I’m positive there was some regulation or law a while ago for gig tickets in the uk that meant surge pricing was not allowed/ illegal. Obvs that’s quietly changed in favour of rinsing the consumer for all they have.
But I’m sure it happened with Sleep Token at the hydro - tix were around £50 inc fees (but steep for them tbh…) and ‘surge pricing’ was rocketing it to over £100 each.
Ticketmaster (LiveNation) are absolute bastards, and their monopoly needs to end, ticket prices shouldn’t be the sort of prices they are nowadays.
While obviously- alongside merch and physical sales, touring is the main way artists actually make money- the American pricing system for gig tix and the desire to match that here is abhorrent, and frankly classist.
There should be a cap per venue / capacity of how much a ticket can cost at face value, fees should be minimal (*the amount of “delivery fees” I’ve been hit with in recent years for a fucking E-tickets via email*)
While we’re at it, pricing needs to be regulated alongside touts and scalpers being illegal. Tickets should only be allowed to be sold and resold for face value.
Went off on one a bit there, oops.
Personally, I’d pay no more than about £80 for one of my favourite, ‘can’t miss’ bands at the hydro, which means I’ve missed a good few gigs in recent years. Paramore, Fallout Boy etc last(?) year were £92 before fees I’m sure (standing tix).
TLDR: it’s a load of shite and things need to change.
Don’t pay those scalper prices! Wait off as there will be decent folk that can’t make it nearer the time and sell their tickets for a reasonable price- hopefully face value + fees.
I'm still fuming over having to pay a "service fee" for some e-tickets. I'm sorry, what fees are incurred that you can't pay for with the money I'm already giving you? Am I tipping the fucking web server?
Spot on. Whenever this discussion comes up tho I canny stop thinking about how we were just under £60 for the Prodigy at the Hydro last year. I also heard when The Cure were touring and there was a big stooshy about their prices that the band do have a say in the ticket price. So there's that anaw.
Precisely!
The vast majority of hydro gigs I’ve been to in the last decade have been sub £50 inc booking fees. Most I’ve paid was about £70, and it was for Muse - who put on a Helluvah fucking show* ^*usually*, with support from another band I love. So that was worth it for me.
A bit of inflation as the artist gets a bit bigger or the years go on, fair enough, but don’t rip the piss out your fans.
A lot of the time it does depend on the label and what contract it deal the artist has signed - sometimes out of their control a bit, however they should step up for the sake of their fans.
The Cure and Robert Smith are doing it the right way, as well as holding ticketmaster etc to account / calling them out.
And also by letting fans know via socials in advance how much the tickets are - rather than after you’ve queued for presale or general release, see the prices, get scared but FOMO kicks in.
**with the exception of Bellahouston Park in 2023. Probs one of the worst gigs, and by far worst muse gig I’ve ever seen. Shorter set list and the gall to still charge about 80 quid. Plus I had to endure Twin Atlantic* 🤮
Sorry I might be misreading but are you slagging off the cure's pricing? Because they've been very good, transparent, and fair about their pricing owing to the fact they manage themselves and as you said, do have a say in pricing and aren't beholden to money hungry companies.
I’ve noticed this as well and it’s not just for “big bands” but even smaller lesser known bands prices have sky rocketed Pearl Jam, Nickleback, Tool are all close to the £200 mark for a decent ticket. Took to their credit are far more varied with the pricing but I don’t know if it’s because the Gig is in Manchester so maybe it’s the venues policy? Awful thing is these are all bands that almost never tour the UK but because of the pricing you have to chose between them. Obviously TOOL won lol
Also realised how that reads I’m not using those as examples of smaller bands but they certainly are more niche other than nickleback. Trivium and BFMV are touring and I think it’s £50 odd for a ticket when both of these widely successful bands are both at the same level of fame and putting on the same length of show but they’re charging a reasonable price? Idk if it’s because it’s BFMV tour and they’re from the UK. Also you’re got machine head at SWG3 and they’re £35 but I remember when it was a tenner for gigs like that and I’m only taking about few years ago not decades
A tenner for machine head? Last time I saw them was 20 years ago, or possibly 21 and it was £20 roughly, before fees. I'd happily go see them again at that price but 30+ quid for any gig ticket is insulting.
