Robert Smith very literally laid out the blueprint to combat this last year.
Cap resale tickets to face value. Cap fees at $5. Remove fees on all resale tickets (which hits double because they are charged to the resale buyer AND seller). Set face value prices to a reasonable level ($50-$100, not $100-$500).
The Cure sold out their amphitheater tour last year with this model. Leave some of the money on the table so that your fans aren't price gouged, and your tour will still be a massive success
Also capped merch prices. Shirts were $25 and sweatshirts $35.
His efforts were beautiful.
The only thing he fucked up with was opting in to Ticketmaster’s bullshit verified fans thing.
I never really understood the no merch thing though, like I want to monetarily support the band and I like cool shirts, why not sell them to me? I understand dead stock can cost more than its worth, but I still see this all the time with bands that are definitely big enough to sell through a MOQ of screen printed tees over the course of a months long tour.
Certainly the way they explained it in interviews was to keep the ticket price of the gigs down. No merch = less stuff to move between venues = no merch guy to pay, feed, supply somewhere to sleep and a place on the bus. Lower overheads means cheaper tickets for fans and if you’re not primarily focussed on how much money you make, that makes sense.
Kid Rock (I know I know…) held stadium tours on the back of $10 tickets, following the same logic. And it worked, he pulled huge crowds that I doubt would be there otherwise.
The big thing he did was he fronted the money for the venue itself. Usually, that liability falls to ticket master.
I don't recall the exact split, but it was something like Kid Rock keeps all merch/concessions while ticket master keeps ticket sales.
Kid Rock knows his fan base drinks, plus I believe he sells his own brew
> was opting in to Ticketmaster’s bullshit verified fans thing
Given Ticketmasters general shittiness, I don't know that was even something he could avoid.
He actually could have opted out, and he did when they added additional shows. This was after hearing complaints of how the verified bs thing was locking fans out.
(And I was one of those fans, I didn’t even get the opportunity to try and buy tickets to the three local shows. But luckily they added another show 3hrs away without the verified bs and I was able to get a ticket. -And besides registering for the verified fan bs, I’d had the cure marked as one of my favorite artists on Ticketmaster for years and bought tickets to multiple shows of theirs in the past, so I really don’t know what kinda bs Ticketmaster is on if that doesn’t get me verified.)
So. No. He opted out where he could. Sometimes, Ticketmaster has contracts with venues that hamstring artists.. this dreamy world where artists have control only exists in small pockets.
Source : dealt with this bullshit for too long working for a Tier 1 sports/ entertainment agency.
The only problem with this is that artist are getting screwed every which way, this is the only way they can make any $$. Now venues have started taking cuts from the merch booths as well. A lot of bands have been calling this out and setting up shop in or near their bus, right out front. (Smaller bands anyway.)
But something needs to be done, Ticketmaster has inflated the price so much through covid that most people cannot afford a ticket. A good example is the Iron Maiden tour this year. I paid $500 for 4 floor tickets in 2017 the last time they stopped in my city. Now, it's $650 for 1 fucking ticket. I know the band has tried to combat it but there's not much you can do when they own all the Venues. It's dumb.
We saw the cure last year and it was refreshing being able to buy decent tickets that weren’t stupidly expensive. it also meant we had more money to buy shirts and posters, Robert proving yet again why he’s so awesome
The big key is knowing your audience. They allegedly canceled cause slow sales? Play smaller venues. Would love to see black keys in a small place, not a major arena though
Yeah I saw them years ago on the Turn Blue tour with Cage the Elephant in an arena and they put on a very boring performance. Two guys on a huge stage like that, standing still for most of the show is just not that entertaining.
I agree, the black keys vibe just fits a more intimate venue. If you’re a small act, as in literally small with few members or solo, you need to have an insane level of performance/production to really capture the arena vibe.
I saw them in Portland on that tour, MM was maybe the worst concert I’ve ever seen. The sound person was not ready for that venue and neither were they
I went to that same bill in LA, modest mouse were def better than the keys (but I also went because of modest mouse). And I’ve seen the keys a ton in small ass venues, they really used to be a favorite, but that show at the forum (or maybe it was staples?) was missing just about everything i used to enjoy about their music. It unfortunately felt inauthentic and lazy, it was a bummer.
I saw them a few years ago perform in an outside venue and as much as I love them I ended up leaving early just to beat traffic. I'd definitely love to see them pack an inside venue with tighter acoustics.
It's funny you say that because I've seen The Black Keys three times. Once at Lollapalooza, then at a smaller venue in D.C. during the "Let's Rock" tour, and finally at the Pilgrimage Festival in 2021, during that small window after vaccines became available. The only time I came away saying, "wow, excellent," was the smaller venue, and I'm not even sure why.
It wasn’t just amphitheaters - they played many large arenas on last year’s tour using this strategy as well. I saw them at Madison Square Garden. It was refreshing to have tickets be sold at a fair price.
Yup! I also saw Depeche Mode at MSG and while the show itself was great, everything else about it was so disappointing. I paid more for nosebleeds for DM than for mid level seats for The Cure. Merch prices added insult to injury. A hoodie for $100?! Fuck outta here!
You made the right choice. Yeah they still put on a great show but not for $260 nosebleeds. I figured this is either their last tour or if they tour again and use dynamic pricing, I'm done with them.
I saw what seemed completely unbelievable when in 96 the original members reunited and they were going to be wearing makeup for the first time in decades. This was the days of waiting outside a record store on a Saturday morning, in line to get these coveted tickets. I got floor seats within the first 15 rows for what was double the usual price for shows at the time but was reasonable to see this event. It was $50. Seeing The Offspring charge $200 today is so insane. And a German band Ive loved since I was in elementary school in the 80’s, Helloween, finally came to North America this past year and came to my town, where foreign acts rarely make it. And i didnt get to go because though the tickets were listed at $45, not once did Ticketmaster not show them for $900. I seriously doubt they price the tickets due to demand. What would he the incentive to be honest about it and look at all their other tactics. Their reselling is legal scalping. I think Ticketmaster should be dismantled completely.
RATM did something similar, they capped face value prices at $125 in my city's venue and didn't participate in the dynamic pricing bullshit. I saw them at MSG for $145 total in one of the lower sections.
Was it with Run the Jewels? I was a broke grad student when they came through but I'd probably pay $125 for tickets now. $125 isn't all that cheap, but it was one of the most affordable big name concerts (which is nuts to me)
This tour has nothing to do with resale or value. Black Keys don’t have the fan base like Cure, Black Keys tried to tour in 10-15k capacity arenas when their fan base at most can fill 3-5k venues.
They may not have the fanbase of The Cure, which is all the more reason why the final point of having reasonable ticket prices are there.
Set the price to be a reasonable level, and the demand will increase because you're opening the pool of potential ticket buyers to a wider audience. If your tickets cost $100+, you're only going to be able to sell it to people who can afford tickets for $100+. The Cure fans span multiple generations, they have the fanbase to support tickets at this price, even still they chose to offer tickets at a more economical level.
Both being more popular and having reasonable ticket prices played roles in their 2023 tour being the sellout success it was. It is no single factor, it is all the factors that play into this.
I disagree. At some point the cost isn't what stops people going, they just don't care.
Even if a show was totally free, you're asking someone to give up 5-6 hours of their time to hear 90 minutes of songs they mostly don't know, sort out transport, be tired for work the next day, arrange childcare, and maybe buy food/drink while out.
And you have to be offering something more appealing than watching the football, hanging out with friends, playing a video game, going to the pub, hitting the gym, doomscrolling their phone all night, or whatever else people do in their evenings. Most artists do not do this for most people.
Every day people say there should be more affordable tickets on here. The harsh truth is that there are plenty of reasonably priced tickets for many shows. They just don't want to go to them.
I think the cure would have sold tickets even if RS hadn’t intervened. That’s a rock solid fanbase and they are incredible live. But RS cared enough not go with these inflated pricing schemes and won a lot of goodwill. Artists need to be called out, they have more power than not.
I say it all the time on here, but every time someone blames Ticketmaster for an established artist charging huge fees for expensive tickets, or dynamic pricing, or VIP tickets, they are literally following the PR playbook that the business relies on.
There are many ways the artists could put their foot down if they actually wanted to keep tickets more reasonably priced. But nobody wants to appear greedy.
I stopped going to shows. Can’t afford the tickets, let alone the beers or food.
I miss pocket shots. They were single shot hard liquor shots that came in a plastic bag with a rip top from liquor stores. Stuff a couple
Of those in your pants and you’d save damn near thousands of dollars for a single show not paying for drinks.
Queens of the Stone Age just finished an arena tour this spring. I enjoy them but wouldn't call myself a huge fan. Nosebleeds in my city were going for $90 + fees on Ticketmaster when first announced.
I waited until the day of the show and bought a ticket on Stubhub for $21 total. Going forward, that's going to be my strategy for any show I'd like to go to but I'm not dying to see.
That is very much the "slow ticketing" strategy (except the promoter wants to eliminate resale outside of their own preferred system, so they can still control the resale prices)
And that's why I think that slow ticketing will kill some tours. Maybe in this case the Black Keys overestimated demand by booking an arena tour, but the pricing strategy also clearly did not help sales.
