What Ticketmaster Doesn't Want You To Know: Concerts Were Cheap For Decades
Ticketmaster and Live Nation have destroyed the concert experience. But it didn't use to be this way. Today, Oasis and Taylor Swift tickets might go for thousands of dollars, but back in 1955, you could see Elvis Presley in concert for less than the modern-day equivalent of $20.
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I just saw an article about how ticket sales are slumping, and that people aren't willing to spend 600 per ticket anymore. The poor Ticketmaster CEO said that people just don't want to.
Yep my dude, can't be that you've changed concerts from "we should go see _______!" To "I guess it's the one time in my life I'll ever see them, I'll go one time and then never again" level of special occasion. Seriously 600 dollars per person is nearing Disney level vacation money.
So yeah, of course money isn't infinite. You hit the ceiling. Taylor and oasis may gather that much, but your other artists are going to suffer. I'll be honest I paid 600 for Taylor. It was a once in a lifetime experience. But now they want me to pay something like 400 for any random music act that comes to town. No, Ticketmaster, she was my favorite, that was a one time thing. I'm not paying 400 to see like, Weezer.
Say it ain't so!
The one concert that is on my life long bucket list, for over 40 years, is to see Billy Joel live. He came to my local venue but I did not buy tickets because nose bleeds were over $400 and because I will not do business with Live Nation, period. It makes me sad but resolute.
Edit: For more context, I grew up hearing his music and I remember distinctly driving west on Java from Jakarta to the West coast in 1984 in a little piece of shit Daihatsu van my parents owned (that consistently burnt the bottoms of my feet because the exhaust was so close to the floor) and listening to Billy Joel on an eight track while bouncing and banging around on the awful roads on the way to the beach.
I have saved a lot of money by just not being at all into Billy Joel.
That's brutal.
You’re going to have to decide if it’s worth it, and soon. He puts in a great show and the music is excellent but he won’t be on tour forever. Billy Joel is the artist I’ve seen in concert most, maybe 4-5 times and I always love it. However I think the last time was like $120 and that’s just getting too much
Just saw Green Day. 4 people in the pit, 1400 bucks
No band is worth that unless somebody you love has literally risen from the dead.
Saw them in the early 2000s at a medium sized, indoor venue that had no seating. $25 / ticket. They stopped in the middle of a song to make sure someone was ok and a guy even jumped from the (not super high) balcony, crowd surfed to the stage, and played guitar with them for a song.
You got ripped off. :/
It was expensive but I don't feel ripped off. Smashing Pumpkins opened and both bands played for hours with no breaks. It's how bands make money in the days of YouTube paying artists a tiny percentage of a penny to stream a song
WTF. That's vacation money. Thanks for providing some reference.
Yup, I don't go to any price gouged concerts period. I can afford it but I refuse on principle because more than $50 just isn't worth it for me to see any artist so I mostly just see moderately big names when they play open stages at festivals. On the other hand traditionally "high class" music like symphony orchestras still have tickets in the $20 dollar range.
Yeah to be fair if I were a big Taylor Swift fan and knew that she was actually going to be decent live, like could actually sing well and put on a good show, then this latest “Eras” tour does sound like a pretty good experience, since you’re getting music from her whole career which I’m assuming you wouldn’t get from her other standard gigs for like individual album releases (I guess you would to an extent but probably not to the same extent as this eras tour?)
However I actually still wouldn’t be able to go see her in that situation, cos I literally don’t have enough money for it, but I get the appeal. But it is insane that it has to cost so much for everyone.
I saw Eminem at Reading Festival a few years ago and because it was a festival, I suppose that makes up for it as I saw some other alright bands on the same day, but it was actually a shit performance from him. Well not him, but the sound was fucked up the entire time. The music was basically too loud so you could barely hear him rapping over the top. That would have been a truly shocking fucking experience if I had been paying £600 for a ticket though! I actually think you should be able to get a refund in cases like that. When there are clear technical faults going on. You hear it happen shockingly often, like you’d think they’d be able to work out how to at least get the sound sorted out for a gig!? That’s surely the equivalent of a faulty product where you would be able to take it back to shop for a full refund.
Yet I’ve never heard of anyone getting refunds for stuff like that, even when sound issues have been widely reported so were clearly a problem, not just someone’s individual opinion.
Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent but yeah…haha.
But that's basically my point, is that they changed concerts from a casual affair to a once in a lifetime experience, where we have to choose our favorites we actually want to see, and can't go see people we only casually like.
And yeah I totally get the risk aspect, because at that cost in the back of my head was "is this worth it? Was it worth the price?"
I spent $10 at the door to see Deftones (mid 90s or so?), a friends band was opening for them.
I want to point out, this was after adrenaline, so they weren't an unknown here - they were headlining. Now its about $200 for the same venue (just checked).
$10 in 1995 is $20 today for inflation. That $200 ticket would be $100 in 1995. There is no way I would have paid $100 in 1995 to see my friends OK band, even opening for the Deftones.
I think you're absolutely right. I don't know that I will ever even be in a realistic position to take my daughter to go see Taylor Swift without it being a huge birthday present or something.
Yeah na I get what you mean. It does suck. And yeah it’s a bit shit if you’re constantly worrying about the money, means you can’t enjoy it as much which is the opposite of what you want cos you spent a lot of money… but cos you spent you worry… haha I’ll stop now but yeah ironic cycle continues round.