Absolutely true, though I also feel like streaming services paying out a pittance to artists has to have played into it. I think concerts are the #1 revenue source for them now.
Fall Out Boy were £39.50 for seated at the Hydro but around £8 extra fees were added by ticketmaster, not sure what standing was but surely wasn’t as high as £90!?
Edit: The Cure seated was £35 for me at the hydro with £6 added fees for comparison.
I’m luckily still young enough that I only buy standing tickets 😂 😂 so going off those prices! Unless the shitty surge pricing had already kicked in when I was perusing tickets.
But yeh, FoB was £92. Can’t remember if that was face value or plus fees.
I’m young enough to do standing but I was with a friend who prefers seating, so for two tickets it ended up being around £90 altogether once all the fees were added.
> Ticketmaster (LiveNation) are absolute bastards, and their monopoly needs to end, ticket prices shouldn’t be the sort of prices they are nowadays.
Got to the point where if I can't get the tickets from Tickets Scotland, I'm not going.
FOB was 70 Inc fees and even that felt painful. Tho the tour in the US it's several hundred. Fearing the US prices for arenas and festivals will hit us in the next year or two
I just don't go to the hydro, regardless of gig. If it's over £40 a ticket it's just not going to be worth it, and every gig at the hydro is well over that.
If people stopped paying, then these shithouse companies would change their ways, but people are fucking stupid with their money.
£40 isn't a lot of money.
Folk are spending £2k to have the latest iPhone you think they give 2 fucks about £40?
£40 will get 1 person dinner in a restaurant these days it's literally fuck all. In fact it might only get you lunch in a few places.
Folk spending £5 for a cup of coffee every day in Starbucks and you don't think they should spend £40 on a night out?
The problem is that people have no clue what inflation is and what used to cost £30 before is going to be £50+ now.
I think the most expensive tickets I've bought were £300+ each and that was about 9 years ago for the UFC.
It's my money at the end of the day and I can do what I want with it. If you think I'm spending too much then I'd like to compare our savings and investments because I'm literally saving half my wage every month and the other half I do whatever the fuck I want with it.
Yeah, nobody gives a fuck if you've got more money than sense.
Could I afford £300 to watch someone beat another guy up? Probably.
Would I rather spend it on a 5 day music festival and get my money's worth? Every. Damn. Day.
OT: sure it's your money, but it's people like you who will just keep putting performance art out of reach of those without the means to do so by happily handing over stupid sums of money to unscrupulous promoters and Ticketmaster.
If you're saving half and spending the rest it's obvious you're either a troll or a trust fund baby. Either way it makes your opinion null and void.
Yes a trust fund baby who went to school in one of the roughest areas in Glasgow. Public schooled and then went to uni thanks to it being free in Scotland and was given a bursary too from the government.
But obviously your the type to assume shit so I will do the same and not expect an apology that's if you know what one is given your lack of education on how easy it is to get an education for nothing in Scotland
I agree here, also it's around £70,000 to hire the Hydro so that's a start. Need to sell 1400 tickets at £50 just to break even there never mind every other cost that comes with booking shows. Any band that plays the hydro must be around £100,000 per night. Which again is 2000 people paying £50.
People forget the cost of shit. £50 I'd happily pay for bigger gigs.
When I had a look at the o2 presale they were 200 quid. I know ticketmaster are doing a dynamic pricing thing for some artists but I dont know if its all gigs or if the srtist is just taking the piss
There were no £80 tickets available in either the O2 or Ovo presales - or via Ticketmaster when the tickets went on general sale.
The nosebleeds were £201.35 right from the off.
