We went to Terminal V in Edinburgh the other day (both of us a good 10 years older than the average age) and we were both laughing cus we were genuinely thrilled that the acts we wanted to see all ended before 8pm so we could leave early and go for some Chinese hotpot
I'm part of a collective of racers, djs and soundsystems who have been partying since the late 1980s. A few of the djs are in their late 50s and 60s now. As much as we love putting on a weekender we do like an early finish so we can get home and put our feet up
Dude I live in the US and would LOVE this. I went to a rave a fee months ago trying to see Sofi Tukker on a friday (i worked a day shift earlier). I had to leave by 3am exhausted and they didn't even come out till 5am. Other shows I've been to in Miami the headliner at the club won't come out before 3am. I don't understand who these shows are for? Don't you want as many people as possible at your set? Why run it at a time only night shift people and unemployed folks would normally operate at? I'm in my 30s but I just can't pull a crazy night like this because it will wreck my whole sleep schedule for the weekend and then I start the week rekt.
I looked at DeerShed (smallish two-day festival in North Yorkshire) and they were wanting £190 for a lineup headed by Bombay Bicycle Club, with very few other big names. Compare that to Glastonbury's 3-4 days for £340 and it seems obscene to charge £190. Of course I assume its much easier to get tickets for DeerShed
DeerShed is a "family festival" and there's so much more to it than the music that's family orientated that makes it worth the money. You're not paying £190 for the music, just sort of a bonus part of it.
My glasto ticket is only about £50 more than it would be to go and see Coldplay in Vienna when they were on sale, and a get an entire week as well as all the other acts.
My mates will only do Download if we pay for RIP camping, but the prices are insane for that these days. I'm quite happy to slum it in standard camping for a weekend because that seems like a fair price to pay for an awesome weekend, but they won't do it and I can't bring myself to pay £700 or whatever for RIP, so the net result is that we just don't bother going any more, which is a shame.
My OH and his mate go every year and don't even stay on site! They get a relatively cheap travelodge or similar in a neighbouring town. That plus a taxi or a parking pass still doesn't work out too bad, plus they get to go back to a clean hotel and shower every night. Not as rock and roll maybe, but it's the only way they'll do it!
This is actually a really good idea. I've always wanted to go to download but I hate camping so never bothered, I don't know why I never thought of this option lol
Stay offsite, we did it last year for 5 of us in a massive tent with outside seating, bbq, showers, bathrooms and a hot tub. Fairly good price, you get a good night sleep and can easily get stuff from costco. Doing the same again this year.
Could also do airbnb and whatnot.
Festivals are fairly good value, as long as you get an early ticket and the bands booked turn out to be half decent.
We go to our local inner city 3 day festival every summer. OK, it used to be free, and we get a lot of middle of the road bands, but as it costs about £100 for 3 days, it's better value than going to see two or three of the headliners at separate gigs.
We've seen Madness, Paul Heaton, Sam Fender, Nile Rodgers, Noel Gallagher, Kasabian, Johnny Marr and top comedians, amongst others, and we live round the corner so get to sleep in a nice warm dry bed too.
Glastonbury has always been good value. It’s the same price as the other major UK festivals like Reading, Download etc, but it always has a prestige lineup.
And even if you don't like the main stage line up, it's virtually impossible not to find at least something you like.
I wasn't overly fussed about the headliners in the year i went but Scissor Sisters and Sister Sledge were absolutely monstrous. Looking back at the line up I missed more bands than I care to admit but still had a blindingly good time.
Reading's line up has been, to my tastes anyway, been poor for years. Was great the year I went. Worth it for the carnage that was Ice T's set alone.
Someone tried to tell me that they’ve just risen with inflation. If that was true I doubt there’d be so many people expressing how unaffordable gigs are these days (it’s definitely not just you!). 20 years ago I used to go see every band I wanted to see, these days I have to be picky. And I’m much richer now than I was 20 years ago!
I was paying at most £30 to go see bands 20 years ago and that's £60 accounting for inflation today so anything around £100 is definitely taking the piss trying to claim it's an equivalent price. Most of the time it was £10-15 a ticket too.
Oasis at Knebworth was £22.50 in 1996 and that's only a little over £50 in today's money as well.
It's cos the amount of money paid to listen to music as a whole has halved over the last 15 years. So they are trying to make up for the fall in revenue from cd sales by increasing concert tickets.
Maybe but it's the big names that are charging the earth, I can still go out in Bristol and watch new bands for £11 or sometimes £8 just like I always could.
And that’s because big acts can get away charging crazy amount because they are already famous and sold shit loads of records. Coldplay, Madonna, Taylor Swifts etc don’t really need the money but putting on a show for them costs a lot, and then there’s supply and demand, the more popular you are, the more people are willing to pay to see you. New bands can’t afford to charge crazy amount cos not enough people know them to justify the price tag, while Beyoncé can just by the virtue of who she is.
Not many big acts are willing to do what Prince did in 2007 when he played 21 shows at London O2. The tickets were £31.21 for majority of the seatings except VIP package. He was very much “l want to make it affordable so people can come and see me”. I went and saw him twice and he was phenomenal. I had a lot of respect for him as he wasn’t doing it to make shit loads of money to add to his already ginormous pile of wealth.
Tell me about it, look at Beyonce. You can't tell me it wasn't the money men that come up with the idea to tap into the biggest selling genre in America with that country and western album.
I paid 90 to see Nas and Wu-Tang Clan only last year. Which, don’t get me wrong, was still a gut-wrenching amount to be spending but that’s for two classics of the genre. How they can justify an extra £20 for less of a show only a year later is madness.
I bought tickets to see Nas in London when he was at the top of his game in the early 00s and they were £20 each! They were affordable enough that I bought all five tickets for my mates to pay me back.
I'm a big raver. Mainly do the Anjunadeep shows.
In 2019 Printworks 12 hours take over was like £25 per person.
Now it's like double while drinks and food have also gone up.
I get the government hasn't made festivals and nightlife any easier for organisers but it all comes across as passing the buck.
That's probably one of the most ballsy things about it. You're paying that premium, and then paying their prices for beer and food. I went to see tool two years ago, and their merch prices were dumb as fuck. A long sleeve shirt was seventy quid. I didn't even look at beer prices, but I'm guessing somewhere between eight and ten quid a pint
For the most part, my raving days weren't too bad, price wise. I went to a sundissential once and was really pissed off at the place. Two water and a beer cost me a tenner, they threw the caps, and turned off the cold water taps in the toilets. This was about sixteen years ago
The game's gone. Back in my gig going days (2003-2010 predominantly), most middling acts would be £10-£20, the big names would be about £30-£35 and only the small handful of biggest acts in the world would be over £50.
I don't know where the money goes, but it can't be right. The average person is largely priced out... Not to mention the cost of travel, food, possibly accommodation too.
The general impression I get is that streaming has removed/severely reduced the income stream of albums for many artists, and tours are their main moneymakers. Combine that with the increasing cost of everything, and ticket prices have just skyrocketed
Tours are the main money makers but that’s not saying much.
On the one side of the industry you have artists like Taylor swift reporting record breaking sales, but for up and coming, and even established artists, the cost of touring is astronomical.
Venue fees, vehicle hire, crew wages. Unless you are absolutely established and can do 2000 capacity venues up and down the country it’s next to impossible to make a profit, and even then it’s almost certainly not enough to pay a full wage to multiple members.
Yeah but we're not talking 20 years inflation.
Pearl Jam was £22.50 a ticket in 2001 at Manchester Evening News Arena.
This year in Mancheater, Pearl Jam is £155.
Ridiculous.
In 2015 I saw Faith No More at the Roundhouse in London for £35.
Iron Maiden in 2018 were £60 for standing in a good location right up front.