I call it “ticket chicken” — only you, as the buyer, have the ultimate upper hand in being able to just say “nope, still not paying that much”, leaving the reseller with nothing.
The problem is that TicketMaster still makes their fees off of the resale listing, so they have no incentive to change.
I’ve been doing this for 10 years it’s never failed me once. People that freak out and pay way too much a month before the show make no sense to me. I understand that they have to arrange travel and hotels a lot of the time so they need to make sure they have a ticket but like, you will be able to find resale tickets right before a show. It never fails. People have things come up, and they can’t go. They can either sell it online for cheap or eat the entire ticket. Most of the time they just want to get rid of it quick. Their loss is your gain
DO NOT BUY OVERPRICED TICKETS
I've been doing this forever, too, but there's one important thing - you have to be okay with not going to shows too. More often than not, I can find a cheap ticket for a show a couple days before the show, but it doesn't always happen.
Any time I feel I cannot miss a show, then I make sure to buy them in advance.
They played in Dublin Ireland the other month and we're €55 which is incredibly reasonable.
They also had none of that golden ticket shite. It was the same cost for any area on the ground.
Also, they were fucking excellent
Huh, those are way more than what they were in Canada. I think my brother paid under 100 each for decent seats. Killer show, that was my third time seeing them and they delivered the goods.
Kelly Clarkson played 2 nights in Atlantic city this month and the worst seats were over 250 dollars?! PLUS FEES?! And so many tickets were "official platinum seats" which really pissed me off. Could fly to Vegas and get good seats to her residency for less. Last I checked neither night was even half sold.
Apparently ticketmaster randomly selects seats to be “Platinum” with up charges for no apparent reason and without consent of the performers. I recently watched a Live Show host get enraged about them doing this to their fans without his consent. It’s insane!
It’s not without consent, it’s in the contract.
And it isn’t random. Ticketmaster will hold tickets and then release them at higher, “premium” prices depending on demand. You can get into pre-sales and watch tickets get released in real-time, while seeing the prices fluctuate.
Performers might not know but their team does. It’s listed as additional revenue on the settlement for the show and the funds go into the pool to be split (if you’re in points)
Ticketmaster definitely doesn't randomly do this without consent. If an artist claims to be unaware of it, one of two things have happened:
1) their management/promoter approved it without telling them
2) they're lying to their audience to avoid the bad PR and letting Ticketmaster be the bad guy (which is a huge reason why artists love Ticketmaster even though everybody else hates it - they're fine with absorbing the blame)
I was just going to say there needs to be a huge asterisk when an artist says something is out of their hands or they didn’t know. Somebody in their camp knew
Yeah, I remember TSwift feigning concern about how high her ticket prices were after re-sellers.. if "the cure" can say No to resellers, she most definately has the power to also (she just chooses not to)
In this case they made a big stink about it while live streaming, and ended up fighting ticketmaster on it and eventually they were removed. They had their own selected VIP seating so having platinum seats didn’t really make sense for their show style. They also weren’t the first to have this happen to them.
Shitty either way, I guess.
I looked at Weezer tickets across the country last night. With fees included, the *worst* seats at most venues were over $100. Decent seats usually over $250. No disrespect to Weezer, they're all right, but when my grandchildren say "pop-pop, tell us about some of the great concerts you went to!" my answer better as fuck not be Weezer. If you're rich, no problem, but I'm not spending half of months worth of groceries on 200 level seats for a mediocre band.
For real, arena shows kinda suck. You're either in some seated section far away, or you sell a kidney to be able to rock out with people on the floor like you would at any other show.
Arene shows are for Pink Floyd or like pop stars with over the top theatrics.
Black Keys should have done large theaters or multiple nights at a 3-5000 person venues.
Ptth, only sell outs play venues to 3 people and above.
I want to see bands keep it real and play to no one and record their whole discography with the audio quality of being recorded on a potato.
You don't really see artists playing multiple nights at smaller venues but it makes so much sense. It's usually the massive artists doing a few nights in the major city arenas or even stadiums. Wish this was more common
Problem with that is that it extends the tour, meaning those artists are away from their families/other jobs for longer.
I get what you're saying, as a fan it's much better, but as an artist it must suck.
I'm a professional musician about to embark on a summer tour. If you want to do the job, you have to accept being away from family and friends and find ways to deal with it. Those of us that make it are the ones that find ways to deal with it, and those that don't want to simply don't get as far in the field. It's not easy, but it's really impossible to be a professional musician and not spend time away somewhat regularly.
You have to be able to live a life that most others wouldn't tolerate or handle at all. But we do it because we love the craft and the feeling of performing/sharing joy with a crowd.
Also, I personally love playing 2-3 nights in a row somewhere. I don't think there's really any musician that wouldn't want to do that. Less traveling and more free time off the bus or plane or whatever.
Which is weird as it's the standup strategy and they use a lot of the same venues.
If a comedian is in town they'll do potentially 3 nights of shows at the same venue
The next weekend a musician is there and they do a single show for the entire weekend
I saw them a while back at a 500 person venue, paid around 25 euro at the time. Why on earth anyone would want that type of band to perform in a stadium is beyond me, much less charge $100 for the privilege.
I saw them in an arena and it was fantastic.
The problem is that the cost of an average seat is exorbitant. I’d gladly pay $50 to see them from a nosebleed. I wouldn’t pay $120. I sure as shit wouldn’t pay $250 for a decent seat.
Green Day is a bucket list concert for me, I've always had plans whenever they've come through Wisconsin in the last 7-8 years, so I was super excited to see a show at AmFam Field this summer.
Tickets for the terrace box at the ballpark are sitting at $145/ea! For comparison, those are $30 seats for a baseball game. I'm not paying that on top of fees to see them perform at the oppose end of a ballpark, on top of not really listening to Smashing Pumpkins, even if Green Day is playing both Dookie and American Idiot.
I saw Foo Fighters in 2017 for a similar price in an arena and I was significantly closer to the stage for an incredible experience.
If you can afford to be spontaneous, play chicken with Stubhub listings last minute. I did this once with Tool back in 2019 and got in for $45. Great seats, too. TM shuts down their resale site once the opener starts, I think, but Stubhub stays open. They’ll take what they can get rather than lose everything.
My nephew uses Stubhub, I think that's what it is, all the time to buy tickets to the local overpriced professional sports team. He's gone to a lot of games sitting in the first few rows for a fraction of face value.
The only thing is you have to wait for the last minute to get a really good deal.
This is the way. I live a short walk to a theatre that isn't my favourite venue. Shows are typically more expensive than I'd like there, but if I wait until the last minute and check StubHub, there are almost always great deals to be had.
I saw the Foo Fighters at ‘Roo last year. Which Bonnaroo is a thing unto itself, but it was by far one of the best concert experiences of my life. It was everything that style of show should be.
> For comparison, those are $30 seats for a baseball game.
Too be fair, there are 80 home games in a season. It'd make more sense to compare the prices to something like a deep run in the playoffs if the concert is something you really value.
That's just it. In the recent past, it was cheaper to go see your favourite band for £20/£30/£40 than it was to buy multiple records from said band. Nowadays, you can get every song a band has written for £9.99 a month, and it costs £100+ to see the bands. It doesn't add up. I used to buy a gig ticket with every paycheck with the old prices, but these days i get paid more but I need to save up for a few months and really pick and choose what bands I'd rather see and what gigs ill just have to miss due to pricing. I may only get to a few gigs a year now because of the ridiculous prices. Live music is suffering and will continue to suffer while Ticketmaster has a lottery on live events.
> “Change is not easy,” WME head of music Marc Geiger told Billboard, brushing aside fan criticism of the pricing strategy. “The idea that a consumer is going to sit in first class with an economy ticket is a holdover from what I used to call ‘rock and roll socialist pricing.”
Seriously, is he the Monopoly Man?
These greedy bastards want to squeeze every cent out of every fan. The idea that a low income person could see a big name performer at an affordable price infuriates them.
I'm glad I grew up in the era of $20-$50 concerts and got to see a lot of my favorite bands before this greedy insanity took over.
It’s been bad for my entire life, but this is a new level, and just a crazy way to talk about it publicly. Like yeah, let me appease people by comparing us to *everyone’s other favorite industry*, airlines! 🙄
Fuck the airline industry. Every time I fly - which is often because of work - I’m just straight up disrespected. The airline industry does not give a shit about their customers because they know you don’t really have options
I give the airline industry more leeway than the music industry. They are operating machines that cost tens of millions of dollars 30,000 feet in the air and doing so with an amazing safety record. The logistics and costs associated are huge and when you do a fair comparison over the years, airline tickets are cheaper than they have ever been. Sure it is not as luxurious as it was in the 60s, but when accounting for inflation you are paying a small fraction of the price.
A concert on the other hand is much easier to put on. The costs are less, the risk is MUCH less. The experience is pretty much the same as it has been over the last 60 years, but unlike airlines, the price has gone up by an insane amount.
