To hate the process for buying concert tickets☹️

I didn’t see them in the 90s and not seeing them now – I’m gifting these tickets. The 2000 tickets I’m comparing to were Green Day and The Offspring.

Wembley Stadium seated tix would have more than £30 in 2000.

Madonna in 2001, Earls Court, was between £45-£85.

UK population 1987 (Who’s that Girl tour) 56 million
UK population 2025 69 million

An increase of 13 million people.

Thats not including the 42 million tourists the UK gets each year now.

You’re not alone OP, lots of people can remember when life was simpler and less competitive.

Big acts tour a lot because they can invest the money and they know people will buy tickets. Taylor Swift had two full equipment rigs travelling ahead of her plus two sets of staff. Insane amount of investment but she pulled in millions in profit.

Most acts can't do anything like that, obviously. Loads of them try, they do sell tickets, but cancel because it's just too costly. Being a support band is one of the ways to do it. Wolf Alice supported Harry Styles for months and basically did a world tour at a fraction of the cost. They are far more credible than he is (in my view) and been around longer but no way were they ever going to be able to do arenas just because of cost.

I was so excited when I got an email from RadioheadEurope on Wednesday, as I assumed I'd got a code...but the email was to say I hadn't got one!

I know eight people who got applied for codes. One got a code. None got tickets. We're all mid 40s so have been fans for decades. It's a real shame!

The only thing worse than trying to buy tickets for gigs is trying to buy accessible tickets for gigs.

I imagine it must be frustrating for the artists too, if those resale tickets don't sell (or do they always sell out? I don't buy resale) then the band will be playing to a smaller than expected crowd. I can imagine it's probably a bit disappointing to have a 'sold out' tour only to find it's 2/3rds full on the night! Though I suppose they've sold the tickets so they're getting paid either way, so maybe it doesn't bother them

I guess that's why they do presales, an extra step that fans are more likely to do than touts, so theoretically all those presale tickets are going to actual fans

Some artists have started putting restrictions on ticket sales, didn't taylor swift and Ed sheeran make it so they couldn't be resold? All bands should do it

I think now bands don't tour so often and tend to do big arena venues

Most bands tour a lot more now, because for many uts the only decent income. There's no money in record sales any more.

It is insanity. My DCs paid £430 each for Heaton Park on Ticketmaster resale. They’re glorified touts, all while dictating that you can only buy from them in an effort to stop touting. They’re shameless.

It's insane of your children to pay that much. If everyone decided not to pay stupid money for tickets, the resale market would disappear. But while idiots are prepared to pay £430 it will continue.

I’ve been to festivals and seen countless bands over the years but last few times I’ve not been able to get tickets and I refuse to pay over inflated prices as that’s just contributing to the problem.
i tend to see more comedians these days and thankfully havent encountered the same problem

Yeah, so it doesn’t sound like they’re equivalent tickets.

That aside, I am insanely jealous of you and PP for getting to see Oasis in the late 90s/early 2000s - very lucky!

A standing ticket too! Those are crazy money now. You can’t get a standing ticket for ANY band for £39, let alone Oasis, Radiohead and Coldplay.

It is insanity. My DCs paid £430 each for Heaton Park on Ticketmaster resale. They’re glorified touts, all while dictating that you can only buy from them in an effort to stop touting. They’re shameless.

Radiohead tickets were up for resale already by yesterday afternoon for a grand +

Its disgusting.

I also didn’t manage Oasis or Radiohead tickets op.

That’s Earl’s Court though. As I said above, my Oasis tickets were £65 each, seated. When I purchased them, standing tickets were £120.

As I also said above, though, I’m in no disagreement that ticket costs are completely extortionate and resale is a real issue.

The Oasis tickets I have are seated in the upper tier, 3rd row from front of the block). Sort of at halfway point in the stadium. The tickets I am remembering from around 2000/2001 for £30ish were Wembley arena, lower tier seated, back/side position.

