Tickets for gigs

Sutent

I dont know if I am getting old. I recently bought tickets to watch the cure in December and it cost me £56! These were the cheapest tickets I could find. I don't go to too many gigs. The last one was New order last year which was only £30. I see most of the bands I want to at festivals in the summer. But these tickets were very expensive!

djmattyoung

Sutent it does depend on the band and venue. <div><br></div><div>Kate Bush was around £100 at Apollo Hammersmith. </div><div><br></div><div>I saw Jungle last week at the Shepherd's Bush Empire and it was only £16. </div><div>Pharcyde at The Garage was £20. </div><div><br></div><div>Older more established bands always cost more and if you go see a band at Wembley, O2 Arena, Barbican, Royal Festival Hall or any of the big venues the prices are always more than say going to Kentish Town Forum, The Garage, Shepherd's Bush Empire, Jazz Cafe. </div><div><br></div><div>I find it very hard to pay more than £30/40 for a gig, but then it does depend how much I want to see them. </div>

ADGS

Even the Garage and Empire are expensive gigs to me - most shows I go to are at places like the Lexington or Buffalo Bar, and a tenner is the top end for those. Yes, I was lucky enough to get Kate Bush tickets but they were very much the exception - too often (though not for her) I find the crowds at big gigs very rude and inattentive, as though they just wanted to spend a set amount on a night out and would have been just as happy had they dropped it on Wicked, the football or a strip club.

djmattyoung

@ADGS ;<div><br></div><div>Just seen that the Buffalo Bar is closing down after NYE. Great shame that. </div>

ADGS

Yeah - terrible news. But hey, more important that another ghastly chain pub has plenty of storage space, right? Sometimes my faith in this city is really shaken. 

kreuzkav

Some memorable gigs at  the Buffalo Bar but the stage was so low and must have been planned by a 6ft plus man. The atmosphere made up for this.  Sad loss!

djmattyoung

well after saying I find it a struggle paying more than £30/40 for a gig ticket I just splashed out £70 on a Fleetwood Mac ticket. <div>Love that band and never seen them so I thought just go for it. </div><div><br></div>

Sutent

I take it back! I watched the cure last night. They played for over 3 hours and 40 songs. Amazing value for £50. 

Papa

Gig ticket inflation has been substantial in recent years. There's a couple of elements. One is that artists now derive a more important part of their earnings from live music thanks to the drop in earnings from digital music.<div><br></div><div>Another big factor is ticket reselling sites. Promoters and artists have been infuriated by the bedroom touting driven by the reselling sites and tried to get this shut down. </div><div><br></div><div>They were thwarted and have capitulated slightly and simply bumped up prices to capture some of the extra money washing about.</div><div><br></div><div>Promoters and artists with popular gigs argue that they deliberately price lower than they could get. This is done to enable more fans to be able to afford to go to gigs, which drives the engagement from the less well-off fans that often are the biggest supporters of artists' careers. It's a sort of reward / long-term gain pay off.</div><div><br></div><div>The internet reselling sites spoilt this by allowing people to hoover up tickets for gigs they had no intention of going to and then sell them on at vastly inflated prices. The promoters and artists taking the entrepreneurial risk of putting on a show got none of that uplift above the original ticket price - the bedroom tout and reselling site did.</div><div><br></div><div>Promoter / artists measures to stop this impinge quite heavily on the customer, ie you have to turn up with your passport, register your name on the ticket, be with the ticket buyer etc. and are a pain to enforce.</div><div><br></div><div>The promoters and artists wanted reselling curbed, but the free market argument was allowed to dominate in what isn't really a free market.</div><div><br></div><div>This was explained clearly by those who have spent decades putting on gigs but got ignored.</div><div><br></div><div>Ultimately, that led to higher prices for the fans and it being harder than ever to get tickets to popular gigs first-hand. There are suggestions some of the heavy duty ticket reselling involves bots crawling sites to buy original tickets.</div><div><br></div><div>Somewhat ironically, most tickets actually still say not for resale on them.</div><div><br></div><div>None of this, of course, excuses the booking fee and postage racket on first-hand tickets.</div>