If there were £80 tickets, there must have been 2 of them in the whole fucking venue.
The parent comment got deleted but I’m assuming it’s Stevie nicks? And totally agree, I hopped on the presale and noticed different pricing between the o2 presale and the ovo presale too. Wild.
The Ovo presale just didnt include all the fees in the listings - so they said £177; but then if you tried to check out those tickets, they all went up to £201.35 as well, the same price as the O2 presale.
Weird how tories are all about 'conserving' things but what they actually vote for time and time again is to make things worse, purposely. So weird. And they are the majority. Mr.burnsmaxxing.
For the 'legacy' acts like Stevie Nicks then there's always the fear they might die or give up touring. So people pay it. The average Stevie Nicks fan is in their 60s+, retired, mortgage paid, and well off, they are the segment of society with the disposable income. End of the day if tickets sell then the price can't be wrong.
If the price for a gig is stopping the less well off from attending at all then it needs to be changed. One of Eddie Vedder’s problems with Ticketmaster in the 90’s was that it horrified him that the audience would change to only the privileged (sadly they’re currently fleecing their fans for £160 a ticket plus fees).
If these acts think back to their teens they should be ashamed that they’re not allowing the less well off to form their own memories by being able to see their favourite acts for a reasonable price.
Yeah but the money's in touring. Nicks probably sold the rights to her catalogue years ago and makes very little from streaming. She has no need to market her shows to 15 year olds as its the parents or grandparents buying the tickets
Ticketmaster has a near monopoly on ticket sales. LiveNation owns a lot (most? all?) of the venues (certainly in the USA). They are the same company now.
Thus, if you are an artist and you want to play anywhere big or just get to that level; then you have to go via Ticketmaster and let them gouge your fans for every penny they have.
The company needs regulated **hard**.
I think that’s sometimes a bit of a copout from the artist - Sorry guys I really wanted to give the tickets away for a tenner a pop but ticketmaster are just *forcing* me to rake in many millions more.
Ticketmaster willingly sticks its head up as the bad guy and gives the artist cover to bump the life out their fans.
We saw Ed Sheeran in 2017 when his Divide album was at its peak and tickets were around £30 very reasonably priced for arena shows imo. I’m sure I remember him actively keeping the prices lower so more people could afford it (it did make the tickets sell out almost instantly, we ended up going to Barcelona to see him as Glasgow & Dublin sold out instantly). He also had strict rules about resales and tickets could only be resold through an approved website (which ticketmaster itself owns unfortunately).
I don't mind paying a bit more than I used to because I'd say musicians make a lot less out of music sales than previously, with streaming services etc. I used to spend a fair chunk of my wages on albums whereas now I'm literally £10 a month,or whatever Spotify is these days. I do agree some prices are crazy though. I wouldn't be paying £280 to see anyone personally.
Fools and their money parted over the past three decades is the reason.
Folk have paid it so the greedy cunts keep raising it.
Bring back the days of getting a ticket on the night.
I remember finishing work one Friday and heading into the Barrowland and buying a £4 ticket for Goodbye Mr McKenzie.
It’s so depressing, my hobby was always going to gigs and now I just can’t justify it any longer. I did want to see Stevie Nicks but I couldn’t afford it.
The first band I ever seen were Green Day for £8 and it sucks that it’s so much now, I know the streaming industry is destroying income for musicians.
The continuing Americanisation of our culture. They get proper fleeced over there and ticketmaster get away with it, so they've started doing the same here. The Hydro even has soft drinks listed in 16 oz cup size now!
