Gig tickets. Jeepers.

[NancyJohnson]

Don't go to a lot of gigs now; ticket prices aside, I honestly abhor the inconvenience and associated costs of the journey in and back (generally Reading to Landaan), the cost of getting a pint etc.

 

Anyhoo...on to ticket prices.  Guess I'm a little behind the curve here, but interest spiked when I read the happy news that Sugar had reformed and are doing two dates in London next May.  Got the mailing list presale, no prices, navigated through that, no prices, tickets in basket, no prices, get to the end £62.10 a pop, plus a ticket agency fee.  (God knows how the 10p element was calculated out.). At which point, I just shut down Firefox and went and made a coffee.  My head was reeling... You're probably looking at £200+ to see a band play for 75 minutes. 

 

Old enough to remember going to see Rush at Hammersmith and the ticket was under £4.00.  Five bands at the Lyceum for under £5.00.  These prices seemed reasonable at the time, even adjusted for inflation.  

 

 

 

 

[Crusoe]

Sixty-odd quid is fairly reasonable to see a "name" band these days. I don't think they make as much money from selling music these days, thanks to streaming services, so have to make it from touring, which can't be cheap to do.

[Lozz196]

I`ve got tickets for Volbeat at Wembley Arena in a few weeks, at £50ish a very pleasant change to pricing, as most gigs are way more expensive. Volbeat are a pretty big band and I have in the past paid more for tickets for smaller bands so it`s refreshing to see a big band not try and max out their tickets. But then Volbeat seem to be fairly old school to me, release an new album/CD every couple of years and then tour it.

[Mickeyboro]

Hopefully all those who hate the ticketing scams and booking fees will transfer to watching local bands. 
 

That said, we are doing a charity gig for free and Eventbrite keep £1.70 of the £7 ticket price… 🤔 I know they have to make a living, but…

[jonno1981]

Agreed. In our case we have to factor in a baby sitter so add another £50 for the cost. If it’s a London gig and we want to watch the support act it’ll be out the house from 5.30- 12.
Gigs have gone from at least monthly to a special occasion these days. So many times I see a tour announced and then give up as it’s like £90 or something. I know it’s not 1990, but it doesn’t feel like good value. 

[neepheid]

My usual reaction these days is "Eff off!  I'm not paying that!"

 

Scot's gotta Scot.  But it is getting ridiculous, and it's not just gig tickets.  Someone's making money at our expense, and it isn't me, that's for damn sure.  I rarely go out to the pub these days, never mind gigs, because the price of a pint is taking the p!ss.  Maybe it has to, because if it's not the pubs who are taking the mick, then it's someone above them in the supply chain taking the mick out of them, to then take the mick out of me.  I'm not having it.  My wallet has a vote, and it's voting "no" a lot more often these days.

[Steve Browning]

Music, like football, is pricing itself out of the hands of those who would most enjoy it, and can afford it.

[Burns-bass]

6 minutes ago, Steve Browning said:

Music, like football, is pricing itself out of the hands of those who would most enjoy it, and can afford it.

 

Very nicely put. 

 

My brother went to see Kraftwerk a few years ago and I think tickets were around £50. A Bristol gig now is around £100 or more a ticket. Insane really.

[NancyJohnson]

A few years back (2009), I went to see NIN/Jane's Addiction/Street Sweeper at the Docklands O2 on the NINJA tour - it took three hours to get there (and the same back), horrific car park fee and maybe a 25-30 minute walk from the car to the venue.  We missed the first band and saw about 15 minutes of Jane's Addiction.  In the venue, the staff were literally barking at the punters to keep inside the yellow lines at ground level.  It was the most soulless gig I've ever been to and it really tainted my feelings about schlepping up to the smoke for gigs.  From memory, that was £35.00 a ticket.

 

I just don't know why people want to go to see live music any more, especially in big places - I recall Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols commenting about why would anyone want to go [to Earl's Court] and see four dots on the stage - now at the big venues, I'd wager people spend more time watching a screen than the blokes on stage.  The old Hammersmith gigs, you could swing the car into a parking place under the flyover for nowt, walk in and be home an hour after the gig.

