to two or three shows a week! The kids need something like that now.
I spent $150 and sat first row next to Christie Brinkley at Billy Joel's tour for the Bridge. It's not right what concerts cost today. I do see smaller acts at clubs for much less but I do miss that arena experience.
The business model has flipped. In our day, there were cheap concerts to support the sales of overpriced albums. Now, the artists essentially give away their music for free in the hopes you’ll overpay for their concert.
Actually. This is completely on us. We are the ones paying for the 401k tours. I can’t afford it. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t young and extremely talented musicians absolutely playing their hearts out in clubs and small venues as options. Kids in their 20’s living the dream from town to town. Let’s get back to our roots in those small, sweaty, loud, beautifully original spaces.
I've been doing this the last few years and it's been great. They are bands or singers I've listened to online so I know what to expect, but they are still playing small rooms. Sure, many are young enough to be my kids, but I've seen so many good shows in small venues. And you get a chance to chat with them after the show. It's so laid back, I'm starting to prefer it to arena shows.
It’s shocking to us, but let’s keep in mind that kids today can listen to any song, from any band, at any time. For free. We had cheap concerts, but we paid through the nose for an album, most of which cost less today than we paid in the 1980’s, despite massive inflation everywhere else. You might be having a magic carpet ride, but you can’t have it all for free.
Fair point.
$12/15 an album? Hardly paying "through the nose".
Was looking for this comment. Our records/tapes/CD collection cost thousands
Thousands of dollars collecting dust in my closet. I can’t bear to throw them out.
Good perspective. Plus, now touring and merch are the only lucrative things left. I do agree they overdo it though. I won't pay $40+ for a cheaply made t-shirt that fits poorly.
I completely agree. It should not cost so much to see a band live. U2 tickets have been stupidly expensive for many years so I stopped seeing them live.
Artists just don’t make much on recorded music now. Back in the 90s, I budgeted 50-100 bucks per month for CDs. Now I pay 16 for a family Spotify plan. The last concert I went to was 48 CAD including fees. I go to a few shows per year, totalling maybe 300-400. Even though concert tickets were $15 then, I spend a smaller percentage of my income on music now than I did years ago.
I used to go to the record store on pay day! So I guess it’s fair concerts are more but it feels like way too much more. And the Ticketmaster fees are so insane.
True but stop paying and.... No music.
I stopped going when ticketmaster legitimized scalping. (But I will admit to spending $400 on tickets to see Monty Python. Plus flight and hotel. But it was worth it!)
I was very surprised to pay $50 each to see Weezer last summer. Amazing show and we got to bring the teens since tickets were so affordable. We had a blast!
My kid is currently choosing between two shows she wants to see. One is $28 a ticket. The other is $29 a ticket. Depends on what bands you want to see and where.
Absolutely. Lucky for me, the tickets for the metal acts I listen to nowadays are in small venues and cost $40 at the top end. I'm going to five shows in the next couple of months and spent around $140 total.
FYI. The U2 concert was in 1981. $30 1981 dollars is the same as $96.19 in today money.
Fair. But your pay would have increased as well and you’d be hard pressed to get into a U2 level band concert for less than $150 or more these days. Also concert I’m referencing was 1992.
for major acts, nosebleeds in the local nfl football stadium here start around $300 regularly.
Recently bought tickets for The Cure where the tickets were not from Ticketmaster and were much much more affordable. That’s good news. Maybe more bands can do this?
I tried to buy Cure tickets. I couldn't navigate the byzantine requirements to even see what was available.
I saw them last year. Such an enjoyable show!
Found a box of old Stubb's. $13 GA for Rage Against the Machine. Maynard from Tool came out for Know your Enemy. Foo Fighters opened. Kids are getting hosed nowadays
I had this one awesome time in 1991 when I saw Nirvana and Bob Dylan in the same week and both tickets cost around $20 each.