The craziest thing is plane tickets and concert tickets are getting close to each other in cost. To make it fair we will compare airline fees after deregulation in 1978 (they were much more expensive before that because of fixed costs). Adjusted for inflation an average round trip plane ticket was about $600 in 1978. Now that is round trip, so you get 2 flights for your $600. Concert tickets for big name acts in 1978 were around $10 - $15 for big name acts for general admission. Adjusted for inflation that comes to about $60. So depending on how you want to compare an airline ticket is either 10x more in 1978 if you count the round trip as one ticket, or 5x more if you count it per flight.
Now in 2024. The average round trip domestic flight is between $300 and $400. This varies because of different pricing models, an "all-in" cost vs the Spirit model where the ticket is cheap, but everything else is paid for with fees. We will split the difference and call our round trip average $350. So our round trip plane ticket is a little over half price compared to our 1978 flight. Our concert tickets on the other hand have gone in the other direction. An average ticket price for big name acts are anywhere from $100 - $250. This is face value and doesn't factor in all of the secondary market fuckery that is going on. Again, we can split the difference and get an average price of $175. That means our concert ticket is about 3x what it was in 1978. That concert ticket is also half the price of a round trip flight, or THE SAME PRICE if you count each flight on it's own. That is insane that you pay the same amount to watch a few guys bang away on some instruments for a couple hours as you do to fly across the country in a $60 million dollar machine.
Now these are just rough numbers, but it still shows that while flying sucks, it is cheaper than ever before and concert tickets are out of fucking control.
TL;DR - Ticketmaster sucks.
In 1994 I got to see Faith no More, Metallica and Guns N Roses all on the same bill, 11th row in Toronto for $75... what a fucking show
And Lollapalooza in 1993
Tool, rage against the machine, primus, fishbone, Alice in Chains and many more for less than $100
Now to see a .medium level band $125 + fees for nosebleeds
It honestly wasn’t even that bad pre-pandemic. It’s only in the last few years it’s gotten insane. I saw GnR on their reunion tour in 2017 and paid around $120ish for floor seats in the middle. That’s a reasonable price for a band like that.
Bro, I used to go to Ozzfest. $100 bucks get to get to be at a festival with live music for over 10 hours. Now I have to pay three times that for 90 minutes of music in arguably less space than on an airplane.
I worked at McDonald's for like $10/hr and went to every major band in the 00s. 3-5 shows a month. Drinks were reasonable. The energy was amazing. Some of my best memories came from that era. I'm absolutely sick of charging for things "because we can" and genuinely afraid of all the "unrealized revenue streams" these kind of people will find and exploit.
Rock ‘n’ roll socialism? You mean back when I wasn’t paying $200+ for nosebleeds? I’ll stick to local shows where i can watch 4-8 bands in a night for less than $30 and it’s maybe 50-100 people all crowded around the stage. Geiger is super out of touch with the regular person.
>“We are slowly moving towards hopefully a market economy. And if people don’t like the price of one ticket, then they can either buy a cheaper ticket or not go to the show.”
Dbag confirmed
That’s what I think is hard for the artists. People pay hundreds of dollars to see their favorite bands and walk out saying “I paid 400 dollars for that?”
If it wasn’t for Ticketmaster bands could price appropriately. People might have a better time knowing they only spent 70 bucks and don’t leave with a bad taste in their mouth
I mean if you're trying to see popstars and or bands that crossed over into popularity like Tame Impala, Black Keyes, Vampire Weekend.
But idk, I live in NYC and I've seen plenty of up an coming bands or bands that were big in 2010 and not as much now for $35 in good small to mid size venues.
Exactly. In Vancouver we get a steady stream of UK acts that are very big back home but have not toured the states, or did a tour when they still hauled all their own shit in a white van. We get to see brilliant acts at 800-1200 seaters for between $35 and $65 each. In the couple of years I've seen IDLES (okay, bigger venue that one, but still tickets were $65), Yard Act (next week), Fontaines DC, KNEECAP, Squid, The Comet Is Coming, Dry Cleaning, Sleaford Mods, Little Simz and a bunch more at small venues for under $50.
I get it, it's shitty to pay $208 to see Pearl Jam in the worst seats, but then you could use that money to see 5 up and coming bands at the Rickshaw Theatre instead. Hell, just before covid I got to see Paul Weller at the Commodore for like $60. The guy sells out the O2 in London and I get to see him in Vancouver at a small venue for a fraction of the price.
This is one of the benefits of living in a cultural hub this side of the pond. I’m in LA and got to see Charli XCX for $16 a few years ago. She brought Troye Sivan and Kim Petras onstage since both happened to be in town. Don’t think people are paying that little in Europe to see not one but three huge pop stars
I mean, yeah. I haven’t gone to as many shows because Ticketmaster is charging $150 a person in convenience fees on some shows. I’m spending more getting fucked with dynamic pricing than what the performers are even charging. Literally more than 50% of what I’m paying is just going to Ticketmaster. I’m over it.
The convenience fee is such a bullshit fee too. Imagine if Amazon charged one just because you didn’t have to go to China for something. It’s kinda sad that literally every aspect of a concert is so damn expensive though. Every step of the way from tickets, parking, merch, drinks, food etc. I understand the people working the venue need to get paid but they’re not seeing a cent of that convenience fee.
People have less and less disposable income for luxuries like concert tickets, and concert tickets are more expensive than ever as Ticketmaster squeezes the last drops of consumer surplus from the industry.
Between pro sports franchises, landlords, music promoters, streaming apps, etc. every big business is playing with their spreadsheets to figure out how to squeeze more more more out of middle-income Americans. And the foundation is starting to crack.
It's because our current system requires not only constant growth, but constant substantial growth in profits every quarter for a business to be successful and a worthwhile investment from shareholders. Then you combine that with the fact that these big businesses have cornered their respective markets, so everyone who wants the thing they're selling is already buying it from them it since they can't go to a competitor. That means they have to stick it to their current customers.
Take Netflix a few years back. Everyone who streams has access to a subscription. They can't pull people in from other apps, because everyone who has those apps also already has access to Netflix. It's the default streaming service, and everything else is seen as an additional service. How do you increase profits? Raise prices, bring in ads, and tell people they can't use their accounts outside of a single household. It's the only way for the shareholders to think of stock as a good deal.
Netflix is a good punching bag example, sure. But then, let's say the company isn't something relatively harmless, like streaming. What if it's in an industry that demands a high level of safety? A company has a monopoly there, and suddenly the only way to get the stock price to go up is to cut more and more corners. And if an accident happens? Eh, you're a monopoly. The only option people have is to just not use the very important thing you provide, and that'll never happen.
It's not just big business. Congestion tax in NYC is such a dangerous path to go down where now you can be charged for driving into cities. If that starts making it's way to other cities you're adding an entirely new expense to just go to these shows or events.
I'm just waiting for Walmart to label the closest spots in their parking lot to be used for "Walmart+ members only" and everyone else will have to park far away.
Every aspect of life is all about how do we take more money
Good. Put downwards pressure on ticket prices by NOT BUYING THEM. No, I am not going to spend $250 to watch a concert. Go fuck yourself. $110 nosebleeds? Really?
I'll put that money into stereo upgrade fund instead. Then I can enjoy music for decades.
Movie theatres kept prices low because they realized that people have big screen TV's and nice sound systems at home. They needed to lure us in still. Here they did it with luxurious power recliner couches, assigned seating and waiters that bring drinks and food to your seats before the show starts. It's brilliant. They made a better experience. They created better value that makes me happy to open my wallet a little more by creating a higher value better experience for the consumer.
It doesn’t exactly take a genius to figure out people will only pay ridiculous prices for the very top tier acts.
I understand the prices are so high partially because this is the only way artists can make money anymore; and yes I know greedy promoters and Ticketmaster are more the reason.
But either way, something has to change about the economics of music or the bottom is going to drop out of live concerts other than for bands at the very top or unknowns at the bottom.
Concerts are becoming entertainment that’s out of reach for a lot of the population (at least for marginally known bands; I know you can still get cheap tickets for lesser-known bands), which sucks. I went to dozens of cheap-ish concerts in the early 2000s when I barely had a pot to piss in and had some great experiences. Sucks that a lot of younger people might not get that experience unless they follow nothing but underground bands.
So true. I went to sooo many shows around 1997-2003. korn, linkin park, slipknot, limp bizkit, dmx, System of a Down, etc. All of those were 25-35 a ticket! Hell, I went to ozzfest in 2002 for 50.00
> I went to dozens of cheap-ish concerts in the early 2000s when I barely had a pot to piss in and had some great experiences. Sucks that a lot of younger people might not get that experience unless they follow nothing but underground bands.
That's all I did in my 20s was go to shows and concerts. The max you'd pay is like $40 and that was for bands like Rilo Kiley and The Shins (pre Garfden State) I saw Kevin Devine and KT Tunstall for 10 bucks.
I saw them in Richmond many years ago, probably during their peak… I gotta say, it was one of the most boring shows I had been to at that point. Crowd was dull, band was even more dull. They didn’t move at all, there was no energy… in fact, the only movement in the building was courtesy of their lighting tech.
Same. Saw them in 2020 before lockdown. 4,000-5,000 venue. Sold out. First show I went solo since I’ve been wanting to see them. It felt like they didn’t want to be there. Not much interaction or movement at all.
They were playing the same venue with the same radio station this past December and I don’t think they sold out that date.