Which is why I probably just wouldn’t bother these days unless I was seriously seriously sure about it or just had a lot of disposable income at that point.
TBH though by the way. TS is kind of a jerk. The way she released that last album that people pre-ordered (imagine how lucky she is that people even actually purchase her music in full albums!! She seriously doesn’t need to be making shit loads off concert tickets) but then she releases like 20 EXTRA songs that aren’t available never pre-ordered one from what I understand right? So then people actually went ahead and purchased the album AGAIN to get the extra 20 songs.
So she’s cleaning the fuck up lol. I mean I dunno how many mugs actually did re purchase it, no offence if you’re one of them, but like damn, that’s really taking the piss out of your fans IMO. But people love her so much that they are just happy to have those extra songs available to listen to (AND PURCHASE) so it gets glossed over.
Like the people who pre-ordered are really loyal fans, so if anything she should be rewarding them for that. Like giving them those extra songs for free on the album.
People even purchased all her old music twice a lot of the time I think. When she re-recorded all the albums.
Just seems insane to me. She is truly raking it in.
And the artists aren’t getting most of that money. Ticketmaster is. So they’re hurting artists as well.
I hope the FTC beats the snot out of them in their lawsuit
I went to see Green Day in 2010 because I guess the tickets didn’t sell well and my friends and I got them for like $10 each the day of. I’m not a super fan or anything, but I was young when they were big and probably really enjoy ~10-15 Green Day songs, so I totally thought it would be worth $10.
It was fucking awful. The music was rough, Billie Joe told the arena full of twelve year old girls about how he was so wasted that morning he pissed in his own luggage, and it was just a bad vibe.
Billie Joe is sober now. Entire band night be sober, at least they don’t drink at shows at all now.
Damn yeah that is weird vibes. Don’t wanna slander the guy or whatever the right word is lol but like hopefully it doesn’t come out that he’s yet another to add to the list of paedos. But I swear the list of celebrities coming out with stuff like that or SA stuff is pretty depressing and I’m thinking that story is a sort of a yellow flag warning moment lol.
Hopefully not though. Sorry Billie!
Yeah, I was 19 and I was sketched out by how an adult was talking to kids, but maybe he didn’t realize the crowd makeup yet.
It actually sounds to me like Ticketmaster found out that people were scalping tickets and decided to get in on the action.
I hope they get sued out of existence and then their executives beaten, tarred and feathered, and exiled from the music industry.
I want successful musicians to receive the accolades of their work but I also want their work to be financially accessible.
Yeah I’m not entirely sure of what the way forward is there. But somehow they need to get the prices of shows down or it’s literally just gonna be a load of rich kids at these shows.
I heard that… I think it was The Jam? Actually “stood up” to ticketbastard a while back. But then from what I read, it turns out they actually just ended up getting a negotiated better rate with them, so that THEY got paid more for the gigs, but ticket prices remained the same or possibly even went up as a result. So just a completely selfish thing as opposed to a “fuck the system, let’s stand with the people” moment.
Sort of a variation on a don’t meet your heroes moment for their big fans I think.
Happens all too often though. I haven’t actually checked so possible he hasn’t actually sold out. But MGK at his beginnings was meant to be a proper “movement” he was completely idolised by his fans (including me when I was much younger lol). So if his tickets are or ever do become super expensive then that’s a sure sign of another sell out.
He’s kinda completely changed fences now anyhow which I think pissed off a lot of his base although I’ve always been into alternative rock and rock rap like mixture genre thing. So I thought it was kinda cool tbf anywho probably no one even knows who he has so I’ll shut up now. But yeah hopefully he isn’t another sellout.
Yeah but now what happens is scalpers use bots to buy up all the tickets and immediately resell them for a markup. And ticketmaster is happy to get their cut.
Happened when we went to buy Bruins tickets last year. What was orignally a 75 dollar seat was not a resale seat for 140. And this was the nosebleed section.
Yeah, that's the problem with middle men. They're not there to lower the prices for the consumer.
I've seen Green Day and Weezer in concert so many times when I was younger. Then they did the tour with Fallout Boy a few years back and I just couldn't justify the cost. Which is a shame but it is what it is.
I think I might have gone to that.. weird I can’t remember but I was an alcoholic so didn’t remember much of those times!
Not sure if it was a tour as such though, well it was British Summer Time Festival in I believe Hyde Park. I deffo saw at least one of them there anyway but I have a feeling it was not actually which would be a pretty damn strong gig for the UK. (I know in America they get a lot more of tours/gigs with lots of big names but it’s quite rare in the UK really).
I almost bought tickets to that since they were gonna be in town on my birthday but decided to wait.
Covid hit a month later. Was so glad I didn’t get those tickets. Was gonna be $250 a pop for the cheap seats.
Yea, they eventually did the tour and honored the tickets. I guess $250 isn't terrrrrrible, when I was looking it was like $250 for essentially nosebleed seats.
I follow CHH, and some of the bigger Christian rappers and their labels run the entire tours themselves. Indie Tribe's Holy Smoke Festival, which is pretty big, sells some tickets for like ~$100. Still a lot, but considering their popularity it's not bad, and way more attainable than those Taylor Swift tickets lol
Christian Rapers?
Wow that sounds as riveting as Christian Rock was.
Christian rapers sound riveting to you?
That’s a great festival name for the genre