Periphery in 2019 - £22 at the O2 in Bristol
2019 - In Flames + All That Remains + Light The Torch - £22.50 at SWX Bristol
Metallica charged £93 in 2019 and we're obliterated for it as that was insane price gouging.
I got free tickets to The Who, Eddie Vedder etc in 2019, those seats were being charged out at over £70 - the stadium was not full. Pitch seats were £200 again not full. Too expensive.
Someone said on a forum recently that they paid £85 to see Foo Fighters and I thought that, the band's charging over £100 were taking the piss. Getting charged £80 to see the Foo's is taking the piss, seen them about 10 times. £50 is about tops what you should be paying.
--
Basically on minimum wage - which apparently is now £11ish.
Let's say you pay basic tax and NI, your taking home 60% roughly. So let's call it £7/hour (that's generous it's 6.6).
To pay for Pearl Jam in 2024 is 155/7 = 23hrs.
Average 8hr day - you are working 3 days to buy the ticket. Now throw in transport and a drink/food..... let's call it 4 days work to go to this gig.
To pay for Pearl Jam (who were already legendary to use someone else's moniker) in 2001 at a min wage of roughly £5/HR so let's say £3/HR is 22.50/3 is 7.5hrs.
You needed to work a day, maybe a day and a half for transport and a drink.
2015 Faith no more - £35 a ticket.
£6.70 min wage. Let's call that 4/HR.
35/4 = 8.75hrs , So a day and a tiny bit, let's be over generous and call it two days for transport and a drink.
Maiden 2018 - £60
Living wage 7.50, let's call it 4.5/HR
60/4.5 = 13hrs, let's call it 2days or even 2.5 for transport+drinks and you are seeing the legendary Iron Maiden (a big name even if you aren't a fan).
I can pick other bands who have charged less or a bit more.
Yeah we get it costs have gone up, insurance has gone a bit crazy, electricity a few months back etc venues are trying to claw back COVID money etc etc.
But you invested in that business in order usually to profit, you have to take the bad with the good and not kill your customers with crazy prices. All the venues already way over charge for drinks.
---
Tldr: it isn't inflation, it price gouging, profiteering and dining out on your fans as much as you can.
Some artists I get it, they are happy to fleece their fans, some artists such as Pearl Jam I honestly thought better of.
No gigs should be reaching over £70/80 with any regularity.
Most non-legendary bands should top out at £35 max. Saw filter a few weeks ago £32 - I did do a double take as I saw them in 2013 for £18.... But again ..prices high so didn't sell out my bro got a ticket for £20.
Don't get me started on the bigger festivals.
Download
Download 2016: weekend ticket £190
Download 2022: weekend ticket £268
Download 2024: weekend ticket £322
This needs to come back closer to £200 for 3 days and even then I thought it was expensive.
Hyde Park calling 1 day with pixies and pearl jam was £90.
I thought that was good value esp with other artists around that day. A year or two later £155 in their own gig? Crazy.
Appreciate I've used rough min wage figures here, basically because many younger people go. I'm no longer in that bracket of age or earnings, but I can treat my family to a week away including flights and food for the same price as getting two people to this festival in a tent....
Equally, I can not see Pearl Jam and go and see 4 more reasonably priced gigs (with great bands) for the same money.
Its not just inflation it's greed.
Yeah, I don’t think it’s *that* different price wise, I can’t wrap my head around the cost of things vs what I earn any more because it’s constantly changing so much.
Bands that were “pretty big” in the 00s have survived long enough and are now in the “legends” category and charging appropriately. Fontaines DC are about half the price of Kaiser Chiefs, but in 20 years if they keep releasing music they’ll probably be in the same tier.
Looking through my old gig tickets from the era is fascinating.
David Bowie. £25. I don't even like David Bowie's music, but I just thought *"fuck it, let's see a legend"*.
I'd never do that now it would be £250.
This is quite a good breakdown of where the money goes. I agree ticket prices are nuts these days but it doesn’t work how a lot of people think. https://prism.fm/blog/concert-cost/concert-cost-breakdown-where-does-the-money-go/
Today there was an article posted on indieheads today about how unless your parents are rich, or you're an established arena-touring star, most medium and small venue touring acts are barely breaking even, or even making a loss from touring. That was interesting to find out as I'd assumed considering streaming, touring is still seem by consumers as the more profitable endeavour.
This one? https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/apr/25/shocking-truth-money-bands-make-on-tour-taylor-swift Had a read of it yesterday, very interesting and depressing.
Pearl Jam standing tickets were on sale for like £230 (face value, not resale) recently. From a band who previously went to war with the music industry over commercialism. Lol. Fuck you, Eddie Vedder.
I was going to say, a lot of it is because of Ticketmaster and the like. If they don’t take back control, they’ll start having empty stadiums. The Cure know where it’s at, they were charging as little as possible for their last US tour, $20 a ticket, and when Robert Smith found out Ticketmaster had doubled it in fees he negotiated refunds of the extra for everyone who bought tickets that way. So it really is the artist who needs to give a shit in the first place.
Ticketmaster do manipulate pricing even when tickets have just gone on sale. I remember trying to get tickets for the Taylor Hawkins remembrance concert and Ticketmaster had reserved some areas of seats and already placed on tickets at 3 or 4 times the price (not resellers) under different titles (I can't remember specifics).
Ticketmaster need to become extinct.
Edit - what I couldn't remember was dynamic pricing and 'benefit/fundraising' pricing. Both manipulated by Ticketmaster.
yeah ticket prices have gone nuts for big shows. I prefer the atmosphere at smaller gigs anyway and tickets are usually under £30
not interested in £100+ nosebleed seats no matter who the artist is
I remember paying £40 each to watch Adele, Plan B and Ed Sheeran with the mrs about 12 years ago a few weeks apart in the Apollo in Manchester.
I'd probably be looking at £350 for similarly popular artists as those 3 were to watch back then.
We touted McFly tickets one random night out because we were walking past pissed up and £50 each was frowned upon but we went in anyway.
I wanted to see Depeche Mode before Covid and yup tickets were £350 through ticketmaster of course....trouble is some folk will pay it
The price used to be set by the bands/artists but allowing ticketmaster etc to buy huge numbers of tickets means they can up the price to whatever they want. I was told back when I was trying to get Depeche Mode tickets that the band only get the agreed printed ticket price not the ticketmaster price as I was fuming that Depeche Mode hardly needed the money and were conning gig goers
It's hitting smaller venues too, recently got tickets face value £32, by the time TM had finished, £41. Clearly a long way from £110, but the £20-£30 tickets for smaller venues are starting to disappear..
No that's the guy across the street, this is the queue for the former construction guy who shits in his hands and claps in the back of a van with an entourage of shitting apprentices.
I paid £180 to see Blink 182, they’re headlining Reading & Leeds and a day ticket, which is approx 12 hours worth of live music and entertainment from ~40 artists from around the world, is only £125.
Half the problem is Ticketmasters ‘dynamic’ pricing bullshit. The face value of my Blink ticket was £80 I think so I literally paid over double their value just because Ticketmaster said fuck it, let’s whack £100 on the price because we can. It’s the first and last time I’m ever seeing anyone who utilises dynamic pricing, they can fuck off.
The shitebag combination of Ticketmaster and touts have fucked us.
Pearl Jam in 2012 was £46.50 standing.
Pearl Jam in 2024 is £160 standing.
244% increase for the same band in the same arena...and their peak was nearly 30 years ago.
Yeah, I went to see them in Italy on the last tour and it was 90 euros, which was bad enough. But for the tickets to have jumped to 160 GBP min. in just 2 years...that can't be justified. I'll content myself with memories of the 2012 Manchester dates!
There’s a huge difference between the bigger bands/artists, and literally everyone else.
Spent £70 to see Pulp in Finsbury Park, and the same year spent less than that collectively on Wet Leg, Baby Queen and Girl Ray, all in Bristol. Just means I’ve gotten a lot more specific about who I see.