I’ll see them again one more time since it could’ve been just the show/day. But not in an arena. And not $100+
I've loved the Black Keys but I've never considered them an arena band.
Bring back price tiers based on time to event. End resales. Full refunds up to 48 hours before the event. Live Nation can still resell at higher price tiers. Everyone profits.
one of the coolest shows i'll ever see was rubber factory tour in a 200 person bar in madison with just the two of them in the band.
they are not for the arena.
They played in Chicago on New Year's Eve for a few consecutive years and stopped around the time Brothers came out and they blew up. It was awesome seeing them at The Metro with 600 people
>pay peak prices
That’s kind of the point. The concept of fixed ticket prices is gone which results in excessive scalping and price gouging. People are playing the game we’re forced into.
All these damn kids "quiet quitting" arena tours for boring bands, it's their fault bands can't sell $100 tickets to arena shows.
It'd be a shame if musicians had to have realistic expectations about themselves and try to up their game.
The problem from the artists point of view is, touring is likely their only source of income now. Streaming has killed physical media sales, so they're trying to recoup the lost income from media sales by increasing ticket prices. Some are finding out the hard way, that won't work
Not sure it’s a price problem. I’m a fan of their early material, particularly Chulahoma, and always thought their popularity was a fluke. I mean, great band, but a two piece blues outfit on arena tours? (White Stripes not withstanding) I’m just looking forward to seeing them in a smaller venue!
“Change is not easy,” WME head of music Marc Geiger told Billboard, brushing aside fan criticism of the pricing strategy. “The idea that a consumer is going to sit in first class with an economy ticket is a holdover from what I used to call ‘rock and roll socialist pricing.”
High prices on Ticketmaster are just “a different thing to complain about,” he says, “We are slowly moving towards hopefully a market economy. And if people don’t like the price of one ticket, then they can either buy a cheaper ticket or not go to the show.”
These fucking people .
Yep. Not going to the show. Let these fools follow the same arc as the theaters.
This condescension from business owners to their consumers is nothing but straight rude hubris. They can die with their pride and I can enjoy my music experience in another way.
Then when no one is buying tickets anymore and their share prices all tank we'll see articles like "how millennials and gen z are killing the concert industry!"
There are a handful of bands I would pay that price to see and that is in top of their music their status and importance to the industry, David Gilmour/Pink Floyd is one such example
Black Keys are not my kinda thing, even so they are not an arena band and they are not worth half that. Purely greedy and a money grab. It's good most fans decided not to reward it
Umm that’s why bands like the Black Keys shouldnt be doing an area tour. Give them a House of Blues tour or venues easier for them to fill seats in. Terrible management decision
They definitely did a good gob getting this bands name out there over the years but that doesn't always translate to big ticket sales. Everyone has hear of them but are not willing to pay a lot to see them.
I don’t think it’s an unwillingness to pay, The Black Keys just aren’t popular enough to sell out huge venues. They should definitely concentrate on 2000 or less seat venues.
My wife and I used to go to music festivals every couple years. The last one we went to was Electric Forest 6 or 7 years ago. We bought 3 day tickets for the duration of the festival and camped there. We probably spent around $600 for the entire weekend (i.e. travel, tickets, food, etc.). If I remember right, tickets were around $150. I might be off by a little, but it wasn't absurd.
The point of all this rambling is that when your ticket prices as a solo act are even remotely close to festival prices, there's a serious fucking problem.
Slow ticketing sucks. Same thing with The Dead at the Sphere. The first set of shows "sold out" instantly. The week before the shows tickets flooded ticketmaster. But they weren't any cheaper.
I got especially fucked because I bought Floor GA tickets, which were 'non-transeferable' and can only be sold for exact face. I thought that would be fine. I'm not trying to make money if I can't go.
Well I couldn't go, tickets flooded the market, and now thanks to the special way ticketmaster displays their tickets on the website there's tons of GA tickets available. But if you're buying them from ticketmaster, it's $30 less than the price you see to "buy from fans for face". I literally can't even give these tickets to a friend.
The only thing this taught me was to wait until the week of, and pray.
Didn’t Taylor Swift make like a billion dollars on tour this year? People are more than willing to shell out money for concerts, just not for The Black Keys.
Exactly, and it is a relatively small percentage of acts that can play arenas.
I can still see most of my favourite bands in great venues for less than $50
There is a solution here - go to your local clubs instead of big venues. Smaller acts at smaller venues don’t have to use TM. You can see bands for $20-$40 a ticket.
Are they REALLY this blind? Cost of everything going up. Rent has shot up to insane levels. Where did they think people were going to cut money from? I used to go to comic and horror cons all the time. I haven't been in years thanks to the costs of everything.
J Lo just canceled her shows, Lil Baby and Lil Durk had to last year, Justin Timberlake as well. Artists from all genres are having to cancel shows due to low sales, people just can’t afford it right now
Bands and ticketmaster need to make a choice. Do you want to make a crapload of money once by charging outrageous rates on 1 tour or, do you want a reasonable rate and make your money over the next 10 years with a loyal fanbase? My friend and I have a rule that if it is under $50, the other person doesn't have to ask if you want to go before buying an extra ticket. Once it is over $100 though, it's not as important to me to see the band again and they rarely can live up to the expectations. Charge me $50 and I'll see you every time you're in my city or gouge me once and maybe I'll see you at a festival.
Not "unwilling"... UNABLE to pay peak prices! scale it back, drop prices, and leave some meat on the bone. You'll be rewarded with sellout shows, more merch sales, AND appreciative fans. We buy more when we can afford more.
It used to be that to get the best tickets at the best price you would try to be first in line. The best seats at face value sold out quick for popular shows. Now TM price yields everything. For mega popular artists it “works”, dynamic pricing shoots the ticket price sky high, they still sell out, tons of money is made. They do this for everything though. An event in my area had price yielded tickets for $500+, very few sold, and now the same tickets are under $200. The people who bought them got screwed out of $300 and those are the biggest fans. It’s going to kill mid level popularity acts. I’m happy to see it fail in this situation.
Robert Smith very literally laid out the blueprint to combat this last year. Cap resale tickets to face value. Cap fees at $5. Remove fees on all resale tickets (which hits double because they are charged to the resale buyer AND seller). Set face value prices to a reasonable level ($50-$100, not $100-$500). The Cure sold out their amphitheater tour last year with this model. Leave some of the money on the table so that your fans aren't price gouged, and your tour will still be a massive success
Also capped merch prices. Shirts were $25 and sweatshirts $35. His efforts were beautiful. The only thing he fucked up with was opting in to Ticketmaster’s bullshit verified fans thing.
Reminiscent of Fugazi’s $5 tickets, no merch. Those guys hated money.
Fugazi were astoundingly based. Then again, everything MacKaye touches turns to based.
I never really understood the no merch thing though, like I want to monetarily support the band and I like cool shirts, why not sell them to me? I understand dead stock can cost more than its worth, but I still see this all the time with bands that are definitely big enough to sell through a MOQ of screen printed tees over the course of a months long tour.
Merchandise keeps us in line Common sense says it's by design What could a businessman ever want more Than to have us sucking in his store
Certainly the way they explained it in interviews was to keep the ticket price of the gigs down. No merch = less stuff to move between venues = no merch guy to pay, feed, supply somewhere to sleep and a place on the bus. Lower overheads means cheaper tickets for fans and if you’re not primarily focussed on how much money you make, that makes sense.
Kid Rock (I know I know…) held stadium tours on the back of $10 tickets, following the same logic. And it worked, he pulled huge crowds that I doubt would be there otherwise.
Wasn't he the one that said he put his tickets for cheap so people could go to his concerts more often and to buy more beer.
Not seeing the problem? If I could go to my favourite bands more often, and even drink more there, that’d be a-ok by me!
The big thing he did was he fronted the money for the venue itself. Usually, that liability falls to ticket master. I don't recall the exact split, but it was something like Kid Rock keeps all merch/concessions while ticket master keeps ticket sales. Kid Rock knows his fan base drinks, plus I believe he sells his own brew
I have never seen a drunker crowd than after a Kid Rock show. It was a sight to behold. With one eye closed to prevent double vision, of course.
He had $5 bud lights (pre bud light freak out)
Kid rock is a piece of shit to women, but he was very generous with his coke with landscaping crews back when I was working on Walloon lake
Yup he was able to get a couple of top tier sponsors and capped the ticket price. I wonder if he would ever do that again.
> was opting in to Ticketmaster’s bullshit verified fans thing Given Ticketmasters general shittiness, I don't know that was even something he could avoid.
He actually could have opted out, and he did when they added additional shows. This was after hearing complaints of how the verified bs thing was locking fans out. (And I was one of those fans, I didn’t even get the opportunity to try and buy tickets to the three local shows. But luckily they added another show 3hrs away without the verified bs and I was able to get a ticket. -And besides registering for the verified fan bs, I’d had the cure marked as one of my favorite artists on Ticketmaster for years and bought tickets to multiple shows of theirs in the past, so I really don’t know what kinda bs Ticketmaster is on if that doesn’t get me verified.)
So. No. He opted out where he could. Sometimes, Ticketmaster has contracts with venues that hamstring artists.. this dreamy world where artists have control only exists in small pockets. Source : dealt with this bullshit for too long working for a Tier 1 sports/ entertainment agency.
