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.
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.