The Trouble With Concerts

Buying concert tickets isn’t what it used to be

When I was a kid, it was a lot easier to go see your favorite band. Before Ticketmaster had a huge presence on the internet (and for that matter, before the internet had a huge presence in our lives), buying concert tickets was a rather feasible thing to do. In the late 90s and early 00s, Rock concerts would generally be about $20-40 per ticket. You could even hope that when tickets went on sale, you had a chance to buy them.

Today, there’s barely any chance of that happening. You can either pay huge resale (scalper) fees, or be lucky enough to win a fanclub lottery. In the last couple of years I paid $250/ticket to see Red Hot Chili Peppers, $200/ticket to see Roger Waters, and multiples of face value prices to see other shows. Most of the time, it was through ticket resellers and scalpers. The only time I can remember actually buying face value tickets for a rock concert in that time was for Tool at the City Center, New York City. For that show, I waited in line 12 hours before the box office opened. There were still hundreds of people in line before me!

It’s unfortunate that more and more people want to go to concerts today, yet scalpers buy out the majority of tickets. Paying hundreds of dollars for concert tickets may sound crazy to some. But these crazy prices exist because enough people value live shows at high rates. You may never be able to see a show again, especially on a particular tour. Because people no longer buy music, but still want to support their artists, it may be that fans feel guilty and are now willing to pay more money to see concerts.

One good solution for artists is to raise the prices themselves or auction off seats to the highest bidder. That way, demand will drop and only the die-hard (or rich) fans will be able to buy tickets. The money will go to the artists instead of ticket resellers. And I will feel good again for not buying CDs, but still supporting great musicians.