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.
I mean I’ve seen more than a couple of shows at my local waterhole, and the price has been between free and $20. The $20 one was Moonhooch and absolutely worth it!
If you like listening to live music, it’s there, but it’s not T-Swizzle.
I know it’s a relatively niche genre but I almost exclusively go to folk punk shows. They’re usually $15-20 or “meh, pay what you can just have fun”
Folk punk sounds like a really interesting genre. Do you have any recommendations?
Pigeon Pit, Left at London, Sister Wife Sex Strike, She/Her/Hers, Apes of the State. You may notice a theme with those ones… There’s also classics like AJJ, Jeffery Lewis, Pat the Bunny, and Against Me. Of the ones I listed Pigeon Pit, Sister Wife, and Apes are my favorites which is pretty convenient because all three of them are playing in a concert tonight near me for like $20
Thankfully, my favorite group, the acappella group Home Free is still inexpensive and even cheap - I paid $30 a seat to see them last year. I could have had a $15 seat in the balcony if I had wanted.
Do you think if they’d charged ten times more that people would have still gone? Something has changed about there being enough people who’ll pay $200 (equivalent)
Yes income and wealth inequality. Elites v peasants and boomers v everybody else.
I suspect people now just go to see their, one, most favourite artist, maybe once every 5 years or something. As opposed to going to see one or two artists per year before. Or for people who want to be able to continue to go once or more a year, they just see newer artists who have reasonable prices.
I mean any real music fan these days, who doesn’t have a massive budget, should be going to festivals instead of individual gigs as these are massively better value for money.
Which came first though? Either people stopped going (and they charged more to compensate) or demand increased (so they found they’d still fill the room at a higher price)?
Why do you assume this has anything to do with a supply/demand curve? Because that’s the first thing you were taught in Econ 101 and it stuck?
In reality, most people aren’t that sensitive to small changes in price. And the demand drop is not instant. It might take months or years. Execs make the decision to raise the price, they don’t see the demand drop off immediately, and they instantly absolve themselves of any responsibility for the effects of their price increase. After all, there was hardly any demand drop in the quarter in which they made the change.
Look at say, Coca-Cola. You could easily double the price in five years and the price is negligible enough that most people won’t even notice. (Oh wait, they did this.)
It is a supply and demand curve.
The supply is incredibly small for a world-famous artist compared to their demand. If the reason some people can’t buy a ticket because there are no tickets left, there’s room to increase the price of the ticket and sell the exact same amount of tickets. If resellers can just buy all your tickets and sell them for 10x the price, then you can 10x the price of tickets and sell the same amount.
The problem is that you can’t just use the profits from selling Taylor swift tickets to make another Taylor swift so you can increase the supply of Taylor swift.
There are only 3 ways they can increase their Taylor swift profits: 1. Make concerts in bigger venues so they can sell more tickets. 2. Increase the ticket prices. 3. Increase the amount of Taylor swift concerts.
- And 3. Have upper bound limits. Specially 3. Because what incentive do multi-millionaire artists to work more? If I were so wealthy, I’d strive to work less, not more.
The easiest option is 2. why wouldn’t they do it?
Sure, if I was a music fan it’d suck, but the truth is that they are corporations, and they are legally required to increase the shareholders’ value.
It’s actually more of an issue of artificial supply and demand caused by a monopoly that controls ticket sales, secondary market, and venues. They’re also very hostile to performing artists, using their monopoly to force them to play more expensive venues and charge higher prices or risk blacklisting at virtually every major venue. It’s the kind of shit that anti-trust laws were created to prevent but, there has been little to no enforcement for near a half of a century.
You question if supply and demand has anything to do with it then point out coke doubled their price in 5 years and people kept buying it? Confusing
Music venue ticket increases isn’t a short term thing, were talking about how it’s comparatively risen over 60 years from Elvis to Taylor Swift
I saw Metaliica for around $24 in 2004. From then on, I was on every gig of theirs in my country, until this year. This year I couldn’t afford to see them. It was fucking ~$320 (without the road to the venue, hotels, food and stuff)! It’s depressing.
They weren’t exactly new at the time, but I still paid less than $20 to see both P. Funk and They Might Be Giants in the 90s.
I saw King Missile for free because they said anyone who brought a vegetarian potluck dish could come to the show for free.
I remember buying tickets for all day event concerts in the 90’s that were absolutely amazing for between $20 and $50. Went to every Ozzfest from 94-99 and the most I spent on a ticket was $35.
Now those lineups would cost $500+, and for what? Some added light shows? There is less equipment needed now than ever before. Audio modeling is incredible. What once required a massive pedal board and post processing done in a huge computer can be accomplished by a Helix stomp and a competent audio engineer with a laptop and a few other systems. FRFR speakers are cheaper than ever and sound better as well. The “this has gotten more expensive” line is a crock of shit.
