“Who can afford to go to multiple shows?” says the anonymous tour manager. “Two tickets to a show, you’re talking probably about $200 with fees and everything. You go to a meal around the show, you’re talking at least $100 or $200 for a nice dinner. Then you got parking and babysitters, then you add the VIP stuff to that and you want to make it a special night, you’re talking $500 to $1,000 a night for a couple to go out. It’s capitalism at its best.”
Support local music and musicians. Go to their shows. Buy their CDs and merch. Stop giving big corporations your dollars.
This is a part of it: musicians these days make most of their money on tours. They’re not making a lot by you buying the album (although you still should to support your favorite artists).
Person creating thing doesn’t actually make most of their money from having made thing. Ridiculous.
This is the way.
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Do you believe you’d be happier or more able to pursue what makes you happy as a hunter-gatherer, subsistence farmer, or citizen of any society from the stone age up until the advent of modern industrialization?
I won’t pay $1,000 to see anyone. Make ticket prices $35 and the places will be packed.
When they do, ticket re-sellers buy them all up and jack up the prices anyway. The government needs to make ticket resellers illegal like scalping. Live Nation will fight that because it guarantees them sold out shows often.
Ticket reselling is scalping. It’s just the modern version of it.
Ticketmaster and live nation are the ones reselling their own tickets. Tickets sell out in minutes, and those vultures get to charge $700 for a $100 ticket. Plus the fees. Or they make deals with scalpers to sell them in bulk so they get the fees for both the initial sale and the resale. Now that their official resale markets exist, they’ve got their hand in everyone’s pocket coming and going.
The good old physical sale with ID want to say something.
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It seems silly to believe every artist with a label can go on an arena tour. In my city arena shows used to be reserved for the biggest of the big. Now no touring bands will play smaller venues and simultaneously perplexed why fans won’t show up at $200 a seat. Meanwhile the medium venues are either hosting the same local bands repeatedly, or closing.
What a conundrum.
Big arenas are heavily subsidized by the municipality. They support a constellation of vendors and consultants and advertisers, all vested in its success. They create their own kind of economic gravity that draws the industry in around it. And when they can’t bring in customers to justify their existence, they accrue enormous amounts of debt and trigger regional downturns in their collapse.
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You still see plenty of small shops in my area.
Sleep Token toured the US earlier this year, and came near where I live. The cheapest ticket prices were $700. That’s approaching Taylor Swift prices for a popular, but still niche, metal band.
I would pay $700 to see Mayhem play a live De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas with a resurrected Per “Dead” Ohlin (and no Varg Vikernes, because fuck that guy), but I’m not paying $700 to see Sleep Token.
That’s not even “approaching Taylor swift levels,” it’s more. 6th row floor seats for TS were like $500. Nosebleeds were under $200. I’d love to see Sleep Token though
I think they’re exaggerating. My friends went to sleep token in Tampa and floor seats were $250.
That still seems like a lot. Went to A Day To Remember last week for $25 and at the very least, I’d argue they’re less niche than Sleep Token. Godsmack will be around later this year for around $100.
I would tend to agree but this was a mid size arena and it was sold out. Sleep token fans are a bit fanatical, even if they’re not a mainstream act per se.
Not going to bother resurrecting Euronymous?
Oopsie. Forgot him. 😬
This reads a lot like nuance trolling. The “mystery” seems extremely one-dimensional: most fans aren’t “pay a ridiculous amount to see a band from a half-mile away” fans.
If you’re selling out, you’re not charging enough to maximise profits
$200?
That’s all?
That’s what the nosebleed seats go for at a major show, retail, which you won’t get because the scalpers have already bought everything on Ticketmaster in the first 5 minutes the show goes on sale. Then they’re on Ticketmaster for resale for $300 plus fees. And the prices will continue to go up as the show gets closer.
…good seats have run about $1000 / pair after fees + parking since before the pandemic…
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It’s a vicious cycle. More groups are skimming artists’ revenues off the top. So ticket prices rise. Then customer’s demand more glitzy superficial features to justify the value. That adds cost and raises prices more. Rinse and repeat.
The best artists to listen to live are your local sounds at your neighbourhood stage.
Then customer’s demand more glitzy superficial features to justify the value.
Do they, though? That’s not what I see in my friend and family group.
Just for shits, I recently looked up tickets to Jane’s Addicition in CT. $90 for the shittiest seat in the house. Center nosebleeds were $130. That was before fees.
Absolute madness.
HN reckons https://www.showsonsale.com is where the price collusion happens.