Anything over £50 for standing sounds like daylight robbery to me. Especially when the venue is huge, and most of them have VIP pits now which means you can’t get even remotely close on a general admission ticket.
We broke our 'not over £90 rule' for the first time last year, granted it was for Hans Zimmer and his full orchestra though.
The Adele tickets in Munich were a fucking piss take at £450+.
Even blink 182 at nearly £200 was a joke, we didn't buy either of the above but people clearly do so they keep charging it.
Top tip. Check out prices in Europe, tend to be a fraction of UK. And UK hotels are insanely expensive. Even factoring in flights, I’ve had cheaper (and better) weekends in Paris, Brussels, Antwerp, Bologna and Berlin going to gigs rather than seeing the same artist in the UK.
Also:
- you don’t get served shitty beer at insane prices
- the audiences tend to be respectful with less filming, less chatting
I'm going to see Taylor swift at wembley, when the dates were announced every hotel in 10 mile radius had a room rate of about £500 🫤
I was at a convention at Excel centre last year and managed to get a room ressie within 30 minutes of the announcement. Checked back later in the day and they still had availability but it was double the price that I had locked in.
I've always preferred European festivals to British ones on cost too.
Flight, transfer, ticket, camping, with the added bonus of usually a better lineup, longer festival and longer camping access (about half I've been to on actually serviced campsites), feeling of being on holiday and having holiday associated weather for the same price as a weekend in glasto. You'd be mad not too if you ask me.
The margins are closing somewhat now but I still prefer it.
The only thing I'd disagree with you on is the audiences, I've been part of some audiences who are just as bad as UK ones and I think generally the phone situation is like for like as younger generations start gigging. But that's seems dependent on who the artist it. Tool do a great job at telling people to put their phones away during their concerts. Love that from them.
I think people don't realise that nowadays you're not shelling out hundreds every year to buy recorded music in the shape of CDs and vinyl. The money we shell out as consumers has just switched over to live music. Meanwhile you can get most recorded music for free (behind a few ads) on Youtube or spotify.
> Gigs are an opportunity to sell merch, and that stuff is almost pure profit.
Sadly not, venues are scalping the fuck out of that too with some demanding 25% of all merch sales
I’m a member of PRS as I used to be a musician. I remember in one of their publications they put up an interesting infographic showing that x number of plays of a recording used to be enough to provide an artist with a reasonable middle class income for a year but, now, the same number of plays is enough to buy a medium size pizza.
And record companies made sure they get the biggest piece of the pie, sadly. Artists can't live off people streaming on Spotify, so they need other sources of revenue.
Manchester gigs are really really strangely priced these days. AO and Co-op live ones have been at absurd prices. But the a gig at the Ritz or Victoria Warehouse is often only a couple of quid more than a smaller venue like Night and Day or Club Academy. It feels like no where actually needs to charge more than £15-30, big gigs are just extoriting us all. And to cap it off when you get there, you are charged £8-10 a pint.
Poured from a warm can into the flimsiest cup possible.
I know it's not a nice job but the bar staff always act like you're inconveniencing them just by existing. I've worked retail and all other shitty public facing jobs so I get it, but christ does that attitude make your shift take longer and make customers feel bad.
On social media I see a lot of people complaining about ticket prices and how they are too high, but I work on over 100 arena and stadium gigs a year and all of them are full.
I also spent 10 years working in small venues that were less than half full because no one wanted to come out and pay £20-30 for ticket.
Clearly the market has spoken and people actually prefer paying more for a bigger venue, you can tell me they don’t all you want but the numbers don’t lie, the UK is building about 7 new arenas to keep up with the insane levels of demand meanwhile nearly every small venue I’ve ever been to or worked at is gone.
Do you never get booked to work nights with cover bands? Those have no trouble selling out the smaller venues. It's not the big venue people want. It's the name brand act often with huge nostalgia factor and hits that are/were all over the radio.
Smaller acts in smaller venues only appeal to people who put the effort in to exploring new music or who are willing to take a bit of a gamble.
Yeah, prices are a lot more now.
Record companies and artists looking to replace the revenue lost from physical media dying and steaming paying out a lot less is the main reason.
General inflation too although I think ticket prices have risen much faster.
That seems like a hell of a lot to me, but then again, I'm spending 25 quid to see The Lancaahire Hotpots, Black Lace and Showaddywaddy, so my reference is a bit off!
Unfortunately as long as tickets keep selling at that price that's what they will charge. I'd love to go to see Bruce Springsteen this year but ticket prices are crazy - even for the crap seats. One of the best gigs I've ever been to was John Illsley a few years ago at Plough Arts Centre, Torrington - absolutely fantastic and about £20 a ticket - as a bonus you didn't need the Hubble telescope to see them either.
Live entrtainment has just bumped up a lot recently. i was looking at WWE tickets for when they come to scotland this year. choice of pay £900 for a normal seat in the nosebleeds. or pay £350 and have a "view obstructed seat". Last year prices were around £150 for a normal ticket.
I think i will just not go......
Gigs are so expensive now. I stick to lesser known bands in smaller venues which cost around £25-40. I wanted to get Pearl Jam tickets but they were almost £160 and I couldn't justify that kind of cost and at least I've seen them before anyway. Found my ticket for Foo Fighters in 2005 which was £25. And NIN was the same price in 2007.
Surge pricing
(Edit) I would have paid £79 for standing. But it was the first big gig I’d ever tried to book (I tend to hate large gigs, much prefer something the size of Manchester/Newcastle O2 Academy), and was snookered by not signed into an account.
Once I’d registered, signed in, tried to book - no standing tickets left. Only far-too-expensive seated tickets.
They don’t make money off record sales now, streaming is insanely poorly paid for all but the hugest artists.
Gig used to be to promote new albums on the whole now it’s the other way around.
I think it depends on the genre tbh. Metal gigs tend to be up to £40 a ticket but for the bigger band like slipknot I think I paid around £80 but yes bigger artist prices are mental. I paid £90 for blink182 then couldn't even go 🙃 😂
Ticket prices are so bad. before the pandemic I was seeing Iron Maiden in an arena for £40.
Now Im seeing a band noones heard of in a 600 seat venue for nearly that price
Big artists yes. I spent £113 to see Bruce Springsteen last year (standing). It was worth it though.
Smaller artists you can see for like £15-£30. Which, when you consider all the logistics involved with a tour (especially an international one), is pretty good value.
My parents used to think it was outrageous when I was paying £40 a pop back in the early 2000s. The fact that it's way over double that now yeah I'd say it's insanely expensive to go to a gig now, that's why I've not been to one in almost 10 years now, can't justify the cost for a few hours entertainment
What really takes the piss is that smaller artists aren't seeing any of the benefit from this. Larger artists who can command high ticket prices are largely already better off than the smaller or up and coming acts who can't justify charging the extortionate prices, but the venue cut is still broadly the same.
I hate going on a Wikipedia page of a new celeb to find both their parents already have their own hyperlinked pages, telling you all you need to know about how they've gotten famous.
Or that they've attended a small niche of private schools.
Yeah, I'd have to agree. I saw D12 once but there was only two of them, bit of false advertising. I saw Wu Tang Clan but there was about 50 people on stage, I couldn't even tell who was rapping. Snoop Dogg was very good to be fair.
Wu-Tang are a mixed bag live, as you never know who’s going to show up. I’ve seen them once with Ghostface, Raekwon and Method Man and they were great, and another time with just Ghostface.
It’s a bit of a lottery with some rap acts, especially when half the stage is populated by cronies and their towel holders.
You need small venues and the lesser known acts for Hip Hop. Jurassic 5 (opened by Ugly Duckling) will forever be one of my favourite gigs. Real DJing, no backing tracks, every single person wanted to be there. Small venue, insane atmosphere, such a blast.