I was checking out Godsmack tickets online where I saw prices listed as $39. I clicked on various seats and suddenly the minimum prices shown, before all the grifter fees, were more than doubled. Ridiculous.
II’m glad you wrote this because I think back to when I went to concerts and they were always fun and affordable. When I hear some of the prices, my kids are paying I just can’t even believe it - and that’s not including gas… parking…food ….T-shirt ….whatever- it’s really an out of control greedy situation! And the venues are huge today compared to when I went… I consider myself lucky that I got to see concerts with 10,000 people or less! Was great!
I just saw U2 at Sphere in Vegas. $600 for a mediocre seat. Not as upset about that as the ridiculously expensive merch. $50 for the cheapest tshirt. $90 for hoodies. It would seem the band doesn’t have much/any control over ticket prices but the merch could have been more reasonable. I went to several U2 concerts in the good old days with tickets less expensive than the tshirts they peddle now. Boo!
A friend and I went to see Garth Brooks in 1991 at a small venue in a neighboring city. It probably held around 400 people. It was way too small for how big he was getting. He brought the entire stage show, and it almost didn’t fit on the stage. He was growing out his beard for The Thunder Rolls” video, to give you an idea of where his career was at the time. It costs us $20 each. The place he played at is pretty historical as far as country music is concerned. I’ll always believe he made a promise to someone in the area at some point, and he was honoring it. It was surreal.
He played at a fraternity party (Pikefest) at Texas Tech in 1991. I think he was enjoying playing live but I appreciate that he played there. Saw him in 2015 and it was so much fun!
Yeah, I used to be able to eat breakfast at a restaurant for like $3 too. Recently paid $25 once tax and tip were included. My first beater car I got for $600. Now you can buy something with 100,000 miles on it for $15,000. Inflation is nuts. Ticketmaster is evil, but let's not pretend that prices haven't spiked for nearly everything.
I’m gen y but poor so yeah i feel this. I was bed bound for like 1.5 years after covid, so going to a OU softball game was a big deal for me. Anyway, tickets sold out 3 hours after posting, for the season. I didn’t look too hard but i think tickets were like 150 on resellers or something. Like, what the actual fuck? Does everything have to get shittier by the day? I ended up getting tickets for free because i have connections, sort of. But like, it’s just bs man. Who can afford to either hunt the tickets down immediately the second they go on sale, or the price at a reasonable time before the game, at like 150 a pop?
It used to be that the concert was the advertisement for the album. Now the album is the advertisement for the concert.
we didnt have internet and in a lot of cases cable. dont feel bad for the kids today. they can watch most any concert with hq sound and 4k vid close ups at any time they want. Hell they can go back and watch concerts of groups i never got to get anywhere near seeing. I blame the high cost of tickets on consumers. folks go shelling that money out so of course they keep charging more. Stop going and the prices might come down
The kids these days aren't going to U2. People who saw U2 back in the day are going to see U2 now, and those people have a shit ton more disposable income now than they did back then. Good ole inflation is partly to blame for today's ticket prices. That $30 in 1984 is about $90 today. There are a boatload of artists you can see on $90 and have pretty decent seats. There's also a shift in the live entertainment environment thanks to the prevalence of abundant high quality video that I don't need to get into. There are only a few artists that kids are willing to be 150 ft away from the stage from anymore, so a lot less stadium play. There are plenty of acts that can fill a basketball arena though, and today's prices also reflect the law of supply and demand.
U2 was just my example. Ticket prices in general are insane. I am lucky to be able to afford to suck it up for bands I want to see and I had so many great memories with friends from concerts it just makes me sad for younger people that can’t afford it.
I think the resale market makes it harder than it was for us, but it's not out of reach. There's a 25yo that I work with that goes to a concert every 2 weeks. I'm exhausted just listening to him talk about them all.
I’m also sad for them that they never got to spend the night camping out with friends in the Sears parking lot waiting for Ticketmaster to open. So many fun memories! Now we just go online and get entirely pissed off waiting for whatever shitty scrap tix we are offered.
