To hate the process for buying concert tickets☹️

Ok. I'd interpreted your comments as saying certain sections of the population were cut out by an access issue. Whereas we were all equally caught by the need to be near a landline. Or computer. I don't remember the situation being radically different when online sales started, but this was before smartphones.

I still disagree that being able to purchase online has made gig tickets more accessible overall, though. As I mentioned, I could get decent tickets for most things by calling even if that was days or weeks after they went on sale. Painless. Now we have a crazy system where people are tethered to phones in interminable queues without any guarantee they'll get anything at the end.

With the exception of oasis I’ve always got tickets for what I want, just log in 30 minutes before on sale time. Even Taylor Swift was not too stressful, had them 40 minutes after they were released for the venue and rear standing we wanted. Pulp was a breeze, had them bought at 1 minute past 9am. Didn’t try for Coldplay or radiohead, seen both in past and not bothered about again

International travel is A LOT more accessible now than it was in the 1990s. Budget airlines like Ryanair and easyJet made flights much cheaper/more frequent, and online booking and travel apps mean people can plan trips quickly and easily from their phones. Airports have also become more efficient with automated border controls and systems, cutting down waiting times. Laws and regulations now mean travellers get greater help they need. flying internationally today is faster, cheaper, and more convenient than it was three decades ago.

Similar with cross-country travel – disabled accessibility, infrastructure, convenience, booking and ticketing, service availability has all improved.

You seem to be bringing ‘accessibility’ back to a singular point of ‘affordability’, which is a bit murky and not the bigger picture. Outstripping inflation has to be weighed against the cost of the improvements, not to mention that, on average, people have more disposable income than they did in the 90s (average disposable income has risen by 2% a year). All in all, the average price per passenger mile has only risen by 6.7% after adjusting for inflation since the mid-1990s.

And yes, I got flights to Barcelona for £29 last summer from Holiday Pirates …

See I would say that among my group of friends (millennials), people may have less disposable income due to COL, but are not going to fewer gigs as a result. They are cutting back on “stuff” (shopping for clothes and shoes on a regular basis seems to have dropped off everyone’s agenda, for example), but they’re spending more than ever on travel and experiences. There was a thread on the Holidays board where a poster talked about investing in making her home nice with lots of lovely furniture and decor so that staying in is a more pleasant experience (and therefore not spending on holidays or going out). The concept of forgoing travel and socialising for the sake of nice furniture is completely alien to me and my social group, but I am not sure if that’s generational. It would be interesting to see some stats on leisure spend as a proportion of income by generation.

Back in the day when you had to physically queue up outside the ticket agent it was the genuine fans who would queue up sometimes camping outside. I’m not saying I fancy doing that but it certainly meant that those who really wanted to go got tickets.
The current situation is awful, and it’s such a drama with pre sales and presale codes. I was getting tickets for Laufey for DD last week and when you get in to actually get tickets you get so stressed you barely know what seats you are even buying

But the majority of them are not being bought and re-sold by people who genuinely cant go. They are snapped up by tout companies

Massive Radiohead fan for over 30 years here. Had 16 (!) friends and family register for codes, only one got one. She tried for 2 hours on Friday morning, got kicked out, told she was a bot etc etc, finally got through and all that was left at about midday were nosebleed seats for over £250 per ticket. She called me and much as it pained me, I had to tell her to leave it as I couldn’t justify that price.

Then about 5pm yesterday, she had another quick look just to see, and managed to get x4 standing tickets for £90 each.

I got Coldplay tickets in 2022. I logged onto ticket master as soon as they went on sale and iirc i was 22,000 in the queue. Waited about half an hour and got them. For the concert last week, I did exactly the same thing and was 150,000+ in the queue and got nowhere. DD eventually got tickets but we tried for hours between us over multiple days

R.e. travelling to see bands. No it is not more accessible now than in the 90s and 2000s, train fares and flight prices are much higher now, and have also outstripped inflation. Long gone are the days you could get a budget European flight for literally a few pounds. If a flight to Barcelona was £10 instead of £150, I would gladly travel to see a band I wanted to see. But I only do that if I can build a holiday around the concert, to justify the price of the flight.

This is what the Foo Fighters did today. Tiny gig, in person tickets only, 2 tickets max, both people with Id need to be there. it will be epic!!! And $30… yes $30!!!!

I got tickets to Glastonbury Festival 1 hour before they went on sale in the early 2000’s and rocked up to underwood in Camden for a tiny Foo’s gig without a ticket and paid £15 on the door at a similar time. There was a real excitement back then, now ticket buying is a anxious business and you need a mortgage to get a ticket.

the problem is that in the past there was money to be made in making and selling music, now the money is in the touring and merchandise. Grass routes bands struggle as do small venues. People have less disposable income so will go to less gigs.

the touts need to be stamped out, but the large organisations are often no better. When Taylor Hawkins died tickets were refunded, but the booking fees weren’t - absolutely disgraceful on the booking agents part.. they would have been insured no doubt, but made money anyway.