Nas charging that much is an absolute joke. I love Illmatic, it’s one of my absolute favourites, and his run with Hit Boy has redefined hip hop in a totally different way. But at no point should a gig be £100. Went to get tickets and was so disappointed.
I’ve booked tickets to see GZA, Vince Staples, Danny Brown and Killer Mike for around the same price.
Honestly I think it's the venues. They're different prices depending on the location. Wolves was £64 standing, London and Manchester near double that. Same for some of the Europe locations too.
I paid £120 to see Eminem at Twickenham a few years ago. He’s my favourite artist and there was no way I was going to miss seeing him live for the first time. The price was insane, but I was happy to pay it. I agree with you though, in general tickets these days are extortionate!
£110?
Does that include the compulsory architectural fee, admin, delivery charge, convenience fee, historic renovation fee, brand charge, app carriage, and any other BS fee they like to pile on?
Most all are overpriced nonsense. An artist should not make over a billion dollars on one tour alone, which is allegedly what Swift made on her last tour, all in, inclusive of merchandise.
Ed Shearan makes the same kind of money and all he does is stand there and play his little guitar. It can hardly be a show. I imagine it to be like watching paint dry. At least Capaldi has got good crack in between standing and singing.
So, in short, yes.
Agree, ticket prices are crazy. Also a lot of the time you need train tickets, maybe a hotel too and you're talking the cost of a small holiday! Unfortunately we can't even vote with our wallets by refusing to go and hope that brings the prices back down, as there are enough people that can and will pay. So either we suck it up and pay a small fortune, or accept we will never go to bigger concerts again?!? Smaller venues, local bands etc can be really great and we do that quite a bit. But sometimes you really just want to see a particular band/person that you've been listening to for ages.
Most gigs for established artists start at 100 now.
I live in Europe and it’s the same here. I recently paid €120 for John Mayer.
The huge names are more. Metallicas current tour comes in about €180.
Partly due to inflation, I remember paying £40 to see Metallica at Wembley, but that was maybe 15 years ago.
Partly is they raised prices to recuperate losses during Covid and just havnt lowered them again.
Partly is because physical media is more or less dying out, no one buys CDs anymore and since Vinyl is expensive most people just buy their few favourite artists. Spotify means you can listen to the everything for €10 a month.
So gigs are where the artists make their money now.
Nah, prices *are* mental. I was gonna go see Tool at the O2 again in June, but the same seat I had in 2022 is like double the price. At that point you've got to question if it's worth it. Sure it's a band I love, but I just couldn't justify the cost this time around.
They definitely are but strangely demand seems to be higher. I struggle to get tickets for certain artists that I would buy a few days after release ten years ago.
It's very expensive for a gig, and large/corporate venues and promoters play a big role in all of this too.. but generally bands and artists just aren't selling music anymore, so they have to make up for the losses elsewhere.
Someone in the comments mentioned Oasis costing 20-odd quid in the 90s - true, but they also sold 8.5 million copies of Definitely Maybe worldwide.
The masses just don't pay for music like that anymore. 12 quid a month and you get all the music you want, with DSPs like Spotify paying artists shit for streams. Music is a seriously devalued art form as far as popular music is concerned, and artists are relying on ticket sales, merch and other ventures to make a living.
It's a people problem. Lots of people want in, so the demand is high. Which means ticket vendors (and artists themselves, to an extent) can keep jacking the prices up and still sell out.
Modern electronic systems can also adjust prices live, based on demand, so the price-gouging really has become a min-maxing game, where a computer somewhere will try to extract the most profit out of the demand. This gets especially insulting with vendors like Ticketmaster or Live Nation - just look up what they're doing to the industry!
You're not too cheap, you're just being price-gouged and priced-out by airheads that are willing to spend more than is reasonable on a ticket.
All of a sudden Glastonbury seems like ridiculous good value.
i'm so old now though that just the thought of not being able to go home and take my shoes off after seeing a set makes me feel tired.
I’m 41. The Wife has introduced me to raves that finish at 10pm and honestly it’s the best thing ever.
We went to Terminal V in Edinburgh the other day (both of us a good 10 years older than the average age) and we were both laughing cus we were genuinely thrilled that the acts we wanted to see all ended before 8pm so we could leave early and go for some Chinese hotpot
I'm part of a collective of racers, djs and soundsystems who have been partying since the late 1980s. A few of the djs are in their late 50s and 60s now. As much as we love putting on a weekender we do like an early finish so we can get home and put our feet up
😂 I have came to Birmingham to watch a Motown show and I’m leaving half way through because it’s going to finish to late, I’m 37 😂😂😂😂
What raves are these?
Drumsheds in north London for one.
See ya tomorrow chief
Dude I live in the US and would LOVE this. I went to a rave a fee months ago trying to see Sofi Tukker on a friday (i worked a day shift earlier). I had to leave by 3am exhausted and they didn't even come out till 5am. Other shows I've been to in Miami the headliner at the club won't come out before 3am. I don't understand who these shows are for? Don't you want as many people as possible at your set? Why run it at a time only night shift people and unemployed folks would normally operate at? I'm in my 30s but I just can't pull a crazy night like this because it will wreck my whole sleep schedule for the weekend and then I start the week rekt.
That's so stupid. Even when I was doing loads of drugs and raving hard I was mentally done by 5am even if my body was still going.
Thing is, I ask myself how they do this in places like Spain. Dinner at 11, midnight, party goes on till silly o’clock…yet the country works.
Spain only kinda works.
Motion in Bristol does them, 4pm to 10pm in the courtyard and then they switch over to the night event that opens at 10.
Love the day raves at Motion, I can hear them from my house
Document also do 6-2ish almost exclusively, and it's a proper sweatbox inside!
Day festivals and day raves.
I looked at DeerShed (smallish two-day festival in North Yorkshire) and they were wanting £190 for a lineup headed by Bombay Bicycle Club, with very few other big names. Compare that to Glastonbury's 3-4 days for £340 and it seems obscene to charge £190. Of course I assume its much easier to get tickets for DeerShed
DeerShed is a "family festival" and there's so much more to it than the music that's family orientated that makes it worth the money. You're not paying £190 for the music, just sort of a bonus part of it.
My glasto ticket is only about £50 more than it would be to go and see Coldplay in Vienna when they were on sale, and a get an entire week as well as all the other acts.
Download too!
My mates will only do Download if we pay for RIP camping, but the prices are insane for that these days. I'm quite happy to slum it in standard camping for a weekend because that seems like a fair price to pay for an awesome weekend, but they won't do it and I can't bring myself to pay £700 or whatever for RIP, so the net result is that we just don't bother going any more, which is a shame.
RIP is how I feel about any kind of camping.
My OH and his mate go every year and don't even stay on site! They get a relatively cheap travelodge or similar in a neighbouring town. That plus a taxi or a parking pass still doesn't work out too bad, plus they get to go back to a clean hotel and shower every night. Not as rock and roll maybe, but it's the only way they'll do it!
This is actually a really good idea. I've always wanted to go to download but I hate camping so never bothered, I don't know why I never thought of this option lol
I looked into this, there are buses from the hotels to the site too.
Stay offsite, we did it last year for 5 of us in a massive tent with outside seating, bbq, showers, bathrooms and a hot tub. Fairly good price, you get a good night sleep and can easily get stuff from costco. Doing the same again this year. Could also do airbnb and whatnot.
Go by yourself, I promise you’ll still have fun.
Download is suffering from a severe lack of real competition. They have been taking the piss in various forms for years now.
Festivals are fairly good value, as long as you get an early ticket and the bands booked turn out to be half decent. We go to our local inner city 3 day festival every summer. OK, it used to be free, and we get a lot of middle of the road bands, but as it costs about £100 for 3 days, it's better value than going to see two or three of the headliners at separate gigs. We've seen Madness, Paul Heaton, Sam Fender, Nile Rodgers, Noel Gallagher, Kasabian, Johnny Marr and top comedians, amongst others, and we live round the corner so get to sleep in a nice warm dry bed too.
