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 just go support smaller artists that have below $50 shows
The joy of niche music taste: cheap live tickets to small venues, and cool merch. Multiple times I could have touched their instruments from the floor section.
The pain of niche music taste: Depending upon their genre and your city’s size, they may never come nearby you. New York and LA get everything, Kansas City folk better like country and speed-rap.
The joy of living in a central, densely populated area of Europe … I’ve been able to see almost all niche bands that I’m into live.
Here in Greece concert performances of foreign bands/artists cost around 30€ to 90€ (depending on how well known the artists are) and many times it is a festival with more than one band performing.
I think Greek bands/artists charge around 0€ to 30€ for concerts (0€ because some do it out of charity, to help a cause)
Btw I think I’ve never used ticketmaster, we have a viva.com which handles many of the tickets (and it too is an annoying service).
The problem with that is that they are usually in tiny venues, often with no seating (some of us have issues with standing for a few hours straight), and absolutely terrible acoustics.
I went to see a favorite (relatively small) band of mine a couple of years back, but the venue was so tiny and…I guess echoey isn’t quite the word, but it sounded terrible and unclear, and with no seating, such that I couldn’t even make it through the opening act. I was glad to have supported a favorite band financially, but it was pretty damn disappointing. Guess maybe I should get a wheelchair so I have somewhere to sit at events like that.
Not true at all where I live, except for the seating part sometimes. There are many small to midsized venues with ticket prices well below €50, and they all have way better accoustics than the large concert halls, and it’s a much more personal experience than in a >10,000 people venue because you can be way up close with the artists.
For example, these are all venues I’ve visited in recent years, I rarely paid more than €30 for a ticket:
I’m very happy for you, but where I live, the venues are really, really small. Or huge. Not much in between.