...to feel like I don't want the hassle of going to concerts any more?

[TempestTost]

I am not a huge concert goer, I've always tended to go to pubs more often. Mainly just because of the cost. But there are a few artists I've been willing to go out and get concert tickets for from time to time, especially if the venue is one I like (not too big, seats reasonably comfortable.)

I've been hearing more and more people over the last few years complain about the difficulty of getting tickets, and just recently experienced it myself. I heard tickets would go on sale for a musician I like, someone i've seen three or four times before.

I knew I wouldn't be able to get online until about an hour after they went on sale, but I wasn't too worried. Last time I saw him, it was a smaller venue, and I got ok tickets a few days after they were available - this was 4 years ago. He hasn't blown up in popularity since then, he's an established guy with a following but not Taylor Swift by any means.

Anyway - I went online an hour after the sale opened, and absolutely nothing was available. But they were available for resale all over the internet. Clearly a huge number were immediately snapped up for resale. I managed to find some for about double the price, though the better seats were far more than that. (Though I am still not sure they will be legitimate once I get to the door, and there isn't any good way to find out.)

In hindsight, I'm almost wishing I hadn't bought them - I was in a bit of a panic because I'd told my daughter that I could get tickets. But I feel like, until venues get some kind of handle on this, it's almost better not to bother at all. There is something really nasty about the whole thing. I also can't decide if I think the venues and artists are somehow complicit, or are also victims.

Sympathies.
We love live music but have had to accept are now priced out of concerts for the most part. We went to one last autumn and it was the most we felt we could spend at £80 each and felt OK as it was a band we really wanted to see, though of course spent a fair bit more all in with travel,
hotel, food and drinks. Looked recently for a band I’ve always loved and it was £150 a ticket. This is even before the reselling touts get their thieving mits on the tickets.
I’m glad I saw a lot of bands at festivals over the years. It feels like it’s over. Tickets go in seconds, bots grab them all. Reselling for vast sums is horrible and prices out real fans.
Annual festival and small local bands only for us now, can’t justify the arenas.

I think resale should be entirely banned. The person buying the tickets has to go to the venue with ID and their tickets to get in. If its a parent buying for kids then still have to go, show ID and then the venue will let the kids in with the tickets. I know these sort of ideas probably won't work 100% in practice but something like this needs to be done.

i like going to live gigs and being up north they are usually reasonably priced if theres a band on and the tickets are way overpriced i just dont go to that one, was gutted this year the squeeze are at my local small theatre tickets at this venue are £39 on average, 2 minutes after the tickets went on sale not a single ticket to be bought for normal price, the resellers have got hold of them im not paying £123.00 for a £39 ticket its so unfair that people get priced out of a theatre ten minutes from home so much for supporting local theatre

I live in Bristol...nearest any big act plays in cardiff. Imagine a city where they built a shopping centre because 1m people live 40minutes from it. But the only place that does live music in any size is Bristol city football stadium. So I don't go to concerts.
I used to go to lots of gigs, but Bristol is a difficult place to park, the cost of a band (I part own a bar and we last had a band play over 10years ago and that cost £300. You have to sell a lot of beer to cover that cost), and the fact that a lot of bands play too loud to be enjoyable...I'm serious, there is no need to play full volume with professional equipment in smaller venues. So I don't bother, which is a shame as you can't beat a good band with a tight sound whatever the genre.

I agree op - it's wrong on so many levels

The venues now are just too large- I went to one at the 02 and the artist is just a stick figure on the stage to me, so you are watching the screens to see their face at all, and by then I feel like I might as well just be watching on a screen at home?

my husband loves gigs.... and i used to go along, probably 4 or 5 a year, these are big gigs, Pink, Keiser Chiefs etc..

but my ears are shot! it takes me weeks to recover so i have told him im not going to anymore with him...

Far too expensive buying direct let alone via a reseller imo

I refuse to buy at inflated resale prices . I’ve seen most people that I want to so if we can’t get tickets at face value then we don’t bother .

The last time I couldn't make a concert a few days before I resold it back via Twickets (via Ticketmaster I think) for face value.

I think that's fine and acceptable as things do come up and it's a waste if no one can go and good to get money back. I certainly don't agree with inflated prices.

I can't be bothered with big arena shows much now- only bother if it's Rammstein!!

God, yes. I started going to gigs in the mid 70s, you either queued at the venue or a local record shop for tickets, ticket price max about £3, you either got a ticket or you didn't (mostly you did), no 'booking fees' , your Dad dropped you and your mates off, and one of your mate's Dads picked you up. Not huge venues, but we saw Fleetwood Mac, Status Quo, Thin Lizzy, Lindisfarne (every year for years and years) and in the 80s we travelled the country and saw Springsteen, U2, Floyd etc etc. It just all seems too much effort now - the big bands only play the huge venues, the tickets cost 2 week's wages. DH is a huge Eagles fan, and they've toured and played Glasgow, our nearest venue, but cheapest tickets with virtually no view were nearly £200. DB saw The Stones at Murrayfield pre Covid, again, stupid ticket prices and they basically watched the concert on a screen.