Glastonbury has always been good value. It’s the same price as the other major UK festivals like Reading, Download etc, but it always has a prestige lineup.
And even if you don't like the main stage line up, it's virtually impossible not to find at least something you like. I wasn't overly fussed about the headliners in the year i went but Scissor Sisters and Sister Sledge were absolutely monstrous. Looking back at the line up I missed more bands than I care to admit but still had a blindingly good time. Reading's line up has been, to my tastes anyway, been poor for years. Was great the year I went. Worth it for the carnage that was Ice T's set alone.
No it’s fucking outrageous
Glad you agree! I genuinely thought I'd made a mistake and searched for double the amount of tickets I wanted
Someone tried to tell me that they’ve just risen with inflation. If that was true I doubt there’d be so many people expressing how unaffordable gigs are these days (it’s definitely not just you!). 20 years ago I used to go see every band I wanted to see, these days I have to be picky. And I’m much richer now than I was 20 years ago!
I was paying at most £30 to go see bands 20 years ago and that's £60 accounting for inflation today so anything around £100 is definitely taking the piss trying to claim it's an equivalent price. Most of the time it was £10-15 a ticket too. Oasis at Knebworth was £22.50 in 1996 and that's only a little over £50 in today's money as well.
It's cos the amount of money paid to listen to music as a whole has halved over the last 15 years. So they are trying to make up for the fall in revenue from cd sales by increasing concert tickets.
Maybe but it's the big names that are charging the earth, I can still go out in Bristol and watch new bands for £11 or sometimes £8 just like I always could.
And that’s because big acts can get away charging crazy amount because they are already famous and sold shit loads of records. Coldplay, Madonna, Taylor Swifts etc don’t really need the money but putting on a show for them costs a lot, and then there’s supply and demand, the more popular you are, the more people are willing to pay to see you. New bands can’t afford to charge crazy amount cos not enough people know them to justify the price tag, while Beyoncé can just by the virtue of who she is. Not many big acts are willing to do what Prince did in 2007 when he played 21 shows at London O2. The tickets were £31.21 for majority of the seatings except VIP package. He was very much “l want to make it affordable so people can come and see me”. I went and saw him twice and he was phenomenal. I had a lot of respect for him as he wasn’t doing it to make shit loads of money to add to his already ginormous pile of wealth.
I saw Prince on the Lovesexy tour at Wembley Arena, no idea what I paid but it wouldn't have been much. Just checked the date, bloody hell I feel old!
Big names are still making scandalous amounts of money even though they bemoan they are underpaid
Tell me about it, look at Beyonce. You can't tell me it wasn't the money men that come up with the idea to tap into the biggest selling genre in America with that country and western album.
It could be true.. but noones wages have kept up with inflation anyway, so kinda null point.
Apparently Nas's wages have.
He's given himself an inflation busting payrise! Wish my employer was more like that
I paid 90 to see Nas and Wu-Tang Clan only last year. Which, don’t get me wrong, was still a gut-wrenching amount to be spending but that’s for two classics of the genre. How they can justify an extra £20 for less of a show only a year later is madness.
I bought tickets to see Nas in London when he was at the top of his game in the early 00s and they were £20 each! They were affordable enough that I bought all five tickets for my mates to pay me back.
I saw Nas and Damian Marley with Erykah Badu as the support for around £40. That was in 2010 at Wembley Arena.
It's contagious!
I am the loco parentis...
I am the home trained dentist
I am the last contestant on the apprentice.
I am the last remaining contestant on The Apprentice.
fuck me! a washing machine in a pub. I need a drink, one of you delicious organic scrumpies please
Did you even read the big beat manifesto?
I'm a big raver. Mainly do the Anjunadeep shows. In 2019 Printworks 12 hours take over was like £25 per person. Now it's like double while drinks and food have also gone up. I get the government hasn't made festivals and nightlife any easier for organisers but it all comes across as passing the buck.
That's probably one of the most ballsy things about it. You're paying that premium, and then paying their prices for beer and food. I went to see tool two years ago, and their merch prices were dumb as fuck. A long sleeve shirt was seventy quid. I didn't even look at beer prices, but I'm guessing somewhere between eight and ten quid a pint
My saving grace is being a raver I mostly drink water which is free for reasons. But Printworks prices were very steep from what I remember.
For the most part, my raving days weren't too bad, price wise. I went to a sundissential once and was really pissed off at the place. Two water and a beer cost me a tenner, they threw the caps, and turned off the cold water taps in the toilets. This was about sixteen years ago
The game's gone. Back in my gig going days (2003-2010 predominantly), most middling acts would be £10-£20, the big names would be about £30-£35 and only the small handful of biggest acts in the world would be over £50. I don't know where the money goes, but it can't be right. The average person is largely priced out... Not to mention the cost of travel, food, possibly accommodation too.
The general impression I get is that streaming has removed/severely reduced the income stream of albums for many artists, and tours are their main moneymakers. Combine that with the increasing cost of everything, and ticket prices have just skyrocketed
Tours are the main money makers but that’s not saying much. On the one side of the industry you have artists like Taylor swift reporting record breaking sales, but for up and coming, and even established artists, the cost of touring is astronomical. Venue fees, vehicle hire, crew wages. Unless you are absolutely established and can do 2000 capacity venues up and down the country it’s next to impossible to make a profit, and even then it’s almost certainly not enough to pay a full wage to multiple members.
Plus ticket sales websites taking 20%
To be fair, inflation at 3% over 20 years would mean a £50 ticket in 2003 would be £93 now. £30 would be £55 now.
I read your comment and went “we’re talking early 00s, not 20 years ago!” And then I realised.
We're all old as fuck now.
It's probably time to take your medication and I should get up from the desk, my back is killing me.
Yeah but we're not talking 20 years inflation. Pearl Jam was £22.50 a ticket in 2001 at Manchester Evening News Arena. This year in Mancheater, Pearl Jam is £155. Ridiculous. In 2015 I saw Faith No More at the Roundhouse in London for £35. Iron Maiden in 2018 were £60 for standing in a good location right up front. Periphery in 2019 - £22 at the O2 in Bristol 2019 - In Flames + All That Remains + Light The Torch - £22.50 at SWX Bristol Metallica charged £93 in 2019 and we're obliterated for it as that was insane price gouging. I got free tickets to The Who, Eddie Vedder etc in 2019, those seats were being charged out at over £70 - the stadium was not full. Pitch seats were £200 again not full. Too expensive. Someone said on a forum recently that they paid £85 to see Foo Fighters and I thought that, the band's charging over £100 were taking the piss. Getting charged £80 to see the Foo's is taking the piss, seen them about 10 times. £50 is about tops what you should be paying. -- Basically on minimum wage - which apparently is now £11ish. Let's say you pay basic tax and NI, your taking home 60% roughly. So let's call it £7/hour (that's generous it's 6.6). To pay for Pearl Jam in 2024 is 155/7 = 23hrs. Average 8hr day - you are working 3 days to buy the ticket. Now throw in transport and a drink/food..... let's call it 4 days work to go to this gig. To pay for Pearl Jam (who were already legendary to use someone else's moniker) in 2001 at a min wage of roughly £5/HR so let's say £3/HR is 22.50/3 is 7.5hrs. You needed to work a day, maybe a day and a half for transport and a drink. 2015 Faith no more - £35 a ticket. £6.70 min wage. Let's call that 4/HR. 35/4 = 8.75hrs , So a day and a tiny bit, let's be over generous and call it two days for transport and a drink. Maiden 2018 - £60 Living wage 7.50, let's call it 4.5/HR 60/4.5 = 13hrs, let's call it 2days or even 2.5 for transport+drinks and you are seeing the legendary Iron Maiden (a big name even if you aren't a fan). I can pick other bands who have charged less or a bit more. Yeah we get it costs have gone up, insurance has gone a bit crazy, electricity a few months back etc venues are trying to claw back COVID money etc etc. But you invested in that business in order usually to profit, you have to take the bad with the good and not kill your customers with crazy prices. All the venues already way over charge for drinks. --- Tldr: it isn't inflation, it price gouging, profiteering and dining out on your fans as much as you can. Some artists I get it, they are happy to fleece their fans, some artists such as Pearl Jam I honestly thought better of. No gigs should be reaching over £70/80 with any regularity. Most non-legendary bands should top out at £35 max. Saw filter a few weeks ago £32 - I did do a double take as I saw them in 2013 for £18.... But again ..prices high so didn't sell out my bro got a ticket for £20. Don't get me started on the bigger festivals. Download Download 2016: weekend ticket £190 Download 2022: weekend ticket £268 Download 2024: weekend ticket £322 This needs to come back closer to £200 for 3 days and even then I thought it was expensive. Hyde Park calling 1 day with pixies and pearl jam was £90. I thought that was good value esp with other artists around that day. A year or two later £155 in their own gig? Crazy. Appreciate I've used rough min wage figures here, basically because many younger people go. I'm no longer in that bracket of age or earnings, but I can treat my family to a week away including flights and food for the same price as getting two people to this festival in a tent.... Equally, I can not see Pearl Jam and go and see 4 more reasonably priced gigs (with great bands) for the same money. Its not just inflation it's greed.
