Comments on: Poll: Are concert ticket prices too high?

Going to concerts, in small clubs and large venues can be an expensive night out. Do you still see live music? Or is it priced out of range?

[Paul Criger]

My first concert was in 1973. Lawn seats at the Pine Knob Music Theater in Metro-Detroit to see Blue Oyster Cult . I just cam across the stub - $5.50. As a reference point, you can see NIN / Jane's Addiction May 31 for $15 on the lawn or Earth Wind & Fire / Chicago June 24 for $24.50 on the lawn. $65 & $79.50 for the best Pavilion seats to the same shows.

It seems that obscene pricing is more for the big name acts.

[sodapop2k9]

prices are way to high - fees are usually 50- 60% of ticket prices. THey even charge you to print the ticked on your own printer!

[sebastien.kalonji]

Unbelievable! First everyone says that CD's are too expensive and artists should give their music away for free and should earn their money with gigs. And now that they start doing that people complain about the prices of the gigs?!

Everyone seems to know better than the artists how they should run their business, so why don't they become artists themselves? If you make your own music you can listen it for free, if you give a concert you don't even have to buy a ticket and you have the best place of the entire venue reserved for you.

Stop winning and start making music yourselves!

[baconstang]

Amen!

[RickBee]

Adjusted for inflation you could have seen the Beatles or Rolling Stones in the 60's for the equivalent of $25 -30 in today's dollars. So, concert tickets have risen mightily over the past few years. On the other hand in that same time period, a 45 rpm single would cost the equivalent of $3-4 in today's dollars - an LP would have set you back $35-40. So recorded music has lost tremendous value over the years, especially when many feel that .99 is too high for a single track and $15 is outrageous for a CD. I guess it's in how much value you place on things.

[ikramerica--2008]

so true. so true.

[msjonker]

Supply and demand... If people are paying it, its not too high.

As much as we like the think music is art, its actually a business. Same goes for pro sports.

[baconstang]

Quit going to stadium gigs a long time ago. 2K seat venues are the biggest I'll go to. Better yet support local bands at bars etc.

But of course the prices are high. It costs a lot to travel with a show. And remember since everyone thinks it's OK to steal (I mean share) music, they've got fill the void with ticket prices and merchandising.

[ZBeeb]

I'm kind of shocked that this discussion hasn't gone where I expected it to... Yes prices are high, but tolerable if that's the price you actually paid to go to a concert. The real problem is the "ticket agents"... I don't really mean Ticketmaster here, although they are ultimately at the heart of the problem, since it is their system being gamed.

Here any popular concert is sold out before ticket sales open... if you want to buy a ticket you then have to buy from one of the "ticket agents" that bought up all the inventory before it went on sale to the public. Jimmy Buffet tickets with a face value under $200 are being sold for north of $1000. it goes for anything popular... Hannah Montana was a well publicized case last year, but it wasn't new then, it's not new today... There are plenty of American Idol tickets available for San Jose, if you're willing to pay $700 per... some as much as $2100 per seat...Even little Kids concerts, The Wiggles for example, they sell tickets for no more than $35, they make a big deal about trying to offer affordable prices to their fans... But taking kids to a show like that means tickets for the kids and the parents and maybe friends... and having to pay over $200 each for tickets is not uncommon.

The only thing that has improved in this area is that with the economy failing people are going to less concerts, so it's sometimes possible to buy tickets to concerts at Ticketmaster where in the past you would have had to go to a broker... the seats suck, but at least as a mere mortal you can buy tickets at face price.

When is someone going to do something about this situation. It's not in Ticketmaster's interest to control it, they can sell out concerts in a heartbeat rather than having half the auditorium sit unsold... but when the fans are paying 5 to 30 times the face value of the tickets both the fans and the artists are being ripped off - if the system was controlled so this scamming didn't happen the artists could charge more and the fans could pay less and the brokers, who really add no value at all here would be out of business.

[sting7k]

Exactly, but it is Ticket Master's fault for selling the huge blocks to third party agents.

Hence, I do go to anything that makes me go to ticket master anymore.

[billmosby]

Oh, yes, the Beatles. I saw them in Houston in 1965 (may have been '64, but I'm pretty sure '65), for $10. I think that may have been for 2 tickets. At that time, I think gas was somewhere around 25 cents a gallon, and my father made around 16K a year as vice president of an offshore drilling company. A year later we moved to Saratoga, CA, where the 5 bedroom house my dad bought cost an outlandish $36,500.