Tickets should have scaled with inflation. This is just the next iteration of record company greed. We knew it was happening with physical music sales but now with Spotify and Apple Music they can’t gouge at that level. Line must go up, so it’s happening with concerts.
Obligatory FUCK TICKETMASTER!
As people have already noted, the $20-$25 shows were different than a modern arena show, I saw Soundgarden with Voivod for $25ish at a local outdoor small venue in the 1990s, and have seen other acts there recently for between $50-$75 (the Alabama Shakes, Cimafunk), that seems like normal inflation.
Arena shows I honestly don’t remember what we paid for tickets to see big bands, but I sure remember general admission, running to get to the front, not being able to move once there, and the random groping that always happened. I don’t go much to big shows now (or even back then) and have never been to a stadium show.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable for artists to make money on performance, rather than on sales of recorded music. Not sure what the value of a show like that is, but probably more than it was back when tours were done to promote album sales.
I think Ticketmaster and Live Nation absolutely are to blame for hyperinflated ticket prices.
The fact that scalpers also operate is reprehensible.I will however say that production values of a modern gig are many factors higher than they were decades ago.
Safety standards are much higher, requiring more crowd control, more planning, more specialised equipment (both for the venue, and for the production).
It’s no longer “a stack of speakers and a mixing desk with 8 channels”. PA design and installation is both a science and an art in itself to achieve an even frequency response throughout as much of the venue as possible. Never mind the production of the actual music.
It’s no longer “120 par cans over the stage and a bunch of power”, it’s a huge quantity of intelligent lighting fixtures with months of planning and days of programming.
Never mind the video side of things requiring months of preproduction with kit that would make the lighting or sound budget look like fisher price.
And all of this has to be built and run with redundancy, so the equipment list is essentially doubled, and likely a lot of spares.
Venue costs are also higher. So all of that production has to be orchestrated to go in and come out in as fast a time as possible. And packed on and off trucks in specific ways to facilitate this. Logistics of a tour are intimidating.There are also entire university degrees based around these roles in production, people want and make a career out of touring. Places on tours are highly sought after.
Gigs are no longer just a band playing. There is a lot more show to it.
Whether this is actually what fans want is up for debate. And if it actually makes the experience better is also up for debate.Ticket prices are obscene, and I don’t think they are inline with the production provided.
However, if the live music is in demand then there will be people that pay. A band can only play so many gigs, and venues are limited.
Some of the increased cost can be attributed to making the job easier and safer for all the crew, staff and fans.
Some of the increased cost can be attributed “putting on a better show”.
Some of the cost can be attributed to some of these jobs moving from the “passion and hobby” to “a career”.
Some of these costs can be attributed to the increased skill level required to put on these gigs.
Some of these costs can be attributed general cost of living & inflation increases.
But I think most of the costs can be attributed to the exploitative behaviour of Ticketmaster etc.Mixing now requires phenomenally less equipment. We went from massive mixing boards to a collection of individual dials and now we are on very powerful digital modeling systems with a laptop interface.
Sure, these need to be dialed in at every venue, but most of the settings are staying close to the same to recreate a studio type sound with autotune turned slightly down and letting the chord change strum be left in.
Yeh, consoles and generally the engineering side has (somewhat) come down in price. But it is more expensive to actually use it in a live gig.
I don’t know anyone that would mix on a laptop for a live music gig (as opposed to a band at a conference/function) any larger than solo acoustic for 50-100 people.
It’s not that a physical control surface would make it sound better (well, especially with preproduction), but that a physical control surface allows you to react to the music faster. Anything more than 2 button presses away is too far for a live gig with any stakes.
Yes the technology is there, and it is doable. But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. You are introducing massive disadvantages before you even start the gig.
Some comments on the increased complexity…
Wireless systems are more prevalent, along with IEMs. An 8 way stereo IEM system is a lot more than an 8 way monitor system. More expensive , and a lot more planning.
These days, it is much more common to have DSP amps, a channel (or even multiple channels) per box in an array, arrays are much bigger with additional fills and delays.
I’ve seen some of the daddy racks used in tours, they will be 2 or 3 x 30-40U racks of amps and systems per PA hang.The rigging for the PA is more precise, requires precise measurements (both physical and spectral), and it needs someone to actually run the PA.
All of this allows an install closer to the ideal PA for the gig, with tooling and simulation to plan it in advance. Which requires a lot broader skill set and planning than throwing in whatever PA you could hire and walking around until it’s good enough.
I’d say a tour 30-40 years ago was unlikely to have a dedicated systems tech dealing only with the PA. They’d likely supervise the install and some tuning, then be a patch monkey or monitor engineer or something. Or maybe just chill out until the derig.