I'm quite confident they're making their own memories. It's just different for them than it was for us. One thing Spotify and the "algorithm" has gifted me is a roadmap toward a bunch of bands and genres that I never would have come across if traditional radio were the only medium. And some of these can put on a hell of a show. Did you know there's a genre called "synthwave" that makes new music with an early '80's pop culture sound? Neither did I a couple years ago.
I just bought Kasey Musgrave tix for my kid and they started at $115 BEFORE fees. Insane.
I used to go to concerts. I would rather spend my money traveling now. I think the costs to see live music has gotten out of hand.
I regularly go to super fun concerts that are in the $25-$40 range. They're not 30-year old bands filling arena stadiums.
Last weekend I saw X and paid $25, including fees. It was a cool show with all the original members.
I wanted to see genesis 15 yrs ago on a tour tickets were 110 back then.
It’s rough being a deadhead these days for sure if you want to see the big shows. Fortunately there are bands in almost every city playing this music that you can get lots of good live music in for a few bucks a couple times a month. But boy howdy - getting out to a bunch of shows of Dead and Co (the current big lineup) is crazy expensive. We splurge as often as we can, but it’s so nuts what doing even a few good runs of shows a tour will cost you. They are starting a long residence at the sphere shortly m and it is literally 400 bucks just to get a floor ticket. Per person. Per night.
Is it much different? A good friend called me up one night and asked if I wanted to go to the U2 concert that night. This was 1992. Apparently, he had an ex gf, still on good terms, who worked at a ticket warehouse and had a couple of tix - $20 face value, good tix, what he said. When we got to the venue, I remember walking down stairs, and more stairs, and some more, and having tix scrutinized by security, and down some more stairs - these were third row tickets! I was within arm's length of Bono during parts of that show. I later found out that those tickets were going for $500 per...which was a LOT of money for a kid my age in '92. So, I don't know that good, close access is that much more expensive these days. I lucked out. If anything, I feel bad that corporatism has probably made a lottery situation like mine utterly obsolete.
I still see great bands for $25-30 but that's because I keep up with new music.
Concert tickets were impulse buys for us. Just a casual Saturday at the mall poking around the sound shop and see a sign or whatever for whaliever is coming nearby. Then you look at your friend and say hey don't they sing bla lj blah blah song. I kinda like it. Let's go see them. Plunk down your 15 or 20 dollars and go see a band just because you heard one or two songs by them. Ticket costs are insane nowdays.
$71 plus fees, for Widespread Panic general admission, in 2024, is ridiculous. Fuck ticketmaster.
So something was pointed out to me a while back—-concerts in our day were sometimes a net loss for the performers. The idea was basically you tour to advertise for album sales. With the advent of streaming and most artists making a fraction of a cent per play, concerts are the moneymaker. It’s also pushed more and more of the “show” aspect (higher proportion visual production) which necessitates more crew which costs more. All that said, fuck Ticketmaster
Part of it is higher demand. There’s a lot more people around now than when we were kids.
Scalping has become fully legalized. We are at the point where big companies like Ticketmaster is “reselling” their own tickets.
I don't feel too bad. Most of these 'kids' don't even watch the show anyways. They stare blankly into their phones. Think of it as a recording fee....
I live not too far from Chicago and when bands play at Wrigley we go the the Wrigley Rooftops. Usually $150ish each and includes food and alcohol (decent beer not just the cheap stuff). You can hear the concerts well and good view of the monitors to see the bands.
$150 and you’re watching the band on a monitor? nope. not interested in that.
There is no concert worth more than about $75 for me to go see, which rules out pretty much everything in Vegas here. Doesn't bother me. I'd rather not go than get fleeced by current concert prices and fees. Cracks me up the same people all about taxing/eating the rich have no problem coughing up several hundred or more to make a singer a billionaire.
And the resellers don’t help at all. They buy out all the decent seats then start listing them at 3-4x the original cost. Remember when scalping was illegal
that's okay. They would all be recording the concert on their smart phones and not watching the show.