 

As @neepheid says, someone is having a huge laugh at the punter's expense; also take into account all that money sitting in a bank account for the next nine months earning 5%.

 

 

 

Edited 6 hours ago by NancyJohnson
*Speling

[BigRedX]

This is why I'm glad that most of the bands I want to see are still playing smaller venues, and are relatively cheap to see.

 

The biggest gig I have been contemplating going to as a punter this year is The Birthday Massacre at The Rescue Rooms here in Nottingham. Tickets are under £25 including booking fee. The venue is a 25 minute walk from where I live and I'll probably only buy one drink to enjoy whilst the support band are on. Total of around £30 for an evening's entertainment.

 

Most of the other gigs I want to go to are free because my band is also on the bill.

[TimR]

I am now earning 12x what I was earning in 1987. My wages have probably outstripped inflation, but I dont remember 'old' people like me at gigs in the 80s.

 

I suspect we are influencing the ticket costs more than anything and putting them out of reach of young people and teenagers.

 

 

[Burns-bass]

4 minutes ago, TimR said:

I am now earning 12x what I was earning in 1987. My wages have probably outstripped inflation, but I dont remember 'old' people like me at gigs in the 80s.

 

I suspect we are influencing the ticket costs more than anything and putting them out of reach of young people and teenagers.

 

 

 

It's probably because the only bands big enough to flll the monster venues are heritage acts.

 

I went to see mercury music prize winning Joe Armon Jones with two of the best jazz playing sidemen I've seen and it cost me £8 and there were barely 200 people there. A few minutes' walk away Mark King was slapping the beejesus out of a Jaydee for 3000 people.

 

 

 

 

[Steve Browning]

5 minutes ago, TimR said:

I am now earning 12x what I was earning in 1987. My wages have probably outstripped inflation, but I dont remember 'old' people like me at gigs in the 80s.

 

I suspect we are influencing the ticket costs more than anything and putting them out of reach of young people and teenagers.

 

 

 

Indeed. It's people with the greater disposable income who are paying these prices and feeding the demand that 'justifies' them.

[Woodinblack]

39 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

A few years back (2009), I went to see NIN/Jane's Addiction/Street Sweeper at the Docklands O2 on the NINJA tour - it took three hours to get there (and the same back), horrific car park fee and maybe a 25-30 minute walk from the car to the venue.  We missed the first band and saw about 15 minutes of Jane's Addiction.  In the venue, the staff were literally barking at the punters to keep inside the yellow lines at ground level.  It was the most soulless gig I've ever been to and it really tainted my feelings about schlepping up to the smoke for gigs.  From memory, that was £35.00 a ticket.

 

Was at the same gig, but we missed most of Janes Addiction beccause my wife was getting a tattoo and it took longer than we had planned for - had to get a taxi from hornchurch to the O2, but luckily it was so late it was easy to get in and there werent any crowds, it all worked well, and enjoyed the gig. But yes, 3 and a bit hours there and back, but we stayed overnight so another £100 or so for a hotel, and the cost of the tattoo, and the shopping the following day, all in all the cost of the ticket was practically nothing!

 

But in general going to london is very expensive, so we haven't been in a long time now. We went up for Too in 22l, but that had been the first for a while and probably the last for a long time (apart from gatwick on the way to new york, but that doesn't really count).

 

There are no groups that I would pay over £100 to see and that seems almost normal for there now.

[Len_derby]

It’s a very good point by Tim about the demographics of gig attendance.

I don’t think it’s only the bigger acts and venues, either. The more modest venues I attend, like the Flowerpot in Derby, seem to be generally filled with people middle-aged an upwards. Going to see live music seems less of a young person thing now.

[PaulWarning]

I won't pay it and hate stadium gigs anyway, my next  gig is the Undertones at Rock City £35 plus booking fee £5.38 and £1.50 e ticket download I hate these extras that are unavoidable, much as I don't like Government interference it really is time they put a stop to this, The headline price should be the price you pay, it's ridiculous, £1.50 to send you an E-ticket, where's the justification in that?

