To ask if you've refused to pay ridiculous prices for concerts?

Well yeah. I wouldn't pay anything. If they want me they can put me on the guest list. 😂

There are plenty of £30-£50 tickets available later on in the year!

We go to quite a few gigs and theatre shows - but we do that instead of a lot of holidays - I paid £150 for my Oasis tickets (on pre-sale so didn't get stung by dynamic ticket pricing) and my DDs had Benson Boone tickets as part of their christmas presents which were £170 each.

Other than those two, I generally pay somewhere between £45 and £75 per ticket depending on the artist / venue.

But I would never in a million years touch Viagogo - it's so much better now that you can get resale tickets from Ticketmaster and AXS etc! I've managed to get quite a few for sold out shows just by waiting until a week before when the resale tickets start going on - there were quite a few Oasis tickets on re-sale on the day we went.

I also make sure I 'like' all my favourite artists on LiveNation and Spotify to get the pre-sale codes or buy some merch and join the fan club when there is a likely tour announcement coming up.

It is a fair point that artists aren't making any money from streaming so have to make it somewhere. If you think how much money you'd spend on albums if you couldn't pay £6 a month or whatever to stream everything on Spotify (cds were £10-15 twenty years ago so I imagine would be at least £30 now), then the cost of tickets balances out.

I absolutely agree more needs to be done about price gouging and touts buying all the tickets up and then reselling at ridiculous prices but there's a limit that artists can help with that -the government and sited like ticketmaster need to get their shit together and start enforcing. If that means you have to have your name on each ticket and can only resell back to the venue, fine.

The reason why artists now charge so much for concerts is the fact they sweet fa from music sales. The average price used to be between 1 and 1 3/4p per 45 single record sold back "in the good old days". Now it's a fraction of a penny, if they are lucky.

The record companies used say home recording was killing music, whilst bootlegging their own artists. But they failed to see the rise of on line streaming and now people expect to listen to music for free.

I love 1950s rock and roll always have, always will but haven't bought a physical record or cd since about 2010. No need I can listen for free to virtually everything

Just to say that the best concert I’ve been to for many a year-and I go to lots-was Wolf Alice-so good we saw them twice. Around 50-60 quid for a ticket. Better than Oasis which did only cost £150 which was great but just like seeing a tribute band.

I don’t even know who that is 😅 am I officially old?

£250 to see Raye!!! Blimey.

A fool and his money...

I paid £80 for a great Dress Circle seat for "Paddington". Only a handful of premium seats are £250.

And, to be fair, the artists only take a part of the ticket price. They don't make money from "record sales" any more, either. Things can change quickly, and they have to make their money while they can. And, of course, it's perfectly legal. So good for them.

I don't go to concerts, but I would (& have) pay high prices for certain theatre shows or sports events.
The thing is, these concerts DO sell out. Which means that people are willing to pay - if they weren't, the concerts would be cancelled. The market decides, just as it always does. It's called capitalism.

See my post above though. It doesn’t matter what they sell them for initially if they all get bought up and sold on on resale sites 🤷‍♀️

It’s not really the artists fault. Ticket touts/agents have ways of buying them all up and then selling on to the highest bidder.

Tickets for the Cure were £70 when they went on sale but I couldn’t get any at the time and have now had to buy from Viagogo, which is like eBay for concert tickets - at 3 x times the price.

I also don’t even know whether they’re guaranteed as they’ve said they may not be sent until on the day of the concert and when I’ve looked at reviews online there are some tales of people getting to the gate and the tickets not working - so I’m not counting my chickens. Il be so gutted if we don’t get in though 😢

There are lots of small bands, which are really good. Have a look at local venues and see what's on. Tribute bands can be fun too.

Yes

The Eagles. I could have afforded it but the prices were ridiculous. And we had seen them before Glenn Frey died anyway. We are going to see The Illegal Eagles (who are extremely good) next month

As others have said it does depend on who it is. I would have paid a lot to see Springsteen but - in the end - the tickets weren't that expensive although we were up in the Gods. Still brilliant though.

That's nice, but I doubt the artists are getting anywhere near a minimum wage for their work!

I wish we could set a value on art somewhere between a billion million and zilch.

How come there are 2 of these threads?

We went to see Coldplay in September at Wembley. We had seated tickets right at the back of the stadium in the lower tier that we paid £280 each for. They were amazing, but on top of the travel from Gloucestershire, parking, food, drinks etc and an afternoon off work to travel there, it was a hell of a lot of money and effort for a few hours entertainment.

I'm a bit gutted at the Harry Styles prices, I was going to offer to take my DD's but I'm not paying over £1k for 2 hours of live music.

All the money is in touring these days whereas it used to be in selling the music.

They used to tour to promote albums, which we bought and that paid the artist - the tour was promotion. Now the music is free and promotes the tour, which is the product. A lot less people go to a concert vs by an album so the costs are insane.

No one buys music anymore so this is how they make their money.

I decided against Harry Styles and System of a Down because of the crazy prices but at the end of the day they only charge what people are willing to pay.

Festivals are better value for money now and I will hand it to Beyoncé her prices were reasonable and she gives tickets away to locals

Agree. The Cure have been very vocal about it and set their ticket prices. They've also challenged tickemaster on the extra fees they pile on. Other bands coukd and should do the same.

Go to small and medium sized venues. Loads of great new bands around. We go to see live music all the time for around £10-£15 each. Lots of 14+ gigs to take your teens to. My tip is to look what's coming up in the next few months at your local venue. There is usually links to the bands songs or videos. It's a great way to find new artists.