All in the 80's/90's... Final Cut, Lapse, Division Bell tours (all at Rupp I think)... I'm a little hazy on that era of my life lol.
Concert ticket prices - WOW!
- Thread starter gamecockcat
- Start date
Haven't been to a concert since 2012. I enjoyed the dive bar spots where prices were like reasonable, like spending $45-60 for a band I liked. Now these prices are stupid and I've got no interest.
My wife's friend spends absurd money on these country festivals.
My wife's friend spends absurd money on these country festivals.
To be fair to Red Rocks, I think capacity is ~8k. So a 'big' show still only has about that many people in attendance. But, having been there once when it was pretty packed, it was a complete nightmare getting out of there. But the experience is unique. Not likely to return unless there's a 'can't miss' concert I just can't pass up.
i saw Pink Floyd in Rupp on Sunday night back in 1987 for $18.50. Was on the floor, 15 rows from the stage in the middle. Absolutely amazing experience. 2nd of two back to back sold out shows. Sound was loud but, crystal clear.
Fast forward to January of this year...saw judas Priest in Corbin, KY and paid $50 for a seat approx. 100 ft from the stage. Pressured into going with some old high school friends. It was horrible. I know it was a live show but, the band was ridiculously loud, even for a metal act. Couldn't even understand the lyrics. The acoustics in that building are some of the worst anywhere. I bet there weren't 1500 people there. Sad.
I have seen a LOT of shows over the years and what is happening to ticket prices is criminal. But, people are stupid enough to keep paying.
IMO, the better choice is to see a great tribute band. A great PF tribute band is Brit Floyd. They've played Red Rocks and you can find their full show videos from there on YouTube. They occasionally come to Cincy or even Louisville. Obviously not as good as the real artists but, pretty close and much cheaper!
Fast forward to January of this year...saw judas Priest in Corbin, KY and paid $50 for a seat approx. 100 ft from the stage. Pressured into going with some old high school friends. It was horrible. I know it was a live show but, the band was ridiculously loud, even for a metal act. Couldn't even understand the lyrics. The acoustics in that building are some of the worst anywhere. I bet there weren't 1500 people there. Sad.
I have seen a LOT of shows over the years and what is happening to ticket prices is criminal. But, people are stupid enough to keep paying.
IMO, the better choice is to see a great tribute band. A great PF tribute band is Brit Floyd. They've played Red Rocks and you can find their full show videos from there on YouTube. They occasionally come to Cincy or even Louisville. Obviously not as good as the real artists but, pretty close and much cheaper!
One suggestion (and it doesn't always work) is to wait until the concert gets close (sometimes an hour before). What has happened in recent years is that so many people are buying concert/sporting event tickets and trying to flip the for quick money on Stubhub. You might have an event that holds 18k and you go to SH and there are 3k tickets for sale. What happens sometimes is that a day or two before the event the SH sellers panic and drop their prices because they have no intention of going. Often its possible to buy tickets for well below face value even with the fees from SH. It honestly depends on the event. If it is a huge event (Taylor Swift) for instance, you aren't getting a discount
My friend really wants to see Billy Joel this summer in KC. I just looked at the Ticketmaster website and there are literally thousands of seats the venue hasn't sold because the tickets are so expensive. For instance lower level (it's at Burrowhead) ten rows up, fairly close to the stage will run you about $450 after fees. Meanwhile if you go to SH, in that same section there are over 150 tickets for sale. I promise you, they won't sell on SH. I would be willing to bet in the week leading up to that show, you could get in that section for under $200. Again, a lot of money to see Billy Joel, but there are ways to work around and find deals. Also venues themselves will often discount the seats if they aren't selling well
My friend really wants to see Billy Joel this summer in KC. I just looked at the Ticketmaster website and there are literally thousands of seats the venue hasn't sold because the tickets are so expensive. For instance lower level (it's at Burrowhead) ten rows up, fairly close to the stage will run you about $450 after fees. Meanwhile if you go to SH, in that same section there are over 150 tickets for sale. I promise you, they won't sell on SH. I would be willing to bet in the week leading up to that show, you could get in that section for under $200. Again, a lot of money to see Billy Joel, but there are ways to work around and find deals. Also venues themselves will often discount the seats if they aren't selling well
Yeah 2 years ago I paid around $150 for a ticket to the last night of Louder than Life. IMO worth it because I got to see Metallica, Judas Priest, seether, breaking Benjamin, Pennywise, and skillet.