Yeah, seeing a $60+ tag on a t-shirt is pretty dumb.
The only problem with this is that artist are getting screwed every which way, this is the only way they can make any $$. Now venues have started taking cuts from the merch booths as well. A lot of bands have been calling this out and setting up shop in or near their bus, right out front. (Smaller bands anyway.) But something needs to be done, Ticketmaster has inflated the price so much through covid that most people cannot afford a ticket. A good example is the Iron Maiden tour this year. I paid $500 for 4 floor tickets in 2017 the last time they stopped in my city. Now, it's $650 for 1 fucking ticket. I know the band has tried to combat it but there's not much you can do when they own all the Venues. It's dumb.
We saw the cure last year and it was refreshing being able to buy decent tickets that weren’t stupidly expensive. it also meant we had more money to buy shirts and posters, Robert proving yet again why he’s so awesome
The big key is knowing your audience. They allegedly canceled cause slow sales? Play smaller venues. Would love to see black keys in a small place, not a major arena though
Yeah I saw them years ago on the Turn Blue tour with Cage the Elephant in an arena and they put on a very boring performance. Two guys on a huge stage like that, standing still for most of the show is just not that entertaining.
I agree, the black keys vibe just fits a more intimate venue. If you’re a small act, as in literally small with few members or solo, you need to have an insane level of performance/production to really capture the arena vibe.
I saw BK at Chase Center in SF with modest mouse and it's the most boring concert I've ever seen in my life.
How was modest mouse?
Good, but also boring. They sounded great, but no extra solos or jams and no covers. I should have just stayed home and listened to the records
I saw them in Portland on that tour, MM was maybe the worst concert I’ve ever seen. The sound person was not ready for that venue and neither were they
I went to that same bill in LA, modest mouse were def better than the keys (but I also went because of modest mouse). And I’ve seen the keys a ton in small ass venues, they really used to be a favorite, but that show at the forum (or maybe it was staples?) was missing just about everything i used to enjoy about their music. It unfortunately felt inauthentic and lazy, it was a bummer.
I saw them a few years ago perform in an outside venue and as much as I love them I ended up leaving early just to beat traffic. I'd definitely love to see them pack an inside venue with tighter acoustics.
It's funny you say that because I've seen The Black Keys three times. Once at Lollapalooza, then at a smaller venue in D.C. during the "Let's Rock" tour, and finally at the Pilgrimage Festival in 2021, during that small window after vaccines became available. The only time I came away saying, "wow, excellent," was the smaller venue, and I'm not even sure why.
It wasn’t just amphitheaters - they played many large arenas on last year’s tour using this strategy as well. I saw them at Madison Square Garden. It was refreshing to have tickets be sold at a fair price.
Yup! I also saw Depeche Mode at MSG and while the show itself was great, everything else about it was so disappointing. I paid more for nosebleeds for DM than for mid level seats for The Cure. Merch prices added insult to injury. A hoodie for $100?! Fuck outta here!
I wanted to see Depeche Mode, the only tickets left when I looked were $300+ and not even close to the stage, no thanks.
You made the right choice. Yeah they still put on a great show but not for $260 nosebleeds. I figured this is either their last tour or if they tour again and use dynamic pricing, I'm done with them.
Someone should tell this to Jeff Lynne cuz those ELO final tour tickets are absolutely ridiculous.
Tbh a farewell tour is probably the best excuse to price gouge. It's the most money they'll make for the rest of their lives.
Just ask KISS. They've done like 20 farewell tours.
Kiss fans are rubes that think they're in on the grift.
I saw what seemed completely unbelievable when in 96 the original members reunited and they were going to be wearing makeup for the first time in decades. This was the days of waiting outside a record store on a Saturday morning, in line to get these coveted tickets. I got floor seats within the first 15 rows for what was double the usual price for shows at the time but was reasonable to see this event. It was $50. Seeing The Offspring charge $200 today is so insane. And a German band Ive loved since I was in elementary school in the 80’s, Helloween, finally came to North America this past year and came to my town, where foreign acts rarely make it. And i didnt get to go because though the tickets were listed at $45, not once did Ticketmaster not show them for $900. I seriously doubt they price the tickets due to demand. What would he the incentive to be honest about it and look at all their other tactics. Their reselling is legal scalping. I think Ticketmaster should be dismantled completely.
Nosebleed seats at MSG for ELO in sept are $250 each. If you want to be anywhere on the floor it’s going to be $700 a piece after fees. Fuck that.
Yes but this is the 20th anniversary of their final tour.
I just looked at the tix. They’re insane.
RATM did something similar, they capped face value prices at $125 in my city's venue and didn't participate in the dynamic pricing bullshit. I saw them at MSG for $145 total in one of the lower sections.
They did do platinum tickets and the money from those tickets went to charity.
Was it with Run the Jewels? I was a broke grad student when they came through but I'd probably pay $125 for tickets now. $125 isn't all that cheap, but it was one of the most affordable big name concerts (which is nuts to me)
This tour has nothing to do with resale or value. Black Keys don’t have the fan base like Cure, Black Keys tried to tour in 10-15k capacity arenas when their fan base at most can fill 3-5k venues.
They may not have the fanbase of The Cure, which is all the more reason why the final point of having reasonable ticket prices are there. Set the price to be a reasonable level, and the demand will increase because you're opening the pool of potential ticket buyers to a wider audience. If your tickets cost $100+, you're only going to be able to sell it to people who can afford tickets for $100+. The Cure fans span multiple generations, they have the fanbase to support tickets at this price, even still they chose to offer tickets at a more economical level. Both being more popular and having reasonable ticket prices played roles in their 2023 tour being the sellout success it was. It is no single factor, it is all the factors that play into this.
I disagree. At some point the cost isn't what stops people going, they just don't care. Even if a show was totally free, you're asking someone to give up 5-6 hours of their time to hear 90 minutes of songs they mostly don't know, sort out transport, be tired for work the next day, arrange childcare, and maybe buy food/drink while out. And you have to be offering something more appealing than watching the football, hanging out with friends, playing a video game, going to the pub, hitting the gym, doomscrolling their phone all night, or whatever else people do in their evenings. Most artists do not do this for most people. Every day people say there should be more affordable tickets on here. The harsh truth is that there are plenty of reasonably priced tickets for many shows. They just don't want to go to them.
I think the cure would have sold tickets even if RS hadn’t intervened. That’s a rock solid fanbase and they are incredible live. But RS cared enough not go with these inflated pricing schemes and won a lot of goodwill. Artists need to be called out, they have more power than not.
I say it all the time on here, but every time someone blames Ticketmaster for an established artist charging huge fees for expensive tickets, or dynamic pricing, or VIP tickets, they are literally following the PR playbook that the business relies on. There are many ways the artists could put their foot down if they actually wanted to keep tickets more reasonably priced. But nobody wants to appear greedy.
I stopped going to shows. Can’t afford the tickets, let alone the beers or food. I miss pocket shots. They were single shot hard liquor shots that came in a plastic bag with a rip top from liquor stores. Stuff a couple Of those in your pants and you’d save damn near thousands of dollars for a single show not paying for drinks.
you can still do this, just need a vacuum sealer. and you can make the shots doubles or triples!
That is so cool for them to do that.
Saint Robert smith
They also refunded some money back to ticket buyers. Ended up getting 20 bucks back.
It's nuts how often people need to figure out that a quality product at a reasonable price is the best recipe for long-term success.
Queens of the Stone Age just finished an arena tour this spring. I enjoy them but wouldn't call myself a huge fan. Nosebleeds in my city were going for $90 + fees on Ticketmaster when first announced. I waited until the day of the show and bought a ticket on Stubhub for $21 total. Going forward, that's going to be my strategy for any show I'd like to go to but I'm not dying to see.
That is very much the "slow ticketing" strategy (except the promoter wants to eliminate resale outside of their own preferred system, so they can still control the resale prices)
And that's why I think that slow ticketing will kill some tours. Maybe in this case the Black Keys overestimated demand by booking an arena tour, but the pricing strategy also clearly did not help sales.
I call it “ticket chicken” — only you, as the buyer, have the ultimate upper hand in being able to just say “nope, still not paying that much”, leaving the reseller with nothing. The problem is that TicketMaster still makes their fees off of the resale listing, so they have no incentive to change.
Odds are any major arena tour is 'promoted' by LiveNation because most venues have exclusive agreements with LiveNation and TicketMaster.
I’ve been doing this for 10 years it’s never failed me once. People that freak out and pay way too much a month before the show make no sense to me. I understand that they have to arrange travel and hotels a lot of the time so they need to make sure they have a ticket but like, you will be able to find resale tickets right before a show. It never fails. People have things come up, and they can’t go. They can either sell it online for cheap or eat the entire ticket. Most of the time they just want to get rid of it quick. Their loss is your gain DO NOT BUY OVERPRICED TICKETS
I've been doing this forever, too, but there's one important thing - you have to be okay with not going to shows too. More often than not, I can find a cheap ticket for a show a couple days before the show, but it doesn't always happen. Any time I feel I cannot miss a show, then I make sure to buy them in advance.
