I love seeing live music. You get to see how the recorded music takes shape after being played over and over again. Sometimes you get a first glimpse at new material or the artist’s take on someone else’s material, which may never get recorded. Furthermore, you get to network with people who have similar tastes in music.
But, over the past few years I’ve noticed an alarming trend in ticket prices. For medium and major acts, ticket prices have been rising at a rate that seems to be far higher than most other artists. Add to that the ever-increasing fees imposed by Ticketmaster and you’ve pretty much priced most people out of the show.
To illustrate my point…A major artist recently announced a tour that is scheduled to come through Nashville in 2010. I wanted to go see this artist, so I obtained a pre-sale code and logged into Ticketmaster. To my surprise, it was going to cost almost $80 per ticket to get the best available seats. I could have bought cheaper seats at about $45 per ticket, but those seats would have been in the upper balcony of the arena. Call me a curmedgeon, but I’d rather not go than pay over $50 (after parking and not including concessions) per ticket to barely be able to see the artist on stage. For the sake of comparison, two legendary bands played a joint show here in town not too long ago for a ticket price of about $60 after fees.
I thought that maybe that artist was an anomoly. Another artist also announced a tour that is scheduled to come through Nashville in 2010. This artist is not as widely known and is playing a smaller venue here in town. I looked up ticket prices for this artist, and mid-level seats were going to be about $45. While not nearly as pricey as the other artist, after paying for parking, it’s still over $100 for two people to go see the show. As a result, we decided to pass on the show.
Compare this with the $40 my wife and I spent (total, with food) to go see an up-and-coming artist at a smaller venue here in town. There were no ridiculous fees, either. Just a fair price for a great show. And, we even got to meet and talk to the artist after the show. Somehow, the artist was making it work while charging a very small amount for tickets. Of course, it remains to be seen whether this artist will raise ticket prices as they get more widely known. I hope they don’t try to keep up with everyone else.
The fact is, as much as I enjoy watching live music, it’s becoming increasingly cost prohibitive to do so, at least to see major acts. For my money, I’d rather support smaller venues who in turn are supporting up-and-coming artists. In my experience, these shows have been more fun because the crowds are generally smaller and more engaged with the music. Not to mention that these shows are generally less than half the cost of seeing a major act’s show.
Hey Josh… you are 100% RIGHT ON. Clapton & Beck just announced select cities in 2010 playing together. Can you imagine how much those tickets will be? I went to see Billy Joel & Elton John together (OK… I know they are not guitar players, but they are great performers!) and those tickets set me back $280 each! I saw Joe Bonamassa a few years back in a small setting (about 200 seat theater) in Flagstaff Arizona for $35. Now THAT was a deal!
I completely agree. It is a shame that the live concert business is being (has already been?) ruined by greed. Ticketmaster gets a bad rap for all of the fees, but I would be willing to bet that most artists, managers, and agents are getting a piece of those fees as well. The artists and the people who work for them (mainly managers and agents) need to take a stand and be willing to leave some money on the table to bring the cost of live concerts back to a level where the average consumer feels comfortable with the price.
The underlying comment to the consumer is “If we can’t get you on the cost of the CD, we’ll get you on the cost of the show.” Of course, for those of us that pay for music, we’re getting paying for it on both sides.
I understand that putting on a show costs money, but as GuitarDaddy said, some artists (Joe Bonamassa in particular) are able to put on a great show for a reasonable fee.
Every time I pay for a ticket, I feel like there are a whole slew of people with their hand in my pocket trying to get at my wallet.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I think you’re right Taylor. At some point, the artists and their handlers are going to have to be willing to leave some money on the table to get ticket prices back in line with reality.
The CD business has disappeared over the last few years causing artists to rely on touring for income. The problem is that some of the bigger name acts charge an order of magnitude more than what is reasonable. $200 – $300 a ticket is highway robbery. What’s worse is that many of these acts mail it in, playing their hits verbatim and only playing an hour and half. For that much money you should see something really special. Too many artists take their audiences for granted. Of course, its our fault for paying those prices.
Trent Reznor posted a great article on the NIN forum about how Ticketmaster works. (http://forum.nin.com/bb/read.php?59,548515) It’s stuff like this I absolutely can’t stand. $100+ for a ticket (in a lousy seat where you just end up watching the entire show on the video screens) is already ridiculous for most bands. But the way Ticketmaster and some corporate bands artificially jack up prices is absolutely absurd. It’s totally against the kind of stuff music stands for. Not cool guys, not cool.
I couldn’t agree more. Ticket prices have risen to ridiculous levels. I used to attend three or four major shows a year. This year, I went to one because I’m unwilling to pay more than what I believe is reasonable to see an act. I hope the ticket price bubble will eventually burst. I want to pay for the show, not the ticket broker’s Vail cabin, the booking agent’s boat and the artist’s Maybach.
I too agree. Ticket prices are ridiculous and there is little chance things will change. The last large concert my wife and I attended (Eric Clapton) cost us $180 plus parking. The show was great and the accompanying guitarists were legendary. Still, I wondered, what portion actually went to the artists – after other pockets were lined. During the last two years, we’ve purposely selected smaller venues where the average ticket are $25 to $35. Most of the performances have been very good to excellent.
What do you expect… people steal the music from the Internet, so the only real way to make money is to play live and get the money. The real losers are people like me who do buy the CD’s and pay for the tickets and buy the merchandise. That said the artists are partly to blame for this by keeping CD prices high and not touring to promote their music.
Ticket prices have definitely got a bit out of control. However, I saw Green Day this year and was pleased to see they are keeping the prices reasonable enough, especially when you compare it to a band that can do the same numbers like Coldplay that charges 200% more.
I agree, ticket prices is to hight these times, I just hope that the band will learn their lesson before people stop going to gigs
By all accounts, the traditional recording industry is declining. At the same time, and even through sells are on the rise, downloadable music is problematic for musicians. Customers can piecemeal their purchases these days. There is no need to buy an entire album when one can simply download the few songs that appeal to them.
Consequently, I think recording artists will be more dependent of revenue from live performances. The question is, will that dependence raise or lower ticket prices? Competition for live venues could actually bring costs down. On the other hand, artists will probably expect to make up for lost revenue.
I think we’re in the “artists trying to make up for lost revenue” stage of the process right now. Unfortunately, all the other entities involved in the touring business also seem to be in the trying to make up for lost revenue as well, all at the expense of the fans.
As an aside, I just saw that one of my favorite bands (Gov’t Mule) is coming through town next year. Ticket prices will be $22-27. How can they do it for such a reasonable price, but other artists can’t?