We're currently watching 60 years of BBC2, listening to Bowie, bottle of red - very nice, thank you. OK, nothing beats the atmosphere of a live gig - except I'm not convinced tbh. If we want to see a major gig these days it's either a 4 hour round trip or best part of £700 for tickets, transport and hotel. So it's either a pub gig or the telly.

Go to much smaller gigs - there's lots of small local live music venues with great music for £10 a ticket

DH and I both used to go to loads of gigs when we were younger, before we met each other. When we started dating we made a list of all the things we’d love to do together - we found the notebook when we were sorting some stuff the other day and went through and ticked off all the things we’d managed to do. The only one we didn’t tick off was going to a gig together - it’s just impossible these days! We’ve been together 7 years and not one gig has been attended by either of us in that time. We have tried a few times but it’s just not worth it.

I can’t believe 18 year old me used to go to gigs pretty much every weekend 😂

Yes, the booking fees are a particular rip-off, even before the resellers get their hands on them.

It always used to be a charge for posting the tickets out to you - so not 6 charges for 6 tickets in one envelope (although you could collect them from the box office if you preferred); but now, even places that send you an automatic link to download your tickets still seem to have 'forgotten' to not charge you for posting them to you.

Imagine buying a trolley load of shopping from Tesco and then being told at the checkout that, as well as the actual price for the items, you have no option but to pay an extra charge for the 'privilege' of being allowed to buy them!

I think they need to be able to be gifted. My dh bought me and our daughters tickets for Taylor Swift. To be fair, he would have come too but the ticket limit was 4. I’m travelling to London with dc for it. Paying for him to accompany us would mean paying a lot more.

I think all resales should be via the venue/ticket master at the price originally paid.

They definitely should have some kind of validation that would only work when bought from the venue/authorised seller.

It can't be difficult to make people sign an agreement that, should they find themselves unable to go, they can resell them through the venue - who will then re-validate the tickets so that the new purchaser can use them - but for no more than the original ticket price. They could maybe allow people to sell them for less, if they were worried about not finding a buyer, but not more.

That would cut out the resellers and bots at a stroke - if their option is to either not make a single penny on their 'investment' or to know that they will be reselling something that will be useless to anybody who buys it from them.

This is the exactly how I feel. Same with seeing big name comedians such as Mickey Flanagan at the 02. Just pointless when you end up watching a screen.

I guess I'm not alone then!

I agree about some of the other complaints too. I don't really do the big big venues, I am not so interested in seeing a screen either, and in a lot of cases the sound quality isn't very good.

I do think something really has to change about the ticker reselling.

I think what shocked me about it was that it wasn't at the level of a Taylor Swift or anyone that would play an arena, it was Steve Earle, who is certainly established and respected, but in the past 15 years or so he's mainly been playing places that hold about 200 up to maybe 500 people. This venue was on the bigger side for him (costs of touring are high now I guess) but it's still hard to imagine that resellers are snapping all the tickets up in a small out of the way city for something that size.

We went through this with Niall Fecking Horan in fecking Nashville. NIALL. My poor DH had to take the baton, because absolutely NOT

I'm hoping you didn't buy from Viagogo as they are dodgy as fuck.

I recommend supporting small artists and small venues. They're really struggling these days. I won't pay more than £30 to see a performance but I'm never short on bands to see.

Big venues are rubbish anyway. I'd rather see the band properly or not at all.

There are some artists who keep the price of their tickets reasonable and won't do the bigger venues.

I saw Paul Weller recently- £50 a ticket - in a c.1500 capacity venue. We got there when the doors opened and were perhaps 15m from him. Superb

The good fun gigs are out there if you look in the right places for them. Getting notifications on the Songkick app is a good way to keep informed. Or join the artists mailing lists

i’ll always recommend twickets - you can’t sell over face value and in many cases you get tickets for less than face value. Always worth setting up an alert on there for gigs, though you do sometimes need to wait til near the day of the gig for tickets to become available.

Absolutely agree. I’ve almost completely given up big stadium gigs. We went to Depeche Mode at 02 year as dh was desperate to see them. Tickets from the venue but so expensive, beer so expensive. In very good seats but had a couple of absolute twats next to me dancing and not just drunk but high so couldn’t see anything till moved along as fortunately someone hadn’t turned up.

husband enjoyed it.

this week been to two local gigs,in lovely small venues, excellent touring musicians, brilliant atmosphere, £25 a ticket, pub price beer and walkedhone afterwards.

love the North West.

Yes, it's mad, isn't it?

People will say "Oh, but you want to be there for the atmosphere" - but you're there with thousands of (often drunk) strangers; not your good friends. You wouldn't throw your house doors open to all comers, on the grounds that it's much more exciting watching TV at home with a whole load of strangers jostling around you, rather than just your family!

People do it for big royal events too. Like at the funeral and coronation, they will camp out and grab a space so that they see one tiny snapshot of a long procession at fairly close quarters, and then nothing else. It might sound a boring thing to say, but you will always get the very best views by far - of all of it - by sitting in your armchair and watching it on the telly at home.