@Didimum £19! That’s £39 in today’s money!

Was it an equivalent ticket? I looked up that meme and it was Wembley ticket in 2009. Wembley tickets in 2025 starting price was over £100.

Also if you obsessively stalk Twickets and Ticketmaster nearer the time you can def get face value resales - but you have to properly commit !

I completely agree that prices feel awful. I paid about £35 back in late 90s. That would be about £60 today, so they have risen far above inflation. (Saying this, my Oasis tickets were £65 each). Resale and face value is still criminal though.

But I don’t think in good conscience, it’s fair to revert to the days of inaccessibility for most and ease for the few. Gigs should be available to all – the population increase, global demand and increased disposable income is always going to be part and parcel of that.

I was having this conversation with my DP last night. I never had issues getting tickets in the 80's - you just queued up at the box office and bought them. But saying that, bands were always touring and there seemed many more 'local' venues on their tours. I think now bands don't tour so often and tend to do big arena venues. All the faff with codes, VIP access, priority booking etc is just designed to sell over priced tickets. How long do we wait in queues only to be told we're now in the 'waiting room', then after another wait we're presented with a rubbish selection of over priced seats that we have to buy in the next 15 minutes otherwise we'll lose access.

I managed to get tickets for Taylor S at Wembley and at a European date, I also got Coldplay tickets. Maybe I’ve just been lucky but I’ve been very focused always got presale access (never need to buy anything there’s always a link somewhere on their page) and researched how to do it. I only got Coldplay by being on discord and reading all the advice on it during the presale! Always join q ahead of time. I didn’t try for Oasis tho.

Agreed. I can never get anything but dh has used ticket master a lot and seems to be straight in and get tickets at reasonable prices. Feels like it excludes so many people and the steps they’ve brought in don’t work to stop touts but make it really hard to get 5 tickets to anything as the limit is 4. We had to have 2 accounts for Reading festival as we were taking our 3 teens. Dh didn’t come to Taylor Swift because we could only get 4 due to the limit. Taking 3 teens across London in the crowds was slightly daunting and dh would have loved to see dc enjoyment.

Don’t get me started on the tickets on your phone. I prefer one in my hands rather than refreshing my phone and stressing my battery is running out. Gigs got hard 😭 I’m not convinced technology has improved things.

It’s a rubbish system now but I have no idea how you do it differently.

What frustrates me is that the bandwidth of the websites never seems to be enough for big releases. Three of us had codes for Radiohead and tried to get tickets yesterday. All of us got through the whole process and then kicked out just as we’d reached the end of the waiting room and were entering the site to buy them. (We were all in different locations - all with just one tab open as it instructed). I was the only one of us that got tickets in the end.

As, when you did get a code, it was only valid for one country, I can’t understand why they didn’t release the tickets country by country on different days to stabilise the site traffic a little more.

YADNBU

I have been trying to get tickets for The weekend for my dd she signed up for about 3 presale options which is ridiculous most of the tickets are gone before they even go on general sale. I think their sole purpose is to check demand and put up the price when they go on general sale. Didn't manage to get anything (reasonably priced) in presales plenty of VIP tickets for hundreds available, suddenly extra date released and my dh was off so got ok priced tickets but not great seats. For the first time I noticed different pricing depending on where in the stadium you're sitting, this is new not noticed this before. There was at least one to two hundred euro in the difference between one section and another!

As much as I moan though not sure I could go back to queuing overnight for tickets like I did in the 90s or racing around town to different music shops as tickets were selling out.

We tried to get Ed Sheeran tickets this week. No chance.

Agree, but it’s shit for everyone now. Even face value prices are extortionate. There are memes doing the rounds on social media which show a photo of a physical tickets from an Oasis concert in 2009, say, for £40 or so. That’s a fraction of even face value ticket prices now. They have far, far outstripped inflation before you even get to the horror of resale prices.