These days, it’s not uncommon to have someone continually monitoring the PA, amps, desk racks etc. and it is as much a skill as engineering the actual band.20,000 people in a stadium having paid $20 a ticket is $400k budget per show. Seems like a lot, but a venue is going to cost anywhere between $100k and $500k per night.
100 crew/techs for the in, show & out is going to be $25k to $50k. Equipment hire is going to be anywhere from $50k to $500k.
Never mind rehearsal and pre-production costs.
There will be discounts for multiple nights and longer term hires, however anything like an actual tour has a lot of additional accommodation, travel and logistics costs & planning.Audience members going to a gig at a large stadium will have certain expectations, regardless of cost.
Tech crew are going to have certain expectations working at a stadium level gig. These are professionals at (most of the time) the peak of their career.While the equipment cost might be somewhat comparable (purchasing a couple Midas, outboard, splits, snakes would’ve been $100k to $250k. A redundant SD10 system with a monitor desk might be $150k to $350k and a hell of a lot more capable - analogue Vs digital sound arguments aside), it generally needs more people and more skill to be able to use and run these systems (analogue splits can be used drunk/hangover. Dante or madi have many layers of complication).
I’d say digital desks are a bit more fragile than analogue - when digital dies it’s dead, when analogue dies it sounds shit - which will increase the hire cost.
And by the time you have a desk that can make a live performance sound like a studio album, you also need a PA to back that up, and you need the kit to make sure the band is comfortable playing to that level.
Also, to attract reliable talent to actually work the gigs (not just the band and their requirements), a certain level of equipment is expected.Hell, I’ve been on gigs with dedicated coms techs. All they look after is networking and voice coms systems, and the kit they are deploying makes a video engineers eyes water (you know it’s a good gig when you see anything Riedel)
Modern gigs are on another level of complexity compared to the $20 gigs of Elvis’ time.
Even $40 a ticket in a 20k stadium doesn’t leave much wiggle room.
Then you have profits for the band and organisers. And the demand will drive up prices.Like I said, I think current big gig prices are exploitative.
But the comparison to gigs from decades ago isn’t a good one. Production capabilities are much higher, expectations are much higher, abilities and tech is much more refined.
You have to remember bands like The Beetles, Queen and Pink Floyd would be drowned out by the fans. Pretty shitty gig if you can’t hear the band.And that’s nothing to speak to lighting, video, production and artist management departments.
Sorry for the ramble. Halfway through a bottle of wine!
As much as I love working a GOOD budget gig, I’d rather have the equipment to be able to operate at the level I’m capable of - to the point that I no longer work the shitty gigs.
Source/disclaimer: I work for an LN-partnered independently owned venue, so I’m likely to be very biased.
Live Nation/Ticketmaster is definitely a monopoly AND ticket prices are definitely gouged.
However, from what I’ve heard with many people in the industry, the current antitrust suit isn’t likely to change anything. Partnered/independently owned venues will still use Ticketmaster. Live Nation venues will still use Ticketmaster (unless they’re forced not to).
Additionally, most people that are complaining about prices don’t know that Live Nation typically has little say in the set ticket prices. The artist and/or their tour management sets them. And if people buy them, the prices stay the same (or go up, with the recent dynamic pricing fiasco). If not, the price is discounted.
Tickets aren’t even LN’s primary source of revenue. It’s food and beverage sales, which are also gouged. (Profit margins of 80-90% per item)
LN will continue to blame scalpers (or brokers, the politically correct industry term), which is partially the truth. While this is something I’m not fully aware of, LN has done some things to bring the prices down brought on by brokers. One of them is platinum seating. The most expensive tickets that get resold on ticketmaster are typically purchased by LN and then resold at the “normal” price. Yes, LN is losing money doing this, but it’s something they can use to cover their ass in the DOJ suit.
Another thing that several people have already mentioned is the cost of production is MUCH higher than it used to be, especially for stadium shows.
I don’t even go to shows myself anymore because of how ridiculous the prices are. We can only hope the DOJ suit does something.
This is an interesting perspective, thank you. I definitely learned where Live Nation was getting most of their profits from when the water fountains were hidden on the other side from the food and drink vendors, and wanted $8 for a bottle of water (or $16 for a PBR!)
I do think that part of the Ticketmaster hate is them being the bad guy for the venues or artists with the prices etc, but they can definitely be doing more. My main issue is that venues can either exclusively use Ticketmaster or not at all, and all the hidden fees. Granted, if the artist chooses “all-lin” pricing it includes the fees, but it feels manipulative that I have to mentally add 30% to the price of tickets when I’m looking.