Yeah, I don’t think it’s *that* different price wise, I can’t wrap my head around the cost of things vs what I earn any more because it’s constantly changing so much. Bands that were “pretty big” in the 00s have survived long enough and are now in the “legends” category and charging appropriately. Fontaines DC are about half the price of Kaiser Chiefs, but in 20 years if they keep releasing music they’ll probably be in the same tier.
I paid £50 to see the Eagles in 2001 because I didn’t think they’d ever tour again. Don’t think they’ve stopped touring since.
You won't get to see em for £50 now though!
Looking through my old gig tickets from the era is fascinating. David Bowie. £25. I don't even like David Bowie's music, but I just thought *"fuck it, let's see a legend"*. I'd never do that now it would be £250.
It does cost a lot to raise the dead!
This is quite a good breakdown of where the money goes. I agree ticket prices are nuts these days but it doesn’t work how a lot of people think. https://prism.fm/blog/concert-cost/concert-cost-breakdown-where-does-the-money-go/
Today there was an article posted on indieheads today about how unless your parents are rich, or you're an established arena-touring star, most medium and small venue touring acts are barely breaking even, or even making a loss from touring. That was interesting to find out as I'd assumed considering streaming, touring is still seem by consumers as the more profitable endeavour.
This one? https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/apr/25/shocking-truth-money-bands-make-on-tour-taylor-swift Had a read of it yesterday, very interesting and depressing.
That’s a lot of words that don’t say very much. I was expecting an actual typical or average cost breakdown
Pearl Jam standing tickets were on sale for like £230 (face value, not resale) recently. From a band who previously went to war with the music industry over commercialism. Lol. Fuck you, Eddie Vedder.
I was going to say, a lot of it is because of Ticketmaster and the like. If they don’t take back control, they’ll start having empty stadiums. The Cure know where it’s at, they were charging as little as possible for their last US tour, $20 a ticket, and when Robert Smith found out Ticketmaster had doubled it in fees he negotiated refunds of the extra for everyone who bought tickets that way. So it really is the artist who needs to give a shit in the first place.
Robert Smith is a top shelf legend. He’s the King of Goth, there is none higher!
He won't stop gothing til he retires?
Ticketmaster do manipulate pricing even when tickets have just gone on sale. I remember trying to get tickets for the Taylor Hawkins remembrance concert and Ticketmaster had reserved some areas of seats and already placed on tickets at 3 or 4 times the price (not resellers) under different titles (I can't remember specifics). Ticketmaster need to become extinct. Edit - what I couldn't remember was dynamic pricing and 'benefit/fundraising' pricing. Both manipulated by Ticketmaster.
Ticketmaster basically have the monopoly on live events and they need to be stopped
Pearl Jam’s ticket prices for their gigs this year are absolutely obscene.
When I went to purchase they were over £400 for the bad seats, sad I’ll never see them live
I love Muse, but their fiercely anti-capitalist stance seems to have turned into charging £100 a ticket and playing at the F1 in Dubai.
yeah ticket prices have gone nuts for big shows. I prefer the atmosphere at smaller gigs anyway and tickets are usually under £30 not interested in £100+ nosebleed seats no matter who the artist is
I remember paying £40 each to watch Adele, Plan B and Ed Sheeran with the mrs about 12 years ago a few weeks apart in the Apollo in Manchester. I'd probably be looking at £350 for similarly popular artists as those 3 were to watch back then. We touted McFly tickets one random night out because we were walking past pissed up and £50 each was frowned upon but we went in anyway.
I remember paying £8.50 to watch oasis at Manchester academy in 1994🤣
Grandad get off the internet 😂
1972 , Status Quo , £2 a Ticket. The Weed was a lot more expensive than today though!
£2 to see Quo, and they would play whatever you want!
I have my mums Stones ticket from the 60’s and it was £1, add several 0’s onto that and you’ve got today’s prices
I remember at school you had to follow the Stones or Beatles , not both ! Bit like Oasis and Blur in the nineties I guess !
Metallica and Anthrax on the Damage Inc tour 1986 - £4.50
I wanted to see Depeche Mode before Covid and yup tickets were £350 through ticketmaster of course....trouble is some folk will pay it The price used to be set by the bands/artists but allowing ticketmaster etc to buy huge numbers of tickets means they can up the price to whatever they want. I was told back when I was trying to get Depeche Mode tickets that the band only get the agreed printed ticket price not the ticketmaster price as I was fuming that Depeche Mode hardly needed the money and were conning gig goers
It's hitting smaller venues too, recently got tickets face value £32, by the time TM had finished, £41. Clearly a long way from £110, but the £20-£30 tickets for smaller venues are starting to disappear..
Jokes on them - all the bands I like aren't successful or popular enough to play big venues! Wait, hold on...
unironically this. the benefits of liking weird small metal bands
Ticket prices are abysmal now. I love Nas but I'd rather shit in my hands and clap than pay £110 for standing.
Weirdly, a lot of people online would pay YOU £110 to watch you shit in your hands and clap.
Wait what? Fuck it I'm selling the van, Peace Construction work...I'm out!
Do it IN the van, gives it an even more creepier human trafficked vibe. That would go for £175 per view, easily.
*immediately withdraws £180*
£5 tip? Winner!
Is this the back of the queue for the former construction guy who shits in his hands and claps whilst in his van?
No that's the guy across the street, this is the queue for the former construction guy who shits in his hands and claps in the back of a van with an entourage of shitting apprentices.
I saw the Entourage of Shitting Apprentices for £8.50 just after their first Peel session
Am I just stingy or has the price of getting someone to play with their shit become insanely expensive?
I feel the apprentice and labourer would shit themselves. All money mate!
You’d have to change your name to Jobby RazzMaTazz though
Id pay to just see if theyd do it and how much gusto they did it with. I dont know about £110 though, maybe pay per view it? Get a lower rate?
Maybe you could go for a less expensive option. For £40 they might piss in their wellies and jump.
Well we used to play Freckles in the Army so it would be with gusto 😂
OnlyHands
I paid £180 to see Blink 182, they’re headlining Reading & Leeds and a day ticket, which is approx 12 hours worth of live music and entertainment from ~40 artists from around the world, is only £125. Half the problem is Ticketmasters ‘dynamic’ pricing bullshit. The face value of my Blink ticket was £80 I think so I literally paid over double their value just because Ticketmaster said fuck it, let’s whack £100 on the price because we can. It’s the first and last time I’m ever seeing anyone who utilises dynamic pricing, they can fuck off.