I bought my ticket pretty much as soon as it was announced. My friend that I went with bought one on Facebook for $30.
I bought my ticket pretty much as soon as it was announced. My friend that I went with bought one on Facebook for $30.
Just laughing at the idea of standing in line and paying $200 for an autograph. Agree with all of what you posted.
Billy Joel would have to pay me to listen to his boring ass music.
Not a KISS fan, but Stubhub has floor tickets for NYC concert listed for $6,800, which is beyond absurd.
I would have to think hard about going to a Taylor Swift concert if they were paying me 17K.
Honestly, minus the teens, traffic and crowds I would love to go to a Swift concert. #RealTalk
Well if we can remove the teens, traffic, crowds and she wouldn't sing I would probably go look at her in a skimpy outfit for an hour or 2 for 17K.
Shit bruh, that girl can write and sing like fantastically, I don’t get the hate.
I guess I'm just into the whole I hate my ex boyfriend vibe she puts out on most every song. I have to say her latest album went from the teeny bopper music to 2 Live Crew lyrics in a hurry. She's dropping F Bombs like a gangster rapper. 🤣
I just got 2 for Guns N Roses. Good seats for < $200 each.
She has been cussing for a few albums now. I understand why you don’t dig the lyrics in that situation. I mean, me being groomed to be a gay in KW and all, I have lots of ex boyfriends down there so it resonates really well with me.
You can say the same thing about pro sports. Even an outfield seat at a baseball game is getting out of hand.
I went to a Yankees / Red Sox game in NYC in 2016 and my ticket was $25. But I noticed that pretty much everything in that stadium was built with rich people in mind. All of the things that supposedly made Yankee Stadium so great were crazy expensive.
But that is also the last MLB game I went to. I can only assume prices have jumped significantly
Two comments:
1. I don't think Taylor Swift can sing a lick (Autotune ought to be receiving a piece of her royalties) although her rep is that she's a solid performer. Don't begrudge her one penny but I've heard her sing live here and there and the actual key of the song was nowhere to be found in her vocal. Maybe just a bad day, who knows?
2. Even if she was naked and giving me a private concert in the comfort of some 5-star hotel, it wouldn't be worth $17k to me. She's about 6'-1" and I'm very prejudiced against very tall women - just don't appeal to me at all. Kinda gangly with a cute horse face. Many other musical artists are better looking to me but that's a pure judgment call and I know plenty of guys who think she' smoke.
1. I don't think Taylor Swift can sing a lick (Autotune ought to be receiving a piece of her royalties) although her rep is that she's a solid performer. Don't begrudge her one penny but I've heard her sing live here and there and the actual key of the song was nowhere to be found in her vocal. Maybe just a bad day, who knows?
2. Even if she was naked and giving me a private concert in the comfort of some 5-star hotel, it wouldn't be worth $17k to me. She's about 6'-1" and I'm very prejudiced against very tall women - just don't appeal to me at all. Kinda gangly with a cute horse face. Many other musical artists are better looking to me but that's a pure judgment call and I know plenty of guys who think she' smoke.
Well, tickets for a Rockies games in The Rockpile (dead centerfield) can usually be had midweek for around $10-$12. Of course, you actually have to watch the abysmal Rockies play baseball so, even then, the price is steep. About mid-June most years, their magic elimination number is in the 30s and it's just a matter of time. By late July, usually, there is no reason whatsoever to go to a Rockies game other than wanting something to do or to cheer for the visitors (which probably half the home games in Coors Field have a significant number of fans in the opposing teams' jerseys).
Lol. I go to occasional Bats games. My main reason is that a hot dog at a baseball game tastes better than almost anything.
My daughter lives in Denver so on a visit this August we going to Red Rocks to see "1964" which is a Beatle Tribute Show. Red Rocks is a Bucket List Venue for me so excited to hear a show there.
