A post in Harry’s Place suggests that concert ticket prices are being bumped up to recoup the money being lost because of falling CD sales due to downloading and filesharing.
It seems hard to imagine now that when the Rolling Stones demanded £25 a ticket for a Wembley concert in 1990, it caused eyebrows to be raised. If they did that now it could be considered practically a giveaway. Today with the Stones on stage you can expect to pay £150 for a seat at the back – and if you want to get right up close, you’ll need £350. £90 buys a ticket to see the Police, the best seats in Wembley went for £160 when Madonna performed, and £180 would get you into Robbie Williams’ Hong Kong concert. Elton John broke records in Las Vegas by charging $690 (£345).
I’m not convinced by this argument. I don’t think it’s meaningful for those of us that grew up going to gigs in the 70s and 80s to compare the prices we paid two or three decades ago with the prices we pay for the same acts now. What we’re seeing is 70s and 80s bands that now appeal to affluent fortysomethings rather than skint teenagers; the prices they’re charging reflect the target audience’s ability to pay. And these affluent fortysomethings with 2.4 kids probably don’t to more than a couple of gigs a year.
Newer acts or people in the cottage industry side of the business outside the commercial mainstream aren’t charging anything like those sorts of prices. I want to see more evidence that internet filesharing is responsible for high ticket prices; until I do I’ll be sceptical.
I’ve been to an awful lot of gigs this year; a few have been major established acts, like Deep Purple in June, and Journey back in March, and (cough) Bryan Adams last month, who did charge 30-40 quid for a ticket. But the majority have been lesser known bands, the likes of Porcupine Tree, Mostly Autumn, The Reasoning and Karnataka, charging far less, in some cases less than a tenner.
What I think is happening is there’s too much media hype directed at a relatively small number of bands; as a result everyone that takes their cues from the mainstream media all want to see the same overexposed bands, and the laws of supply and demand force the prices up.
When I ordered tickets for Rush at £50 after booking fees, being charged 10 times the rate of the stamp they posted it with etc, that was the most I’d ever paid for a non festival gig. I looked at how much Genesis would cost and just thought they were taking the ****
Right now there is a divide in the cost of gigs between the Premier League and the cottage industry bands. I saw homegrown prog heroes Strangefish supported by Darwin’s Radio for under a tenner recently.
Given that the crowd at a smaller gig – eg Mostly Autumn, is just as affluent and middle aged as that at a mid size gig like Marillion and the same demogaphic as those at an aircraft hanger or football stadium gig I don’t think it’s about ability to pay. Similarly I’m not convinced it’s about downloads either. I agree it’s about hype, making those gigs into a “must see” event and trading on the past of bands who are already huge.
Personally I’d rather see a bunch of gigs by smaller bands who are in their prime than spend the same amount on a single gig by an older band going through the motions.
For a big-ticket (ha ha) act, I’d wager it’s at least partly about covering the cost of insuring the event.
A band can’t charge more than what the market will bear, and is fiscally stupid (and socially generous) to charge less. If Elton John can fill the venue at $690, then he’s not charging too much… he’s just charging in response to demand. You can’t charge more for one service to make up for lost sales a different product if the market won’t bear the price… and if the market _will_ bear the price, that’s what you should be charging in the first place. (From a pure business perspective. From an artist to the fans, there may be other factors that influence your decision.)
I wonder how much of this has to do with that forty-something crowd saying, “I missed out on seeing the Stones when I was younger, and this may be my last chance to see them in concert.” That certainly went through my mind last time Styx toured… and if it’d been the Paradise Theater/Roboto line-up, I’d have been sorely tempted. Nostalgia is a powerful thing.
Also, bands traditionally toured to support albums, and you’re not exactly supporting a new album when you’re charging prices high enough to pay for your entire discography. I’ve run into that… I want to see this band, but for the price of two tickets, I can buy every single album they’ve produced.
That certainly went through my mind last time Styx toured… and if it’d been the Paradise Theater/Roboto line-up, I’d have been sorely tempted. Nostalgia is a powerful thing.
Heh! I saw Styx supporting Deep Purple back in April, one of the factors that helped their barnstorming set blow Purple off stage was the fact that they didn’t play stuff like ‘Mr Roboto’. Most of their set was from their rockier 70s albums rather than their poppy 80s stuff. They didn’t even play their one UK hit, “Babe”.
Also, bands traditionally toured to support albums, and you’re not exactly supporting a new album when you’re charging prices high enough to pay for your entire discography. I’ve run into that… I want to see this band, but for the price of two tickets, I can buy every single album they’ve produced.
Most of the bands that are charging silly prices (The Stones, Elton John etc) haven’t recorded anything new of significance for years, if not decades. They might play a token song of their latest album, but most of the audience is there to hear them run through their greatest hits of 20+ years ago. Most of the audience have all the albums anyway.
I think Deep Purple played one song of their latest “Rapture of the Deep”, and just three songs in the entire set from later than 1973.
I was mostly thinking the band lineup during those albums than _Kilroy Was Here_ itself. (Though I do like that album.) Styx is probably _the_ band of my teen years. I don’t recall owning multiple albums from any other band at the time.
I discovered Styx with _Paradise Theater_, and I bought _Cornerstone_ and _Pieces of Eight_ before _Kilroy Was Here_ came out. I was a freshman in high school when that was released.
While I like all those albums (hey, “Lords of the Ring”), I have _The Grand Illusion_ and it’s a mixed bag for me… I really like some of the songs (“Come Sail Away”) and don’t like the others.
I’ve been tempted to pick up their Wooden Nickel recordings, just to see what they were like.
But like I said, nostalgia is a powerful thing, and to me, Styx is DeYoung, Shaw, Young and the Panozzos. That was the lineup on every album I owned, and I never knew back then than there were earlier albums without Shaw.
When that lineup changed, they quit being “the real Styx” in my mind. I probably shouldn’t feel that way, but the songs of my youth sung by the “wrong” people is just weird.
I listened to “The Grand Illusion” after seeing them live, and thought the recorded version sounded tame compared with what I’d seen the night before.
But I’m more into hard rock than softer stuff, so I liked the more guitar-driven material from the earlier albums that made up the bulk of the set.