Tix are more accessible because almost everyone has access to a mobile phone and the internet almost anywhere they are – at home, on train, at work, in a field, whereas the only access used to be going in person or landline phone.

No one said people didn’t travel to see bands, but cross-county or international travel is now also more more accessible for anyone wanting to go from further afield.

The access to try and get tickets is better, but the capacity is still the capacity, so the percentage of trying people successful is smaller.

Yanbu, I preferred it when you could go and queue. DS really wanted to see Radiohead but now he says he won't bother with another of these stupid lottery things and will focus on smaller bands.

What really annoys me is when you get to the gig that you sat hours in a q for and then there are sections of empty seats. I took DD to see One Direction at height of that madness in the Cardiff stadium and there was a whole block opposite us where there were only a few people. Someone must have bought up those tickets then tried to offload them as a reseller. I know they will have taken a financial hit but that also there were lots of young people that would have liked to have the chance to see that show.

I got Taylor Swift tickets for last year by ringing the Liverpool hospitality line. I was on hold an hour but got them.

I appreciate not everyone can do that but to some extent the price was worth the lack of stress.

Like a PP said — don’t drop off if there is nothing - lots will drop out if baskets after 10 /15 minutes so you can often get them if you hang around. Problem is if you click too many times it ‘Bots’ you!

Preach. The Ticketmaster shite site has never once shown me available access tickets. I much prefer going through the venue. Doesn’t always work that way.

I don't really understand this point about access. I started buying gig tickets in the mid-90s. Always called the ticket line as opposed to going to the box office or buying in a record shop, which were the other ways of purchasing. I don't know of anyone who could afford a ticket who couldn't avail themselves of one of those options. And apart from the most popular acts or the best seats, you didn't need to be booking as soon at sales opened, either. I can only recall doing this once yet always managed to get decent to good seats or standing.

People travelled to see bands then too. That isn't new.

There is a much greater access issue now. Price and hassle is making gig-going less accessible and more unattractive now.

I never said that they haven’t outstripped inflation. I said that they have!

But in 200 or whatever Radiohead were a decent band, not the legacy act they are today. Tickets would have of course been cheaper even allowing for inflation.

Someone said upthread tickets are more expensive anyway because album sales no longer generate the income. No wonder pop stars are doing perfumes and vibrators as a side hustle.

Don’t join in the presale/onsale nonsense…it’s literally designed to cause an absolute uproar - and of course it’s free advertising for the venue/artist.

Let it all die down and then 2-3 months out from the date start looking. You’ll find resale tickets of people that got caught up in the drama and now can’t go for whatever reason.

I got 4 great seated Oasis tickets for Murrayfield 3 weeks out from the event, £204 via Ticketmaster.

I’ve been going to concerts / gigs since 1979 and yes it was much easier getting tickets back in the day and you could generally get to see who you wanted . Surely the only answer is to make every concert strictly no resale and cancel any tickets that have been resold . Fortunately the type of people I still want to see are easy to get tickets for .

Do they not bother for slightly less popular artists? I know they don't tend to bother with the smaller alternative bands (I've never had a problem getting papa roach tickets, and I can still buy face value tickets for atreyu now for a gig in a few weeks). But a mainstream artist who doesn't pull in the numbers that swift/sheeran/oasis do - do they have an issue with touts? Those were the artists I was thinking about rather than the hugely popular ones

I guess that's true re the presales, I assumed they had a way of reaching just the fans and touts wouldn't bother joining fan clubs and stuff - if proper fan clubs are even still a thing!

DH and I were talking about this just this morning. He saw Oasis at Knebworth in 1996, and got tickets from HMV by queueing up first thing.

I’d have loved to have seen Oasis this summer, or Peter Kay on his recent tour. I tried both times, but I was 100,00s down the queue and unsuccesful.

YANBU. I was hoping to get Radiohead tickets too. I didn’t even get the code and was disappointed but glad I didn’t really as it sounds like the actual purchasing process was every bit as infuriating as it has been for all the big gigs in recent years. The system is an absolute shit show. I’m going to have to stick to seeing less popular retro bands in local venues. We’re seeing Turin Brakes in November and I’m looking forward to that.

Unlikely to have been more than £30 in 2000 tbh. They were £40 in 2009. I don’t think anyone can say that concert ticket prices have not considerably outstripped inflation. And this is just face value prices. Resale is a whole other horror show.

There’s not a single Coldplay / Oasis / Taylor Swift / Ed Sheeran concert that’s only two-thirds full. There will always be people willing to pay ridiculous resale prices.

And it’s the ticket touts who are sweeping up tickets in the presales, which is why they are on resale websites for 5x the price literally minutes after the presale goes live. As PP pointed out, presales are usually 10am on a weekday - there are whole swathes of the population who can’t step out of work (teachers, surgeons, police officers, baristas, to name but a few) to get in an online queue for an hour. Whereas this is a ticket tout’s source of income so he/she is logging in pronto, often with multiple accounts, buying the maximum 4 tickets per account.