$100. per ticket for maybe 90 minutes of a performance sitting next to people singing along. $150.00 to look at the back of someone’s head or worse with an elbow in your eye.
$200.00 to for use of about 14” of filthy seat cushion and a cup holder.
What the hell is up with rock shows?
I have not been to a ‘stadium’ show in years. I think the last time I was I walked out. I am a standing room only club girl. The bands I enjoy most are just a stage and a floor. General admission no sight line rooms that reek of sweat, booze and weed. I can’t recall the last time I spent over $40.00 for a ticket, but I am the minority.
If we were to audit my co-editors spending habits we would uncover a tremendous fluctuation of cost. That Amex is a happy card spending more time in queue at Ticketmaster than it would want to admit. Scoring tickets to a show is a sport to some. I got a ticket!” is a squeal not unsimilar to Charlie with the winning chocolate bar. I’m more the ‘sold out?’ ‘meh’, type. I have to really really love a band to feel any sorrow for a sellout. For that matter rarely do my sows sell out. There is always room to jam in one more human at the venues I frequent.
Princeton University economist Alan Kruegar did a mondo cool report on the ever inflating cost of concert tickets. As a professional courtesy I am going to cut and paste some interesting factoids for you. You’ll thank me because you will have cocktail topics but also you’ll be able to share this info with the concert goers who is all up in your bidniz at your next stadium show.
These excerpts are from Kruegars Sept. 23 lecture "Rockonomics: Economics and Public Policy in the Rock and Roll Industry,"
In 2001, the average concert ticket price was about $40, with the average high-end cost close to $60. But Krueger noted that the range is great, and many artists cost much more. He gave the example of Paul McCartney, whose recent tour put fans out of pocket by $250 per ticket.
"There is a very skewed distribution of income for bands," said Krueger. "The top 5 percent of artists in 1982 generated 62 percent of the revenue. Today, they're generating 84 percent of the revenue. More people are paying more to see the best."
It is not just the new, popular artists such as Britney Spears and *NSYNC that are selling tickets at higher prices than ever, but also well-established performers such as the Rolling Stones and Madonna. Krueger said he was interested to learn that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band has the same price range wherever he performs, and that this year his concert tour ticket price is $75. "That's kind of a throwback to the days when high and low prices were the same," he said.
Krueger was sometimes surprised by other information his study unearthed. He discovered that female bands command the highest prices in the industry. "I study the labor market, and you usually don't find females having higher salaries than males," he said. Mixed sex groups commanded the lowest average ticket price.
Another discovery was that across the genres, jazz and pop tickets cost more than reggae or folk. Also, older acts tend to have higher prices because they have a loyal fan base, typically made up of older audiences with more disposable income, said Krueger.
Krueger also delved into possible causes for the significant ticket price increases since the 1980s — which spiked in the past five years — especially when sales have been flat for about 12 years. He offered four explanations, some with caveats, that he said are all part of the story.
The first is that, according to the music industry professionals Krueger interviewed, production costs have increased. Elaborate stage sets and pyrotechnics are the norm, but Krueger admitted to being skeptical about some of the "facts." "Depending on who you talk to, *NSYNC's last stadium tour took as many as 53 tractor trailers," he said.
The second factor may be music industry consolidation, Krueger explained, but he admitted to a growing suspicion that this reason was "overrated." Even with 76 percent of the total revenue of the top artists being handled by the biggest four promoters –C lear Channel Communications being the most dominant — Krueger has gained insights from further research to suggest that other factors may be more significant.
Krueger's third main explanation deals with the status of complementary goods, such as album sales. According to Krueger, the bounty from these goods has been drying up. "There was a 10 percent decline in album sales last year, and a 7 percent decline before that," he said. Krueger pointed to the practice of downloading music from the Web as having a major impact on album sales. "Jazz and blues fans tend to buy more music, while there's more piracy with rock and pop," he said. According to Krueger, this trend explains why jazz and blues concert prices have grown more slowly (23.4 percent) than rock and pop (74 percent).
Major tours are about to occur. The Rolling Stones and Barbara Streisand are two act visiting Brooklyn with ticket costs that are higher than an average monthly car payment. That is IF you can even get a ticket. How long can this inflationary upward climb go on before it’s cheaper to travel to see a band then for them to come to you?