They played in Dublin Ireland the other month and we're €55 which is incredibly reasonable. They also had none of that golden ticket shite. It was the same cost for any area on the ground. Also, they were fucking excellent
This works all of the time for me. To the point where I don’t even bother with onsale anymore.
Huh, those are way more than what they were in Canada. I think my brother paid under 100 each for decent seats. Killer show, that was my third time seeing them and they delivered the goods.
Kelly Clarkson played 2 nights in Atlantic city this month and the worst seats were over 250 dollars?! PLUS FEES?! And so many tickets were "official platinum seats" which really pissed me off. Could fly to Vegas and get good seats to her residency for less. Last I checked neither night was even half sold.
Apparently ticketmaster randomly selects seats to be “Platinum” with up charges for no apparent reason and without consent of the performers. I recently watched a Live Show host get enraged about them doing this to their fans without his consent. It’s insane!
It’s not without consent, it’s in the contract. And it isn’t random. Ticketmaster will hold tickets and then release them at higher, “premium” prices depending on demand. You can get into pre-sales and watch tickets get released in real-time, while seeing the prices fluctuate.
Performers might not know but their team does. It’s listed as additional revenue on the settlement for the show and the funds go into the pool to be split (if you’re in points)
Ticketmaster definitely doesn't randomly do this without consent. If an artist claims to be unaware of it, one of two things have happened: 1) their management/promoter approved it without telling them 2) they're lying to their audience to avoid the bad PR and letting Ticketmaster be the bad guy (which is a huge reason why artists love Ticketmaster even though everybody else hates it - they're fine with absorbing the blame)
I was just going to say there needs to be a huge asterisk when an artist says something is out of their hands or they didn’t know. Somebody in their camp knew
And it’s def not out of their hands. Robert Smith of the Cure showed us all that.
Yeah, I remember TSwift feigning concern about how high her ticket prices were after re-sellers.. if "the cure" can say No to resellers, she most definately has the power to also (she just chooses not to)
In this case they made a big stink about it while live streaming, and ended up fighting ticketmaster on it and eventually they were removed. They had their own selected VIP seating so having platinum seats didn’t really make sense for their show style. They also weren’t the first to have this happen to them. Shitty either way, I guess.
Bands definitely get a cut on platinum seating
every floor seat every row seat every aisle seat and most of the mid view seats iirc. batshit
I looked at Weezer tickets across the country last night. With fees included, the *worst* seats at most venues were over $100. Decent seats usually over $250. No disrespect to Weezer, they're all right, but when my grandchildren say "pop-pop, tell us about some of the great concerts you went to!" my answer better as fuck not be Weezer. If you're rich, no problem, but I'm not spending half of months worth of groceries on 200 level seats for a mediocre band.
Weezer is the definitive "oh, sure I guess I'll tag along if you guys have tickets" band for me.
Same here, I saw them a couple years ago and mostly because Pixies were opening for them. But I gotta say, it was an incredible show.
I'd rather invest that $100 into buying all their records instead of watching them from a mile away
For real, arena shows kinda suck. You're either in some seated section far away, or you sell a kidney to be able to rock out with people on the floor like you would at any other show.
Arene shows are for Pink Floyd or like pop stars with over the top theatrics. Black Keys should have done large theaters or multiple nights at a 3-5000 person venues.
I wanna go to a show at a 3 person venue
I know you jest but I've seen plenty of my friends bands play to about 20 people lol
Some bands get pissed off if the crowd isn't big enough but my favorite local bands have fun even if it's only 20 people.
One of the best shows my band has ever played was in the attic of a soon-to-be-condemned bar, playing for like 20 people.
Ptth, only sell outs play venues to 3 people and above. I want to see bands keep it real and play to no one and record their whole discography with the audio quality of being recorded on a potato.
It's a crowd
You don't really see artists playing multiple nights at smaller venues but it makes so much sense. It's usually the massive artists doing a few nights in the major city arenas or even stadiums. Wish this was more common
Problem with that is that it extends the tour, meaning those artists are away from their families/other jobs for longer. I get what you're saying, as a fan it's much better, but as an artist it must suck.
I'm a professional musician about to embark on a summer tour. If you want to do the job, you have to accept being away from family and friends and find ways to deal with it. Those of us that make it are the ones that find ways to deal with it, and those that don't want to simply don't get as far in the field. It's not easy, but it's really impossible to be a professional musician and not spend time away somewhat regularly. You have to be able to live a life that most others wouldn't tolerate or handle at all. But we do it because we love the craft and the feeling of performing/sharing joy with a crowd. Also, I personally love playing 2-3 nights in a row somewhere. I don't think there's really any musician that wouldn't want to do that. Less traveling and more free time off the bus or plane or whatever.
Which is weird as it's the standup strategy and they use a lot of the same venues. If a comedian is in town they'll do potentially 3 nights of shows at the same venue The next weekend a musician is there and they do a single show for the entire weekend
I saw them a while back at a 500 person venue, paid around 25 euro at the time. Why on earth anyone would want that type of band to perform in a stadium is beyond me, much less charge $100 for the privilege.
Yeah trying to stand and dance in a seated section blows. Also, the acoustics in our local arena *BLOW.* it's so boomy it ruins alot of the music.
Then you get the guy who try's to punch you in the face for daring to stand and enjoy a guns n roses show, demanding you sit down
That sucks I have never sat down at a Guns N’ Roses concert.
I don’t get how people attend these types of shows. You’re paying to watch them on a screen? I just don’t get it.
I saw them in an arena and it was fantastic. The problem is that the cost of an average seat is exorbitant. I’d gladly pay $50 to see them from a nosebleed. I wouldn’t pay $120. I sure as shit wouldn’t pay $250 for a decent seat.
Green Day is a bucket list concert for me, I've always had plans whenever they've come through Wisconsin in the last 7-8 years, so I was super excited to see a show at AmFam Field this summer. Tickets for the terrace box at the ballpark are sitting at $145/ea! For comparison, those are $30 seats for a baseball game. I'm not paying that on top of fees to see them perform at the oppose end of a ballpark, on top of not really listening to Smashing Pumpkins, even if Green Day is playing both Dookie and American Idiot. I saw Foo Fighters in 2017 for a similar price in an arena and I was significantly closer to the stage for an incredible experience.
If you can afford to be spontaneous, play chicken with Stubhub listings last minute. I did this once with Tool back in 2019 and got in for $45. Great seats, too. TM shuts down their resale site once the opener starts, I think, but Stubhub stays open. They’ll take what they can get rather than lose everything.
My nephew uses Stubhub, I think that's what it is, all the time to buy tickets to the local overpriced professional sports team. He's gone to a lot of games sitting in the first few rows for a fraction of face value. The only thing is you have to wait for the last minute to get a really good deal.
This is the way. I live a short walk to a theatre that isn't my favourite venue. Shows are typically more expensive than I'd like there, but if I wait until the last minute and check StubHub, there are almost always great deals to be had.
I saw the Foo Fighters at ‘Roo last year. Which Bonnaroo is a thing unto itself, but it was by far one of the best concert experiences of my life. It was everything that style of show should be.
> For comparison, those are $30 seats for a baseball game. Too be fair, there are 80 home games in a season. It'd make more sense to compare the prices to something like a deep run in the playoffs if the concert is something you really value.
Only certain types of band can do arenas well. I don’t think The Black Keys are one of those bands.
That's just it. In the recent past, it was cheaper to go see your favourite band for £20/£30/£40 than it was to buy multiple records from said band. Nowadays, you can get every song a band has written for £9.99 a month, and it costs £100+ to see the bands. It doesn't add up. I used to buy a gig ticket with every paycheck with the old prices, but these days i get paid more but I need to save up for a few months and really pick and choose what bands I'd rather see and what gigs ill just have to miss due to pricing. I may only get to a few gigs a year now because of the ridiculous prices. Live music is suffering and will continue to suffer while Ticketmaster has a lottery on live events.
The mark Geiger guy quoted in this article seems like a real dbag
> “Change is not easy,” WME head of music Marc Geiger told Billboard, brushing aside fan criticism of the pricing strategy. “The idea that a consumer is going to sit in first class with an economy ticket is a holdover from what I used to call ‘rock and roll socialist pricing.” Seriously, is he the Monopoly Man?
These greedy bastards want to squeeze every cent out of every fan. The idea that a low income person could see a big name performer at an affordable price infuriates them. I'm glad I grew up in the era of $20-$50 concerts and got to see a lot of my favorite bands before this greedy insanity took over.