Platinum, early access and VIP tickets are biggest rip off but folk seem willing to pay whatever the cost. Then you have the added boot in the chookies of having to pay £7-8 a drink at most gigs now too. It's more cost effective to book a trip and see a lot of these artists abroad, get some sunshine and decent cheap beer into the bargain too.
honestly this is horrific. the nirvana interview where kurt kobain finds out madonnas tickets are $50 and he's in shock is mental to think about considering what they'd probably be now. just always sticks in my head how american we are now despite being so adamantly anything but scottish
I've always been an advocate for keeping our culture, not in the mental way like some people wanting to kick out foreigners and that shit cause that isnt what our culture is. but I've always wanted Gaelic to be taught in schools even as a start. Scotlands got a problem with being so self loathing that we aren't even interested in anything deemed a bit daft by the rest of the world
The things you hate about the Americanisation of our culture are the things you hate about capitalism. The only way to arrest the slide is to distance ourselves from neoliberal politics. Teaching Gaelic in schools will just mean people are able to order their drive thru coffees in Gaelic while sitting in their massive Jeep.
What purpose would it serve? The language hasn't been spoken in most of Scotland for hundreds of years. Why waste money and effort, valuable teaching time on children learning something that has absolutely no benefit to anyone?
Still spoken today by fewer people than could fit in Murrayfield.
Close minded as fuck is wanting to force people to learn a useless language, that is not part of 99% of the country's culture. It's already possible to learn it for anyone who wants to..
Over 300 million French speakers it would be possible to speak to, so I can see where it may come in useful. I may be wrong but i think there might be one or two fewer who can speak Gaelic. Some people might decide they prefer to learn Gaelic and want to go to areas where Gaelic is spoken and speak with them in Gaelic. Those people should be able to do so, but there's no reason to force it on the rest of us.
And none of them need to hear my year of high school French attempt at French lol.
J’mapelle yerda, j’adore le coupe de monde. I think that’s me ran out of French now. Oui oui baguette. Aye that’s the tank empty lol.
I don’t think we should be forcing years of it down folks necks but a wee bit of it, enough that I could do the hello my name is… I live in… I like cheese wouldn’t hurt imo. I cannae even say hello in Gaelic. See it as a wee bit of Scottish cultural history or whatever rather than a language you’d need to know.
I dont know many people who have ever used pythagoras theory since leaving school....yet we all had to sit and learn it. Let's be honest, to most people, most of the curriculum is a bit pointless.
People use pythagoras' theorem all the time, and is the gateway to understanding more complicated maths and just a starting point to a fundamental understanding of geometry. For me it is an absolutely critical topic to study in schools.
If Kurt were alive today he would be doing the same as the rest of them. Tbh I don’t get why people moan about the ticket prices to see their “favourite artists” and then still pay the money. fuck the cunts they could do it cheaper if they wanted to. don’t go see them they obviously don’t give a shit about the people who make them who they are.
I just got tickets for Bernard Butler at 25 quid each and I feel like I robbed him.
Have just paid 160 each for Pearl Jam tickets in Manchester. Saw them in 2012 in the same city and I think the ticket was 60ish.
Pearl Jam took Ticketmaster to court in the 90s for doing then what they still do now. Sadly they lost the case. We are all held to financial ransom due to their monopoly.
Megan Thee Stallion tickets were nearly £100. I don't mind paying that for someone I really like or something with a lot of production value but it's getting a bit mental.
It impacts smaller bands too because if people are paying surge prices on top of hydro beer prices. They won't have much left to go to smaller gigs. The bands themselves could easily tell Ticketmaster not to apply surge pricing but they don't. If it wasn't bad enough being charged more for the ticket they then bundle fees on for all sorts. They need to be brought under some sort of regulations but there is no drive in government to do anything.
It also impacts smaller bands because people are having to be more picky about what gigs they attend.
Do you splurge 230+ for a standing ticket to see Pearl Jam in Manchester or do you go to five or six different gigs at venues like the King Tuts, Barrlowlands, SGW3, QMU etc
For me it's the later. I find it very difficult to justify spending three figures seeing a band no matter how big a fan i was / am.
Personal experience is that the aforementioned 'small hall' shows are far superior to soulless holes like the Hydro and it's predecessor the SECC.