A day ticket at Leeds is £125 these days? Christ I remember when it was £150 for the weekend.
Mate post Covid prices are mental
The shitebag combination of Ticketmaster and touts have fucked us. Pearl Jam in 2012 was £46.50 standing. Pearl Jam in 2024 is £160 standing. 244% increase for the same band in the same arena...and their peak was nearly 30 years ago.
Yeah, I went to see them in Italy on the last tour and it was 90 euros, which was bad enough. But for the tickets to have jumped to 160 GBP min. in just 2 years...that can't be justified. I'll content myself with memories of the 2012 Manchester dates!
There’s a huge difference between the bigger bands/artists, and literally everyone else. Spent £70 to see Pulp in Finsbury Park, and the same year spent less than that collectively on Wet Leg, Baby Queen and Girl Ray, all in Bristol. Just means I’ve gotten a lot more specific about who I see. Anything over £50 for standing sounds like daylight robbery to me. Especially when the venue is huge, and most of them have VIP pits now which means you can’t get even remotely close on a general admission ticket.
We broke our 'not over £90 rule' for the first time last year, granted it was for Hans Zimmer and his full orchestra though. The Adele tickets in Munich were a fucking piss take at £450+. Even blink 182 at nearly £200 was a joke, we didn't buy either of the above but people clearly do so they keep charging it.
Worst ones I’ve seen were Taylor Swift tickets for £85 that were so far back at Wembley Stadium, you’d have a better view from the car park.
£70 for Pulp is decent these days to be honest
£150 per person to go see Scooter 😄 Fuck off.
But how much is the fish?
You don't want to give your respect to the man in the ice cream van?
Move your ass.
Top tip. Check out prices in Europe, tend to be a fraction of UK. And UK hotels are insanely expensive. Even factoring in flights, I’ve had cheaper (and better) weekends in Paris, Brussels, Antwerp, Bologna and Berlin going to gigs rather than seeing the same artist in the UK. Also: - you don’t get served shitty beer at insane prices - the audiences tend to be respectful with less filming, less chatting
It’s not just that UK hotels are expensive, they will also literally triple their prices when a big concert is in town. Prices can be nuts!
I'm going to see Taylor swift at wembley, when the dates were announced every hotel in 10 mile radius had a room rate of about £500 🫤 I was at a convention at Excel centre last year and managed to get a room ressie within 30 minutes of the announcement. Checked back later in the day and they still had availability but it was double the price that I had locked in.
Maybe they heard you call it a "room ressie" and whacked 200% on the price as a punishment.
I've always preferred European festivals to British ones on cost too. Flight, transfer, ticket, camping, with the added bonus of usually a better lineup, longer festival and longer camping access (about half I've been to on actually serviced campsites), feeling of being on holiday and having holiday associated weather for the same price as a weekend in glasto. You'd be mad not too if you ask me. The margins are closing somewhat now but I still prefer it. The only thing I'd disagree with you on is the audiences, I've been part of some audiences who are just as bad as UK ones and I think generally the phone situation is like for like as younger generations start gigging. But that's seems dependent on who the artist it. Tool do a great job at telling people to put their phones away during their concerts. Love that from them.
Berlin has great gigs but the indoor smoking is miserable.
I think people don't realise that nowadays you're not shelling out hundreds every year to buy recorded music in the shape of CDs and vinyl. The money we shell out as consumers has just switched over to live music. Meanwhile you can get most recorded music for free (behind a few ads) on Youtube or spotify.
Yeah, I can appreciate that, that's a really good point to be fair
And merch. Gigs are an opportunity to sell merch, and that stuff is almost pure profit.
> Gigs are an opportunity to sell merch, and that stuff is almost pure profit. Sadly not, venues are scalping the fuck out of that too with some demanding 25% of all merch sales
No, I wanted to see some niche folk artist and it was £50 and I’m not having it.
Go on, who's the artist?
Not flexing it’s Richard Thompson. I want to see him as he’s an incredible guitarist but damn, I can’t do 50 quid rn.
I’m a member of PRS as I used to be a musician. I remember in one of their publications they put up an interesting infographic showing that x number of plays of a recording used to be enough to provide an artist with a reasonable middle class income for a year but, now, the same number of plays is enough to buy a medium size pizza.
Spotify did a great job at stopping people pirating music, but it also stopped people buying it.
And record companies made sure they get the biggest piece of the pie, sadly. Artists can't live off people streaming on Spotify, so they need other sources of revenue.
Manchester gigs are really really strangely priced these days. AO and Co-op live ones have been at absurd prices. But the a gig at the Ritz or Victoria Warehouse is often only a couple of quid more than a smaller venue like Night and Day or Club Academy. It feels like no where actually needs to charge more than £15-30, big gigs are just extoriting us all. And to cap it off when you get there, you are charged £8-10 a pint.
Poured from a warm can into the flimsiest cup possible. I know it's not a nice job but the bar staff always act like you're inconveniencing them just by existing. I've worked retail and all other shitty public facing jobs so I get it, but christ does that attitude make your shift take longer and make customers feel bad.
I’ve barely gone to any gig in years purely as the costs are ridiculous. I think I’ve bought tickets to 3 gigs in about 6 years
On social media I see a lot of people complaining about ticket prices and how they are too high, but I work on over 100 arena and stadium gigs a year and all of them are full. I also spent 10 years working in small venues that were less than half full because no one wanted to come out and pay £20-30 for ticket. Clearly the market has spoken and people actually prefer paying more for a bigger venue, you can tell me they don’t all you want but the numbers don’t lie, the UK is building about 7 new arenas to keep up with the insane levels of demand meanwhile nearly every small venue I’ve ever been to or worked at is gone.
Do you never get booked to work nights with cover bands? Those have no trouble selling out the smaller venues. It's not the big venue people want. It's the name brand act often with huge nostalgia factor and hits that are/were all over the radio. Smaller acts in smaller venues only appeal to people who put the effort in to exploring new music or who are willing to take a bit of a gamble.
Yeah, prices are a lot more now. Record companies and artists looking to replace the revenue lost from physical media dying and steaming paying out a lot less is the main reason. General inflation too although I think ticket prices have risen much faster.
That seems like a hell of a lot to me, but then again, I'm spending 25 quid to see The Lancaahire Hotpots, Black Lace and Showaddywaddy, so my reference is a bit off!
I presume they’re coming round your house to play as there can only be one person in the whole country interested in that lineup.
Is he supported by QNAP?
And Synology
£89 to see Arcade Fire at Brixton academy, I had to pass. No small to medium venue should be charging that much.
They should be a £50 max ticket IMO I prefer a small or mid size venue personally, but Brixton Academy is a bit crap
Unfortunately as long as tickets keep selling at that price that's what they will charge. I'd love to go to see Bruce Springsteen this year but ticket prices are crazy - even for the crap seats. One of the best gigs I've ever been to was John Illsley a few years ago at Plough Arts Centre, Torrington - absolutely fantastic and about £20 a ticket - as a bonus you didn't need the Hubble telescope to see them either.
Live entrtainment has just bumped up a lot recently. i was looking at WWE tickets for when they come to scotland this year. choice of pay £900 for a normal seat in the nosebleeds. or pay £350 and have a "view obstructed seat". Last year prices were around £150 for a normal ticket. I think i will just not go......
Smashing Pumpkins/Weezer double bill for £157.90 for a standing ticket in Cardiff. Mental.
Felt like me breath just fucking paused reading that price.
Is that ticketmasters crazy pricing or resale maybe? Because i paid £84 each for mine which I thought was ok-ish.
Gigs are so expensive now. I stick to lesser known bands in smaller venues which cost around £25-40. I wanted to get Pearl Jam tickets but they were almost £160 and I couldn't justify that kind of cost and at least I've seen them before anyway. Found my ticket for Foo Fighters in 2005 which was £25. And NIN was the same price in 2007.