The other 2 times I have seen them have been good. They played at the Center for the Arts as the headliner and opened up for Kings of Leon at the YUM Center.
I saw them at the Ryman and Forecastle a few years ago. They seem like genuinely nice guys. Taylor and his wife did a good cover of "In Spite of Ourselves" that is definitely worth checking out.
Good show but them not playing A Little Bit of Everything is like when I saw Counting Crows and they didn't play Mister Jones.
I agree that concerts and sporting events are expensive. But, this thread makes me think of people that complain about how restaurant prices and salaries have increased. Target is now paying $24/hr for part time employees. If you can get it, take it. These concerts don't go unattended and most restaurants I go to don't have enough staff, despite raising wages. So, maybe we've all just become accustomed to getting things for cheaper than they are worth?
Are you really trying to compare a Target worker who is doing what they can to make ends meet and someone like Taylor Swift who makes a reported $9 million per concert? I don't disagree that if someone is willing to pay it than you should take it but that doesn't make what ticketmaster/live nation is doing with their monopoly right. With Target, if prices go up, you can shop at multiple other stores. With restaurants, there are plenty of other options to go to if the prices increase too much for your budget. With concerts, you have no other options and that is the problem. There is no competition to help regulate ticket prices and fees.
There is competition for concerts like broadway shows, sporting events, etc but who sells those tickets? Spoiler...it is ticketmaster as well. There is currently no competition for Ticketmaster and that is the problem. If you want a ticket to virually any sort of live event, you have to purchase the ticket through ticketmaster with maybe the exception of the team box office for a sporting event but even then that might be handled via ticketmaster as well.
I'm glad live music concerts don't do much for me. Crowded seats in an arena, standing most of the time, half the time the artist or band doesn't sound nearly as good as they do in a recording studio.
I'm more than fine to save the money and just put on their album/cd/streaming at home.
I'm more than fine to save the money and just put on their album/cd/streaming at home.
Ticketmaster doesn’t set the prices, the artists do…TM adds their fees. You can avoid many of the fees by going to the venue box office.
Before this all blew up with TS there was the fiasco with the Bruce Springsteen and dynamic pricing. The artist’s position on all of this is that people were buying tickets and reselling them for outrageous amounts. Why should Joe Scalper make bank off of Springsteen, Swift or anyone else? If the public will pay $1000/ticket why should anyone but the artist get that money?
The problem as I see it is the easy ability to re-sell tickets. (That and bots that buy up tickets)
Attended a Springsteen concert 10ish years ago and you were required to show the credit card you used to buy the tickets upon entry. As long as there is a secondary market that demonstrates what people will actually pay you can expect that artist will want to capture as much of that money as they can get.
My biggest gripe with TM is how their fees are calculated based on the price of the ticket. It should be a flat rate IMO.
Saw a video of the Springsteen concert here in Denver posted. Obviously, the concertgoer was all the way in the back and way up high as the stage was a LONG way away. Basically, you'd be watching the show on the big screen TV. And, we're expected to pay >>$100/ticket for that? Nope.
And, to the poster above, yes, prices, in general have gone up. But, I'd guess concert ticket price inflation is double digits over the past 5 years or so. 5 years ago there weren't many tickets that were being sold for >$500 but now it's pretty much the entire lower arena for that amount.
And, to the poster above, yes, prices, in general have gone up. But, I'd guess concert ticket price inflation is double digits over the past 5 years or so. 5 years ago there weren't many tickets that were being sold for >$500 but now it's pretty much the entire lower arena for that amount.
That’s not entirely accurate. Ticket prices are set by the performer, the venue or promoter. With Dynamic Pricing, Ticketmaster changes the pricing of the tickets based on demand and based on my brief research they get the increase from the dynamic pricing.
The ticket prices aren’t necessarily the issue. It’s the additional fees that they charge that takes a ticket from $150 to $200 or $250. You have no other choice but to pay it when they have no competition. That’s the problem.
What straight male with musical taste would go to a damn Taylor Swift concert?!