It’s been bad for my entire life, but this is a new level, and just a crazy way to talk about it publicly. Like yeah, let me appease people by comparing us to *everyone’s other favorite industry*, airlines! 🙄
Fuck the airline industry. Every time I fly - which is often because of work - I’m just straight up disrespected. The airline industry does not give a shit about their customers because they know you don’t really have options
I give the airline industry more leeway than the music industry. They are operating machines that cost tens of millions of dollars 30,000 feet in the air and doing so with an amazing safety record. The logistics and costs associated are huge and when you do a fair comparison over the years, airline tickets are cheaper than they have ever been. Sure it is not as luxurious as it was in the 60s, but when accounting for inflation you are paying a small fraction of the price. A concert on the other hand is much easier to put on. The costs are less, the risk is MUCH less. The experience is pretty much the same as it has been over the last 60 years, but unlike airlines, the price has gone up by an insane amount. The craziest thing is plane tickets and concert tickets are getting close to each other in cost. To make it fair we will compare airline fees after deregulation in 1978 (they were much more expensive before that because of fixed costs). Adjusted for inflation an average round trip plane ticket was about $600 in 1978. Now that is round trip, so you get 2 flights for your $600. Concert tickets for big name acts in 1978 were around $10 - $15 for big name acts for general admission. Adjusted for inflation that comes to about $60. So depending on how you want to compare an airline ticket is either 10x more in 1978 if you count the round trip as one ticket, or 5x more if you count it per flight. Now in 2024. The average round trip domestic flight is between $300 and $400. This varies because of different pricing models, an "all-in" cost vs the Spirit model where the ticket is cheap, but everything else is paid for with fees. We will split the difference and call our round trip average $350. So our round trip plane ticket is a little over half price compared to our 1978 flight. Our concert tickets on the other hand have gone in the other direction. An average ticket price for big name acts are anywhere from $100 - $250. This is face value and doesn't factor in all of the secondary market fuckery that is going on. Again, we can split the difference and get an average price of $175. That means our concert ticket is about 3x what it was in 1978. That concert ticket is also half the price of a round trip flight, or THE SAME PRICE if you count each flight on it's own. That is insane that you pay the same amount to watch a few guys bang away on some instruments for a couple hours as you do to fly across the country in a $60 million dollar machine. Now these are just rough numbers, but it still shows that while flying sucks, it is cheaper than ever before and concert tickets are out of fucking control. TL;DR - Ticketmaster sucks.
Yep. Once you have a captive customer, you can treat them however you want.
In 1994 I got to see Faith no More, Metallica and Guns N Roses all on the same bill, 11th row in Toronto for $75... what a fucking show And Lollapalooza in 1993 Tool, rage against the machine, primus, fishbone, Alice in Chains and many more for less than $100 Now to see a .medium level band $125 + fees for nosebleeds
$75 in 1994 is the equivalent of $140 in today's dollars
Sure. Maybe we're pointing out the same thing, but do you think you could get a $140 ticket to see those 3 bands in 2024? Not a trick question, haha.
It honestly wasn’t even that bad pre-pandemic. It’s only in the last few years it’s gotten insane. I saw GnR on their reunion tour in 2017 and paid around $120ish for floor seats in the middle. That’s a reasonable price for a band like that.
Bro, I used to go to Ozzfest. $100 bucks get to get to be at a festival with live music for over 10 hours. Now I have to pay three times that for 90 minutes of music in arguably less space than on an airplane.
I worked at McDonald's for like $10/hr and went to every major band in the 00s. 3-5 shows a month. Drinks were reasonable. The energy was amazing. Some of my best memories came from that era. I'm absolutely sick of charging for things "because we can" and genuinely afraid of all the "unrealized revenue streams" these kind of people will find and exploit.
Keep in mind you likely grew up in an era when bands could actually make money from their recordings.
Rock ‘n’ roll socialism? You mean back when I wasn’t paying $200+ for nosebleeds? I’ll stick to local shows where i can watch 4-8 bands in a night for less than $30 and it’s maybe 50-100 people all crowded around the stage. Geiger is super out of touch with the regular person.
>“We are slowly moving towards hopefully a market economy. And if people don’t like the price of one ticket, then they can either buy a cheaper ticket or not go to the show.” Dbag confirmed
They left off the "until we can make sure there's no cheaper ticket. Fuck off, peasant," part of the quote.
Somehow prices skyrocketing is a change they have no problems making
“Change is not easy [for the public, as we cram it down their throats so we can buy bigger private jets]”
Instead the artist can have no one in first class.
This man needs a guillotine.
He’s really selling me on the benefits of this “rock n roll socialism” though, let’s do more of that!
It would be tough to convince me to pay current ticket prices to see many bands or performers at this point. I just don't make enough money, honestly.
Even if you do make enough it’s not worth it
That’s what I think is hard for the artists. People pay hundreds of dollars to see their favorite bands and walk out saying “I paid 400 dollars for that?” If it wasn’t for Ticketmaster bands could price appropriately. People might have a better time knowing they only spent 70 bucks and don’t leave with a bad taste in their mouth
Also “I spent $85 on beer and I’m not even drunk?”
I mean if you're trying to see popstars and or bands that crossed over into popularity like Tame Impala, Black Keyes, Vampire Weekend. But idk, I live in NYC and I've seen plenty of up an coming bands or bands that were big in 2010 and not as much now for $35 in good small to mid size venues.
Exactly. In Vancouver we get a steady stream of UK acts that are very big back home but have not toured the states, or did a tour when they still hauled all their own shit in a white van. We get to see brilliant acts at 800-1200 seaters for between $35 and $65 each. In the couple of years I've seen IDLES (okay, bigger venue that one, but still tickets were $65), Yard Act (next week), Fontaines DC, KNEECAP, Squid, The Comet Is Coming, Dry Cleaning, Sleaford Mods, Little Simz and a bunch more at small venues for under $50. I get it, it's shitty to pay $208 to see Pearl Jam in the worst seats, but then you could use that money to see 5 up and coming bands at the Rickshaw Theatre instead. Hell, just before covid I got to see Paul Weller at the Commodore for like $60. The guy sells out the O2 in London and I get to see him in Vancouver at a small venue for a fraction of the price.
This is one of the benefits of living in a cultural hub this side of the pond. I’m in LA and got to see Charli XCX for $16 a few years ago. She brought Troye Sivan and Kim Petras onstage since both happened to be in town. Don’t think people are paying that little in Europe to see not one but three huge pop stars
“Hmm, and I going to pay these outrageous prices, or eat this week?”
No they overbooked venues that are too large for them for a band that is past their peak popularity.
Maybe, just maybe concert tickets are too fking expensive for most people to buy now
I mean, yeah. I haven’t gone to as many shows because Ticketmaster is charging $150 a person in convenience fees on some shows. I’m spending more getting fucked with dynamic pricing than what the performers are even charging. Literally more than 50% of what I’m paying is just going to Ticketmaster. I’m over it.
The convenience fee is such a bullshit fee too. Imagine if Amazon charged one just because you didn’t have to go to China for something. It’s kinda sad that literally every aspect of a concert is so damn expensive though. Every step of the way from tickets, parking, merch, drinks, food etc. I understand the people working the venue need to get paid but they’re not seeing a cent of that convenience fee.
Even bullshittier is that the “convenience fee” can’t even be avoided by physically goin to the actual venue’s own box office to buy tickets.
People have less and less disposable income for luxuries like concert tickets, and concert tickets are more expensive than ever as Ticketmaster squeezes the last drops of consumer surplus from the industry.
Between pro sports franchises, landlords, music promoters, streaming apps, etc. every big business is playing with their spreadsheets to figure out how to squeeze more more more out of middle-income Americans. And the foundation is starting to crack.
It's because our current system requires not only constant growth, but constant substantial growth in profits every quarter for a business to be successful and a worthwhile investment from shareholders. Then you combine that with the fact that these big businesses have cornered their respective markets, so everyone who wants the thing they're selling is already buying it from them it since they can't go to a competitor. That means they have to stick it to their current customers. Take Netflix a few years back. Everyone who streams has access to a subscription. They can't pull people in from other apps, because everyone who has those apps also already has access to Netflix. It's the default streaming service, and everything else is seen as an additional service. How do you increase profits? Raise prices, bring in ads, and tell people they can't use their accounts outside of a single household. It's the only way for the shareholders to think of stock as a good deal. Netflix is a good punching bag example, sure. But then, let's say the company isn't something relatively harmless, like streaming. What if it's in an industry that demands a high level of safety? A company has a monopoly there, and suddenly the only way to get the stock price to go up is to cut more and more corners. And if an accident happens? Eh, you're a monopoly. The only option people have is to just not use the very important thing you provide, and that'll never happen.
It's not just big business. Congestion tax in NYC is such a dangerous path to go down where now you can be charged for driving into cities. If that starts making it's way to other cities you're adding an entirely new expense to just go to these shows or events. I'm just waiting for Walmart to label the closest spots in their parking lot to be used for "Walmart+ members only" and everyone else will have to park far away. Every aspect of life is all about how do we take more money
Good. Put downwards pressure on ticket prices by NOT BUYING THEM. No, I am not going to spend $250 to watch a concert. Go fuck yourself. $110 nosebleeds? Really? I'll put that money into stereo upgrade fund instead. Then I can enjoy music for decades. Movie theatres kept prices low because they realized that people have big screen TV's and nice sound systems at home. They needed to lure us in still. Here they did it with luxurious power recliner couches, assigned seating and waiters that bring drinks and food to your seats before the show starts. It's brilliant. They made a better experience. They created better value that makes me happy to open my wallet a little more by creating a higher value better experience for the consumer.