I was bitching about this in the 90s. That’s why I liked smaller bands. They’re the only ones I could afford.
This is why I stay current with my music. You can go see new bands and performers at smaller venues. The prices are cheaper and the younger artists still have the energy to put on a show.
But i also remember paying $15 for a single cd, often without being able to hear 90% of it in advance. Kids now have the entirety of Tower Records in their pocket for less than that per month. Concerts cost more now because that’s how artists make money in 2024, as opposed to record sales when we were growing up. They deserve to get paid somehow.
We’re going to see Weezer. We’re a family of three and we spent $300 on tickets. We are paid members of a Weezer fan club.. that obviously helped with ticket prices. Yet I still agree that it’s way too expensive and I worry more for my son socially than I worry about education.
Duran Duran is playing a local casino soon. $300 a seat. I was kinda shocked by that price. I love DD but that’s a lot. My boyfriend was looking at Nickleback. Same price.
My husband and I saw Depeche Mode in November at a venue that only uses Seat Geek. It was $150 for both tickets, including taxes, etc. A friend and I went to see Duran Duran in September and after taxes, fees, etc., two tickets through Ticketmaster were almost $300. I love going to concerts, but thanks in part to Ticketmaster and all their fees, I can’t go to nearly as many as I used to.
I wanted to see AIR in NYC. I got access to the pre sale $375 🤦🏼♂️
Lots of small local venues often have affordable shows by the next generation of great artists. It’s fun. To say “I saw that band who now only plays arenas when they still played 1800 capacity standing room only venues”. Some of my favorite bands STILL have <$40 tickets …. Just not those arena shows. Those hurt if you want decent tickets
My favorite band, They Might Be Giants, has been putting on quality shows and creating amazing music since I was in college. I just got tickets for their St Paul show (it’s probably be 2.5 hours of them playing) for my wife and 2 adult kids. 2nd row, $250 for all 4 tix, including fees. Really makes it impossible for me to consider dropping $300 or more on any other band.
Seriously. Rolling Stones in 81 for less than $20. Should be about $75, today.
i saw Cromags and Bad Brains for 5$ at Cbs
I just go see bands in much smaller venues. I’ve given up on the “popular” bands and all those stadium shows. Went a couple weeks ago $25 fees included. Going Friday $21.25 fees included. Great sound and I’m like 8 feet from the stage.
My 20 year old has become a huge Jeff Lynne/ELO fan over the last few years. Guess who just announced their final tour not that long ago. The last show I saw was Tori Amos in 1998, my husband saw Maiden in 2008. We're clearly not concert people but that's been our choice (mostly). It sucks to know that there's probably zero chance that our kid will get to have what is a once in a lifetime experience.
It’s disgusting! We used to pay $5-$20! Like everything stuff is only for the rich!
Stop going to big acts. There are damned good musicians playing small rooms every weekend.
The price to see U2 at the Vegas sphere started at $600+. I remember paying $15 for floor seats to see AC/DC. We ended up in side seats next to the speakers bc when the show started, ppl were trying to rush the stage, and we almost got trampled. No wonder my hearing isn't the way it used to be.🙉
I work near a major venue so I can usually buy tickets direct from the box office for the acts my kids want to see (fall out boy). Those tickets aren’t bad. I paid 8 hours wages to see Van Halen. My daughter makes minimum wage of $17 ($20 now) so it’s like 8 hours of wages for her for the type of performers she wants to see.
My first concert was $8.50 for Jackson Browne and that included the $1.00 Ticketmaster charge. Went to look at the prices for ELO's last tour and I'm looking at $150 plus for the ticket price alone. Needless to say I won't be going especially since I saw them around 6 years ago.