If people didn't pay the high price for the big name gigs they wouldn't charge it, supply and demand init?

Edited 5 hours ago by PaulWarning

[BigRedX]

IME the age of the audience also depends on the genre of the music. 

 

Whilst a good proportion of the audiences I play to are in their 50s and 60s there are plenty much younger who come and see us. At the next gig we're playing, AFAIK, the rest of the bands are all in their 20s.

[bertbass]

And to think that I saw the Who in 1969 for 7/6d, that's seven shillings and six pennies, and they played the whole of Tommy and a few hits.

[Leonard Smalls]

I would never pay £BigMoney to see a band at the Enormodome - firstly you can barely see 'em, sound in a huge hanger is usually terrible, there's no sense of intimacy and there's 20000 other people there who've also paid well over the odds.

But unfortunately, while people pay stupid prices (Oasis!) the stupid prices will exist.

[Leonard Smalls]

I would never pay £BigMoney to see a band at the Enormodome - firstly you can barely see 'em, sound in a huge hanger is usually terrible, there's no sense of intimacy and there's 20000 other people there who've also paid well over the odds.

But unfortunately, while people pay stupid prices (Oasis!) the stupid prices will exist.

[Burns-bass]

Just now, Leonard Smalls said:

I would never pay £BigMoney to see a band at the Enormodome - firstly you can barely see 'em, sound in a huge hanger is usually terrible, there's no sense of intimacy and there's 20000 other people there who've also paid well over the odds.

But unfortunately, while people pay stupid prices (Oasis!) the stupid prices will exist.

 

A lot of the Oasis stuff was about generating a false sense of scarcity. So many people attended those gigs to prove they were there and you weren't. 

 

A friend of mine went and said that about 80% of the crowd spent the gig filming it on their phones. It's utterly pathetic. I've heard similar stories of Paul McCartney gigs, etc.

[Shaggy]

2 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

 

 

Old enough to remember going to see Rush at Hammersmith and the ticket was under £4.00.  Five bands at the Lyceum for under £5.00.  These prices seemed reasonable at the time, even adjusted for inflation.  

 

 

 

 

 

Likewise, I saw Rush at Deeside Leisure Centre around 1979 /80, saw most of the big name rock and New Wave bands around at that time, never paid more than a fiver.

 

These days I occasionally catch older bands playing the smaller venues (OMD most recently), wouldn't contemplate going to the bigger ones.

 

I think tours used to be seen as potentially loss-making promotion for album sales, now like everything else it's just a money-making machine.

[Leonard Smalls]

4 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

A lot of the Oasis stuff was about generating a false sense of scarcity

Aye...

But I looked into buying Kraftwerk tickets recently - seemed they were doing the same dynamic pricing nonsense. Tickets at £50odd suddenly leapt up to £100+ for no apparant reason. I wouldn't mind but Kraftwerk haven't done any new music for 30ish years and are now not much more than a tribute band!

[Rosie C]

1 hour ago, NancyJohnson said:

I just don't know why people want to go to see live music any more, especially in big places - I recall Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols commenting about why would anyone want to go [to Earl's Court] and see four dots on the stage

 

 

I was heartened to see The Fureys farewell tour is around £25 a ticket and they're playing a huge number of smaller venues. I can't ever see me going to a large stadium again. I would love to see Paul McCartney, but not in a stadium   

 

[Lozz196]

8 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

A friend of mine went and said that about 80% of the crowd spent the gig filming it on their phones. It's utterly pathetic. I've heard similar stories of Paul McCartney gigs, etc.

When I saw The Darkness last year Justin Hawkins, in between songs, announced that The Darkness` No 1 fan, Karl, was in the audience that eve.

 

He then said, Karl, as you`re our No 1 fan how about putting your effing phone away and watching us.

 

Did get a big laugh - rather ironically from many who were holding their phones up.

Edited 5 hours ago by Lozz196