[Eargasmic]

It is way too expensive!
Here in Sweden it would cost me close to $750-800 to go to a concert. All the bands that would be worth listening to only plays in Stockholm. (9 million people in the country, but only 1 million in Stockholm).
So I would have to pay for the concert ticket, then the train ticket - and it would take so much time to travel I would have to take a day off of work in order to make the journey. Unless I could sleep on the train I would also have to book at least one night in some hotel... and the list goes on.

Oh and one more thing: Just because a concert is near 11% of the country's population doesn't mean the band will get close to a single human being from the target audience.

[bsharkey]

poll what poll?

[desertragweed]

Concert ticket prices in the Phoenix metro area have become outrageous. Then add the amped-up sound to where sticking your fingers in your ears makes it sound better. Nothing like paying $65 to $100 per ticket to get your hearing ruined. We don't go any more.

[jlynn33]

I saw the Eagles a few years ago on the hell freezes over tour (94'?). I paid $80 for wet lawn seats and I thought that was outrageous but it was an AMAZING show! I can tell you though that I WILL NOT be paying $100 or more for any band!

[markdoiron]

I don't do the concert scene anymore--I remember Simon and Garfunkle back when they were number one and tickets were $20. But then, I don't listen to RIAA music anymore. My son generally avoids it, too. We've found a lot of great indy bands that make their music freely available on the Internet and on ZunePass. One, is Heliosequence. They will be playing next week near Oklahoma University (where my son goes to school) for $16/seat--at the door--no Ticketmaster fees. They are every bit as good as any group that anyone can name. It's not love, it's music. And I don't need to be treated like a criminal or a dumb schmuck just because I like a particular song or artist. --mark d.

[Chapmaniac]

I'd have to agree with those saying the cost (when you add in the outrageous Ticketmaster fee) is too high. Add to this the fact that 90% of the concerts I've attended had awful accoustics. Most live shows tend to bury the singer under the music - not terribly entertaining. Still, it's nice to get away to see your favorite group or artist but at least equalize the sound sytem properly.

Oh, while we're discussing ticket prices, can you believe what the concession stands are getting for a simple hotdog and a cup of soda?

[Police_States_of_America]

this is one instance where disagreeing with popular tastes in music pays off. i saw meat beat manifesto two years ago for 20$ excellent show in a small club, simple presentation yet ages ahead of everything else in terms of quality

[kudos2uguys]

Hey I heard that Radio City had started selling tickets for the next Christmas Show, So I wanted to take the kids this year to see it. That was until I went to the web site to choose when I wanted to go and to be seated in the orchestra seats. Our family of five to see the Christmas Spectacular 2009 would cost us $1,250 !!!!!!! So our family will be skipping Radio City this year!

[Goodbye Helicopter]

u ninnies.
quit whining
for NYC 30$ is chump change. same in london, tokyo, paris, San francisco.
go to austin.
good tunes 7 days a week, dirt cheap, so are salaries

[Save_Me_from_my_Govt]

Tickets are out of reach... Most of the bands I would pay to go see charge so much, that I just stay home and put on the MP3's...

[sting7k]

It's not really the ticket prices themselves. They can be high yes. But the biggest issue is you buy a $50 ticket and then ticket master tacks on insane service charges and fedex shipping charges. It puts tickets out of reach.

The last concert I went too was when Bob Dylan played at a small stadium in my home city, it was $30 and awesome.

[ikramerica--2008]

If you look at trends, the prices for live music at small clubs haven't really gone up much.

The price of bigger shows has gone up, proportionately with the size of the show. But, it's also true that the larger the show, the more complex the show has become. It's a lot more than just a band on stage. It's a pyrotechnic, cinematic event.

People talk about the Beatles shows, but they were little more than 4 Liverpudlians on stage with some instruments and a crappy speaker system. Two roadies could handle the setup and cleanup in an hour. Compare that to a Madonna concert (not a fan, but she puts on a show). And moving that from night to night (actually, multiple sets of equipment). It takes hundreds to put on one of her shows.

So, we aren't comparing like to like here when discussing the past.

[ofmyony]

I would rather see Madonna in a club singing with crappy audio and two guys cleaning up. It would be a more entertaining show for me. I don't care to see Madonna in a huge production.