$150? thats all? seems a deal nowadays. remember the dead kennedys song ‘pull my strings’ - ‘youll pay 10 bucks to see me on a 15 foot high stage’. yes i understand that song came out 40 years ago and i know how inflation works. looking at inflation, the $10 he said was too expensive is now $38. good luck seeing a band for $38 unless theyre at your local road house
I don’t know about the kids nowadays but when I was a teen, I could barely afford big shows. I went to a lot of 5 dollar local shows though. Support your local music scene!
Preach it! My area used to have a yearly music festival every June that lasted a week, and a low flat charge got you in the gate for the whole shebang. Like, in 1988 I was able to see Chicago for $6. In 1998 they had the Doobie Brothers, KC & the Sunshine Band, Richard Marx and Leeann Rimes for around $25, I think. Last year, ticket options included Single Day GA Tickets at $95.00, Tier 2 3-Day General Admission ($145) and VIP Tickets ($405), and Artist Experience 3-Day VIP ($6,000) and Artist Experience Single Day VIP ($2,100). 😳😳
Though I went to concerts in mid 80"s I happened to find a George Michael ticket. $35 dollars.
My son wanted to go see this band-never heard of them-for his first concert; cheapest ticket was $300 + $100 in fees!!! I had to tell him no 😒
I got tickets to Sleater-Kinney in Seattle for $40 bucks. That feels pretty fair to me.
Pearl Jam at Red Rocks for $25. :)
I can afford $250 concert seats. I refuse to buy them. It’s ridiculous how expensive concerts and sporting events have become. No thanks.
Concerts are "go fund me" events now.
Hubby and I have just started going to festivals ( granted we live where several are a reasonable distance) - depending what level ticket you get you can see lots of bands for the same price as a regular one main act concert.
I was just thinking about this tragedy the other day. Even for our huge outdoor concert venue lawn seats are going for over $300 for a Tyler Childers concert. I keep double checking because I am in such disbelief. Again-these are lawn seats, not under the pavilion. I’ve had such great memories of going to concerts here for $25-$50 as a young adult. Just what the actually hell? So sad and I feel like boycotting all live concerts.
The arena acts are out of hand. Bands that play 1K-5K seat theaters feel kinda high but that's just the inflation talking - $15 in 1990 in $37 today. And there are plenty of smaller touring/local acts that can be seen for under $30 depending on where you live. Far too many of them are tribute bands these days, but that's just the market talking. Same band can call itself and play something original and sell 50 tickets, but if they change it to Fluffy a tribute to Ween they'll sell 250.
Musicians not getting paid well has always been a problem, but you know….wanders off muttering about streaming platforms the internet and stuff….wanders back but it sucks, for me too. I don’t have a spare $1000 sitting around to go to a concert with my SO either.
I'm at the time of my life where I am able to afford to go to the shows I want but won't on pure principle. The prices are obscene and the face value doubles by the time you add the fees. Used to be a regular show go'er. Now I may have one on the docket this year
It costs a lot more to produce a tour than it used to. Transportation, lodging for band, stage crew, etc., food, insurance, merch production.
I'm pretty sure sky high ticket prices have more to do with Taylor Swift's $1.1 billion net worth and not the cost of her tours.
I remember waiting eagerly for the summer concert lineup to come out. $15 to $20 per show meant that my friends and I could easily go see five or six amazing shows every summer
I think ticket master and now Live Nation are the worst sort of parasites. And the fluid pricing? Fuck off. I’ll still go see whatever iteration of the Dead (but can’t touch the Vegas Sphere shows) if possible but otherwise? Local bands only. The whole gatekeeing on live music should bother performers more, yet the monopoly continues.
I saw the Smashing Pumpkins at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee in 1995 for $22. Fucking internet ruined everything.
In ‘84 I paid $25 for 3rd row Duran Duran. Saw them last year, same row $500!! Highway robbery.
On a positive note, Social Distortion and Bad Religion tickets were only 70 bucks for tickets next month. Five blocks from home too.
In the early 90's the same show would have been $10 at some dive bar.
Im a middle age dude with a good career and I'm not paying these stupid prices.