The most expensive tickets that get resold on ticketmaster are typically purchased by LN and then resold at the “normal” price. Yes, LN is losing money doing this.
I don’t think LN are losing money doing this. They are artificially rasing prices for the real people buying platinum tickets without any additional costs.
If this is true, they’re effectively creating demand by removing a large set of seats from the initial offering pool. This means they can say “tickets are selling fast”, without lying if you include that they’re just referring to the set on sale right now, not the total number of tickets.
This does smell like false advertising though, but I wouldn’t put it past the cracked US legal system for this to be totally legal.
My favorite band of all time is ELO. I found out the other day that they are still active. I saw some video and they still sound pretty good. So I looked for a venue nearby. Tickets were $280 +fees. But it’s also an hour flight and a hotel plus incidentals. Technically I CAN afford this. I just don’t want to. Guess I’ll just watch the videos. I can’t imagine paying $3000 to see Taylor Swift. I feel sorry for all the lower income Swifties out there. But I guess this won’t change since these concerts are still selling out.
Given how accessible music is, how accessible musicians are on social media, the fact that you probably have to travel to the venue, shit like COVID, eardrum shattering PA systems that make ear plugs a requirement, what is the appeal today even? And then it costs a thousand bucks?
I understand fun, but I feel like you could get a better deal if you’re just looking for a good time.
It was still more than we wanted to pay, but we just paid $80 apiece to see Squeeze on their 50th anniversary tour and it was worth every penny. Squeeze is one of my all-time favorite bands and I have never seen them live before. They were close to as good as they were back in the 70s and 80s.
Boy George opened for them with no introduction and no name on the marquee. I had to look up who it was. Suddenly it made sense why there was this guy who alternated between bitching about the sound mix and talking about how amazing the 1980s was in between reggae songs opening for Squeeze. I could have lived without that. His hype man was good though. No idea why neither of them bothered to say who the front man for their band was though.
Anyway, Boy George aside, it was a great show and I do not regret it at all.
I call shenanigans, flying squid generally only live 1 year in the wild.
Generally.
I don’t care about social media, I live in a big city so I rarely travel for a concert, sometimes I get sick sometimes I don’t and ofc it sucks when I do, I agree having to wear earplugs sucks…
The appeal is that I’m a metalhead and I feel like a metal concert is one of the only places where, within some rules, I can go batshit crazy. It’s cathartic. I don’t even have to get in the pit necessarily, it’s enough that I can scream until I have no voice.
I can still get the occasional 30-40 euro concert ticket for a smaller band, but that’s rare.
Feel sorry for y’all missing out. I’ve gone to so many concerts for headliner bands, for $50-$100. Not in decades, though.
The only time I paid hundreds to see a band was y2k new years party at Paradise Island …. And that was three bands and a full day
Just off the top of my head, some of the bands I’ve seen live before moving to the US: Iron Maiden, Manowar, Megadeth, Anthrax, Metallica, Slayer, Rammstein, Uriah Heep, Volbeat, Mastodon, Alice in Chains.
All the bands I’ve seen live after moving to the US: Laibach, Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Both were a decade ago.
Rush, blue oyster cult, queen, Billy Joel, bob dylan, Tom petty, Grateful Dead, Hootie and the Blowfish, Black Eyed Peas, huey Lewis, Foreigner
… and The Wiggles
I paid £22.50 for my Knebworth ticket to see Oasis in 1996. Beer was expensive but the lines were so long that two or three was all that was feasible. Instead I got stoned off my face and zoned out on a little hill behind the vip area. It was amazing but I was so smashed that my memory is fuzzy. Ah well. My sister just paid over £1000 for four tickets to oasis. I think I got a rather better deal than her.
Haha nice. That’s a damn good deal to be fair, cos if not confused then 1996 was more or less the peak of their career, so not like it was an early one where they would be cheaper.
I always hear of the Knebworth place and understand it’s pretty famous so I suppose that should be a clue that they were big then. Cos assuming it’s a big area (field if I’m not mistaken…).
£250 a ticket is pretty crazy. That’s gotta be close to a weekend ticket at Reading and Leeds I would think and you’d see loads of big bands there for that price, including the camping.
Even in the ‘80s you could see big-time bands for less than $20.
This is why they’re getting sued by the DoJ. And why Harris needs to win if you guys don’t want Trump to immediately quash the suit.
I saw Dave Matthews in Austin for 20 bucks fifteen ish years ago. Great show. Tickets can still be affordable if you don’t go to arena shows.
I saw Van Halen with David Lee Roth on their first time touring in like 20 years or something. I paid $25 and this was I wanna say '07 ish?
Seriously? Those of us who grew up with that music would have paid top dollar for that, even if their voices were shot