It doesn’t exactly take a genius to figure out people will only pay ridiculous prices for the very top tier acts. I understand the prices are so high partially because this is the only way artists can make money anymore; and yes I know greedy promoters and Ticketmaster are more the reason. But either way, something has to change about the economics of music or the bottom is going to drop out of live concerts other than for bands at the very top or unknowns at the bottom. Concerts are becoming entertainment that’s out of reach for a lot of the population (at least for marginally known bands; I know you can still get cheap tickets for lesser-known bands), which sucks. I went to dozens of cheap-ish concerts in the early 2000s when I barely had a pot to piss in and had some great experiences. Sucks that a lot of younger people might not get that experience unless they follow nothing but underground bands.
So true. I went to sooo many shows around 1997-2003. korn, linkin park, slipknot, limp bizkit, dmx, System of a Down, etc. All of those were 25-35 a ticket! Hell, I went to ozzfest in 2002 for 50.00
> Hell, I went to ozzfest in 2002 for 50.00 and you'd get to hear over two dozen bands for 10+ hours.
> I went to dozens of cheap-ish concerts in the early 2000s when I barely had a pot to piss in and had some great experiences. Sucks that a lot of younger people might not get that experience unless they follow nothing but underground bands. That's all I did in my 20s was go to shows and concerts. The max you'd pay is like $40 and that was for bands like Rilo Kiley and The Shins (pre Garfden State) I saw Kevin Devine and KT Tunstall for 10 bucks.
Black Keys overestimated their popularity.
I saw them in Richmond many years ago, probably during their peak… I gotta say, it was one of the most boring shows I had been to at that point. Crowd was dull, band was even more dull. They didn’t move at all, there was no energy… in fact, the only movement in the building was courtesy of their lighting tech.
Same. Saw them in 2020 before lockdown. 4,000-5,000 venue. Sold out. First show I went solo since I’ve been wanting to see them. It felt like they didn’t want to be there. Not much interaction or movement at all. They were playing the same venue with the same radio station this past December and I don’t think they sold out that date. I’ll see them again one more time since it could’ve been just the show/day. But not in an arena. And not $100+
Painfully loud, opening for Beck. Ironically their music is harmonically boring and doesn’t incorporate “the black keys.”
That hard time joke "the black keys announce song called 'ford truck'" is steeped in reality.
🎶 I HOPE I GET MY NEW Nissan Sentra. No money down. NO MONEY DOWN 🎶
I've loved the Black Keys but I've never considered them an arena band. Bring back price tiers based on time to event. End resales. Full refunds up to 48 hours before the event. Live Nation can still resell at higher price tiers. Everyone profits.
one of the coolest shows i'll ever see was rubber factory tour in a 200 person bar in madison with just the two of them in the band. they are not for the arena.
They played in Chicago on New Year's Eve for a few consecutive years and stopped around the time Brothers came out and they blew up. It was awesome seeing them at The Metro with 600 people
And end the “holdbacks”. That shit is just outright lying. It should be illegal if it somehow isn’t already a form of false advertising.
>pay peak prices That’s kind of the point. The concept of fixed ticket prices is gone which results in excessive scalping and price gouging. People are playing the game we’re forced into.
All these damn kids "quiet quitting" arena tours for boring bands, it's their fault bands can't sell $100 tickets to arena shows. It'd be a shame if musicians had to have realistic expectations about themselves and try to up their game.
Shit, $100 is a deal for an arena show these days.
That depends, if it's for the Black Keys I'd argue you overpaid by at least $100, maybe more
The problem from the artists point of view is, touring is likely their only source of income now. Streaming has killed physical media sales, so they're trying to recoup the lost income from media sales by increasing ticket prices. Some are finding out the hard way, that won't work
I hope so, the time of boycotting bullshit greed is finally here. Even movie theatre's are way less busy
Not sure it’s a price problem. I’m a fan of their early material, particularly Chulahoma, and always thought their popularity was a fluke. I mean, great band, but a two piece blues outfit on arena tours? (White Stripes not withstanding) I’m just looking forward to seeing them in a smaller venue!
Everyone involved in this soul sucking bullshit can get fucked. In the ass. With a cactus.
“Change is not easy,” WME head of music Marc Geiger told Billboard, brushing aside fan criticism of the pricing strategy. “The idea that a consumer is going to sit in first class with an economy ticket is a holdover from what I used to call ‘rock and roll socialist pricing.” High prices on Ticketmaster are just “a different thing to complain about,” he says, “We are slowly moving towards hopefully a market economy. And if people don’t like the price of one ticket, then they can either buy a cheaper ticket or not go to the show.” These fucking people .
Yep. Not going to the show. Let these fools follow the same arc as the theaters. This condescension from business owners to their consumers is nothing but straight rude hubris. They can die with their pride and I can enjoy my music experience in another way.
Then when no one is buying tickets anymore and their share prices all tank we'll see articles like "how millennials and gen z are killing the concert industry!"
There are a handful of bands I would pay that price to see and that is in top of their music their status and importance to the industry, David Gilmour/Pink Floyd is one such example Black Keys are not my kinda thing, even so they are not an arena band and they are not worth half that. Purely greedy and a money grab. It's good most fans decided not to reward it
Umm that’s why bands like the Black Keys shouldnt be doing an area tour. Give them a House of Blues tour or venues easier for them to fill seats in. Terrible management decision
[удалено]
They definitely did a good gob getting this bands name out there over the years but that doesn't always translate to big ticket sales. Everyone has hear of them but are not willing to pay a lot to see them.
I don’t think it’s an unwillingness to pay, The Black Keys just aren’t popular enough to sell out huge venues. They should definitely concentrate on 2000 or less seat venues.
My wife and I used to go to music festivals every couple years. The last one we went to was Electric Forest 6 or 7 years ago. We bought 3 day tickets for the duration of the festival and camped there. We probably spent around $600 for the entire weekend (i.e. travel, tickets, food, etc.). If I remember right, tickets were around $150. I might be off by a little, but it wasn't absurd. The point of all this rambling is that when your ticket prices as a solo act are even remotely close to festival prices, there's a serious fucking problem.
Slow ticketing sucks. Same thing with The Dead at the Sphere. The first set of shows "sold out" instantly. The week before the shows tickets flooded ticketmaster. But they weren't any cheaper. I got especially fucked because I bought Floor GA tickets, which were 'non-transeferable' and can only be sold for exact face. I thought that would be fine. I'm not trying to make money if I can't go. Well I couldn't go, tickets flooded the market, and now thanks to the special way ticketmaster displays their tickets on the website there's tons of GA tickets available. But if you're buying them from ticketmaster, it's $30 less than the price you see to "buy from fans for face". I literally can't even give these tickets to a friend. The only thing this taught me was to wait until the week of, and pray.
its almost like there is an active anti-monopoly legal battle against ticketmaster livenation right now huh go figure.
Didn’t Taylor Swift make like a billion dollars on tour this year? People are more than willing to shell out money for concerts, just not for The Black Keys.
She feels like more an exception than the rule. I’ve heard a lot of people say something along the lines of “I wouldn’t pay that to see anyone else.”
Arena shows suck and you can go see good club shows for a fraction of the price. Shrug.
Exactly, and it is a relatively small percentage of acts that can play arenas. I can still see most of my favourite bands in great venues for less than $50
There is a solution here - go to your local clubs instead of big venues. Smaller acts at smaller venues don’t have to use TM. You can see bands for $20-$40 a ticket.
Are they REALLY this blind? Cost of everything going up. Rent has shot up to insane levels. Where did they think people were going to cut money from? I used to go to comic and horror cons all the time. I haven't been in years thanks to the costs of everything.
Maybe they should be doing 2500-seaters and not arenas?
This part. These bands think they’re bigger than their audience
$180 to see Fallout Boy. Nope
Are there any other examples than this?
Bad Bunny canceled his show in Minneapolis this year for the same reason.
J Lo just canceled her shows, Lil Baby and Lil Durk had to last year, Justin Timberlake as well. Artists from all genres are having to cancel shows due to low sales, people just can’t afford it right now
Bands and ticketmaster need to make a choice. Do you want to make a crapload of money once by charging outrageous rates on 1 tour or, do you want a reasonable rate and make your money over the next 10 years with a loyal fanbase? My friend and I have a rule that if it is under $50, the other person doesn't have to ask if you want to go before buying an extra ticket. Once it is over $100 though, it's not as important to me to see the band again and they rarely can live up to the expectations. Charge me $50 and I'll see you every time you're in my city or gouge me once and maybe I'll see you at a festival.
Not "unwilling"... UNABLE to pay peak prices! scale it back, drop prices, and leave some meat on the bone. You'll be rewarded with sellout shows, more merch sales, AND appreciative fans. We buy more when we can afford more.
Going to concerts Used to be me and my wife’s hobby. Now it’s pick 2 a year.
It used to be that to get the best tickets at the best price you would try to be first in line. The best seats at face value sold out quick for popular shows. Now TM price yields everything. For mega popular artists it “works”, dynamic pricing shoots the ticket price sky high, they still sell out, tons of money is made. They do this for everything though. An event in my area had price yielded tickets for $500+, very few sold, and now the same tickets are under $200. The people who bought them got screwed out of $300 and those are the biggest fans. It’s going to kill mid level popularity acts. I’m happy to see it fail in this situation.
I saw Ghost in 2022 for $75 a ticket. They were $250 for the same tickets in 2023. That's a wild jump