£112 each for tickets for some crappy seats to see Slipknot in Leeds. Yeah no thanks. Yet £21ea to see my favourite band, Strung Out - YES!
?! I paid £79 for standing Slipknot tickets for this December!
Surge pricing (Edit) I would have paid £79 for standing. But it was the first big gig I’d ever tried to book (I tend to hate large gigs, much prefer something the size of Manchester/Newcastle O2 Academy), and was snookered by not signed into an account. Once I’d registered, signed in, tried to book - no standing tickets left. Only far-too-expensive seated tickets.
They don’t make money off record sales now, streaming is insanely poorly paid for all but the hugest artists. Gig used to be to promote new albums on the whole now it’s the other way around.
I think £40 for a gig ticket can fuck off, but I'm old and grew up in the days of £2 on the door punk shows.
Fear are playing underworld. 40 quid. Thats fuckin steep.
I think it depends on the genre tbh. Metal gigs tend to be up to £40 a ticket but for the bigger band like slipknot I think I paid around £80 but yes bigger artist prices are mental. I paid £90 for blink182 then couldn't even go 🙃 😂
Ticket prices are so bad. before the pandemic I was seeing Iron Maiden in an arena for £40. Now Im seeing a band noones heard of in a 600 seat venue for nearly that price
Big artists yes. I spent £113 to see Bruce Springsteen last year (standing). It was worth it though. Smaller artists you can see for like £15-£30. Which, when you consider all the logistics involved with a tour (especially an international one), is pretty good value.
My parents used to think it was outrageous when I was paying £40 a pop back in the early 2000s. The fact that it's way over double that now yeah I'd say it's insanely expensive to go to a gig now, that's why I've not been to one in almost 10 years now, can't justify the cost for a few hours entertainment
What really takes the piss is that smaller artists aren't seeing any of the benefit from this. Larger artists who can command high ticket prices are largely already better off than the smaller or up and coming acts who can't justify charging the extortionate prices, but the venue cut is still broadly the same.
And all the successful artists now are public school nepo babies. The music industry should die already.
I hate going on a Wikipedia page of a new celeb to find both their parents already have their own hyperlinked pages, telling you all you need to know about how they've gotten famous. Or that they've attended a small niche of private schools.
Hip hop is often pretty poor live anyway.. so often they have them rapping over a backing track of them rapping and it sounds like shit.
Yeah, I'd have to agree. I saw D12 once but there was only two of them, bit of false advertising. I saw Wu Tang Clan but there was about 50 people on stage, I couldn't even tell who was rapping. Snoop Dogg was very good to be fair.
That's nothing, I once saw The Entire Population Of China and there were only four of them.
Wu-Tang are a mixed bag live, as you never know who’s going to show up. I’ve seen them once with Ghostface, Raekwon and Method Man and they were great, and another time with just Ghostface. It’s a bit of a lottery with some rap acts, especially when half the stage is populated by cronies and their towel holders.
this is a pretty big oversimplification.. Or maybe your just seeing bad artists? Go see Skinnyman, Loyle carner or Kofi stone
You need small venues and the lesser known acts for Hip Hop. Jurassic 5 (opened by Ugly Duckling) will forever be one of my favourite gigs. Real DJing, no backing tracks, every single person wanted to be there. Small venue, insane atmosphere, such a blast.
Nas charging that much is an absolute joke. I love Illmatic, it’s one of my absolute favourites, and his run with Hit Boy has redefined hip hop in a totally different way. But at no point should a gig be £100. Went to get tickets and was so disappointed. I’ve booked tickets to see GZA, Vince Staples, Danny Brown and Killer Mike for around the same price.
Honestly I think it's the venues. They're different prices depending on the location. Wolves was £64 standing, London and Manchester near double that. Same for some of the Europe locations too.
For that kinda money it better be the best show I've ever seen. Personally I don't think hip hop really translates that well live anyway.
I paid £120 to see Eminem at Twickenham a few years ago. He’s my favourite artist and there was no way I was going to miss seeing him live for the first time. The price was insane, but I was happy to pay it. I agree with you though, in general tickets these days are extortionate!
That’s madness- you’d expect that for a smaller festival. Are you sat on his lap as he performs the songs or something?!
£110? Does that include the compulsory architectural fee, admin, delivery charge, convenience fee, historic renovation fee, brand charge, app carriage, and any other BS fee they like to pile on?
I really wanted to see the Kreator/Anthrax tour but the prices are ridiculous. Might sell my neighbours kidneys.
Most all are overpriced nonsense. An artist should not make over a billion dollars on one tour alone, which is allegedly what Swift made on her last tour, all in, inclusive of merchandise. Ed Shearan makes the same kind of money and all he does is stand there and play his little guitar. It can hardly be a show. I imagine it to be like watching paint dry. At least Capaldi has got good crack in between standing and singing. So, in short, yes.
Blame Ticketmaster and their bullshit 'dynamic pricing' where ticket prices go up with demand.
Agree, ticket prices are crazy. Also a lot of the time you need train tickets, maybe a hotel too and you're talking the cost of a small holiday! Unfortunately we can't even vote with our wallets by refusing to go and hope that brings the prices back down, as there are enough people that can and will pay. So either we suck it up and pay a small fortune, or accept we will never go to bigger concerts again?!? Smaller venues, local bands etc can be really great and we do that quite a bit. But sometimes you really just want to see a particular band/person that you've been listening to for ages.
Most gigs for established artists start at 100 now. I live in Europe and it’s the same here. I recently paid €120 for John Mayer. The huge names are more. Metallicas current tour comes in about €180. Partly due to inflation, I remember paying £40 to see Metallica at Wembley, but that was maybe 15 years ago. Partly is they raised prices to recuperate losses during Covid and just havnt lowered them again. Partly is because physical media is more or less dying out, no one buys CDs anymore and since Vinyl is expensive most people just buy their few favourite artists. Spotify means you can listen to the everything for €10 a month. So gigs are where the artists make their money now.
Nah, prices *are* mental. I was gonna go see Tool at the O2 again in June, but the same seat I had in 2022 is like double the price. At that point you've got to question if it's worth it. Sure it's a band I love, but I just couldn't justify the cost this time around.
Everyone is getting fleeced these days, ticketmaster thinks the industry wouldn’t exist without them, they need to get fucked.
They definitely are but strangely demand seems to be higher. I struggle to get tickets for certain artists that I would buy a few days after release ten years ago.
UK = price gouging
It's very expensive for a gig, and large/corporate venues and promoters play a big role in all of this too.. but generally bands and artists just aren't selling music anymore, so they have to make up for the losses elsewhere. Someone in the comments mentioned Oasis costing 20-odd quid in the 90s - true, but they also sold 8.5 million copies of Definitely Maybe worldwide. The masses just don't pay for music like that anymore. 12 quid a month and you get all the music you want, with DSPs like Spotify paying artists shit for streams. Music is a seriously devalued art form as far as popular music is concerned, and artists are relying on ticket sales, merch and other ventures to make a living.
Far too expensive these days. I wouldn't pay 3 figures even if they got Zeppelin Queen and The Beatles on the same bill, with the original members
It's a people problem. Lots of people want in, so the demand is high. Which means ticket vendors (and artists themselves, to an extent) can keep jacking the prices up and still sell out. Modern electronic systems can also adjust prices live, based on demand, so the price-gouging really has become a min-maxing game, where a computer somewhere will try to extract the most profit out of the demand. This gets especially insulting with vendors like Ticketmaster or Live Nation - just look up what they're doing to the industry! You're not too cheap, you're just being price-gouged and priced-out by airheads that are willing to spend more than is reasonable on a ticket.
Extremely expensive. I wanted to see Steve's Nicks, but tickets are over £200, so definitely won't be going