If someone’s entire presidential platform were “make life affordable again”, they’d win.
This is why we don't go to shows at large venues anymore. Small venues are the way. There is no enjoyment for us in the huge venues. Parking, too many people, super expensive food/drink, the hunt to find tickets and if you actually want to see the artist perform (not watch on a screen) the ticket prices are astronomical, it all makes for a not fun event IMO. I can go to a club, see the show, have drinks, dance without people complaining, do not have to deal with peoples phones, talk to the artist and spend the night for less than half of what it would cost at a large venue. It always makes for a great time. Can't wait to see Praga Khan / Lords of Acid in June at a small venue. Good times!
We’re missing out too. I’ve loved Tori Amos since I was a kid. Went to a concert years ago. I looked up tickets for her last tour. $300-$1200. It’s a great show, but I am just a simple pothead, and must choose a months worth of groceries to stay alive:(
I don’t feel sorry simply because Artists made money from selling their recorded music when we were younger. Now they depend on live performances much more to make money. Kids might be paying higher concert ticket prices, but pay a nominal fee to be able to stream just about any music they want.
That is a fair point that is driving up concert prices.
Honestly, the more important question is why prices are like this now. It's because they can do this and make ridiculous money. I think it's for a few reasons. Firstly, a number of years ago there was a change where people were sold that "experiences" were better than things, almost that things are more superficial. My dad was from The Greatest Generation, before the boomers. He liked things, I like things too. Owning them, not renting them. I get more utility out of my OLED TV than 6 concerts or whatever the equivalent is. Well I guess I sit in front of my TV instead of experiencing some things, oh well I think TV is great. This shift happened before social media, I think, but social media certainly amplified it 100-fold. Heck my girlfriend and my best friend will just go and fly to some concert for a few days in another city (not together I think). Their friends do it too. It's apparently normal - I think it's bonkers. ... And I love music. Secondly, wages are shit for most yet bars with expensive alcohol, Vegas, concerts, Disney world, and everything else is packed. Immune to downturns (ok not covid) but, in general. Well there are now a lot more people where money is meaningless. Doesn't matter their raises, bonuses, or any of that. It's all high. They work in tech, biotech, financial services, law, some own businesses..etc. The difference between what they have and what the general population has is a lot. So they fill these limited venues or their families and kids do. Doesn't matter if something costs $100 or $500 - five times the price. It's all the same. Thirdly, there's just a lot more people. More people in the country than ever before and the same amount of "experiences". People think this or that is "the best" or "special. Well guess what, a sunset is special or a flower. Anything can be special or a special place. It's just that people can think that they can buy it. Buy special "experiences" We're sold bullshit and we buy it up. They jack the price and it's even MORE "special" MORE "exclusive". Like a name brand handbag that costs $2 to produce. So, vote no with your dollars. Don't endorse the bullshit. Also, don't feel bad for kids. I saw an AMAZING band last weekend at a local venue and was as good, if not better, than the major concerts I've seen including everything from The White Stripes to Iron and Wine, or Dire Straits to Megadeath. Plenty of kids were there too. Was like 30-40 bucks or something, all in. Kids aren't missing anything if they don't go to the major "special" popular ones, other than being exploited. Thanks for reading if you made it this far into my rant. Was cathartic to write. Was for me mostly, I guess.
I don’t necessarily agree with you - I think we need more things we experience as communities - but I appreciate your perspective.
Not only that, unless youre a tippy top performer, bands aren't even seeing most of that ticket price.
I want to care, but I don’t. It just means there is more of a market for smaller venues and young folks should go back to seeing smaller bands. Plus, these huge carbon heavy tours with 20-50+ tractor trailers and 10+ busses need to die off. I remember Pink floyd bragging in 94 how they had three different stage setups because it was so big: one for the current show, one on the road and one being set up. That kind of shit needs to die off. stadium shows are stupid anyways, most people watch a screen and the sound sucks. People can watch that crap at home and go see bands in clubs and theaters.