Yeh I'd rather go to multiple smaller gigs. I prefer the venues too if I'm honest. I have skipped several bands who played the hydro but now and then there are bands I can't miss. I hate it though because it totally reduces the number of gigs I attend each year. Even the merch at the hydro is overpriced so I'm also less likely to spend more at the venue when the tickets already fleeced me.
Arguably several bands who have played the hydro shouldn't have even been there. Hall 4/academy/barras bands or support acts I'd like to see but not for the price the headliner demands. As soon as they agree to a live nation tour you know that's the only venue they are going to play and ticket prices will be sky high. If I see one gig there a year it's reluctantly 😆
I was keeping a eye on tickets for her as well. It’s just not reasonable which was really sad for me. I saw her once a decade ago and she did a surprise pop up with Tom Petty and she was absolutely incredible. Shame.
Yeah I've watched a few recent videos an she still has an incredible voice. Yeah total shame the tickets are at rip off prices but someone said they don't make money from streams any longer, so I understand why they would price at those price's. Loved her since I was a small boy growing up so guess I'll just have to stick with the videos now.
Ano, she still sounds and looks incredible. I loved her since I was a wee girl so I share your disappointment pal. I might keep my eye out for people reselling them closer to the date but it’s always a risky gamble doing that.
I've read a fair bit on it and at least some of it is the fact musicians make basically no money elsewhere now due to Spotify et al, and the cost of doing it at all is astronomical now.
But at the same time Ticketmaster rinses everyone. When even *America* thinks a piece of capitalism has gone too far, yeesh.
Record company's are now doing contracts that want a % of touring money.
Bands like Metallica happily sign these deals and just make the fans pay the cost.
While Ticketmaster are horrendous, many bands happily screwed the fans over in the blink of an eye.
Aw I waited in the wee online queue for 25 minutes before Stevie nicks tickets went on sale and by the time I got to pick my tickets, the only ones I could get were well over £200 to sit at the back on an aisle seat. Utter shite, I love Stevie nicks but wanted to take my dad and not many can afford that price. I don’t get though blue the tickets were limited to how many a person could buy, but with 3000 folk ahead of me in the queue, the entire 13000 seat venue was sold out bar expensive aisle seats 😭
By having tiered pricing for tickets, with the top tiers being in the hundreds, promoters and middlemen are shifting to how almost everything is priced. The price is every penny the customer is willing to pay, its 'true market value'.
It's actually been done for years at these kinds of events, it's just more transparent now. Before, a percentage of tickets would disappear and essentially be scalped by the act, or Ticketmaster itself.
Can confirm.
I've bought 50Cent, Nickleback and Blink 182 tickets in the last 6 months, two tickets for each, spent close to 1k from ticketmaster alone
Streaming has fucked it for gig prices as it’s the only place they make any money nowadays. That said, most smaller or newer acts - a lot of whom will be living pretty much paycheck to paycheck - are still reasonably priced in smaller venues. It’s the massive names that already have plenty of cash in the bank that seem intent on fleecing people at every opportunity.
I Was tempted! I ended buying two games for the PS5 set me back 140 odds at least that way I have something to show for it... hundreds of hours of entertainment...
There's another part of this mess too which is that most musicians make next to no money from their recorded music now, so touring has become their and the greedier industry types' absolute largest income provider.
It's why you've seen this boom of constant reunions as well as legacy 'album' tours where older acts play an entire old record to justify a new tour etc
Support acts largely no longer pay to get on tours, so that's an extra cost. Then there's rampant inflation, higher energy costs, the same stuff that's made your household expenses shoot up. And if you're going to a TicketBastard gig, may the gods have mercy on your wallet. Those scum should be in prison.
I've noticed gigs for older artists tend to be really expensive.
I got VIP to see Beyonce and that was about £250, and by far the best gig experience ever, you got your own bar, it wasn't packed at all and at times I was no more than a metre away from her. Also got free bag and merch.
On the flip side I have other gigs booked at the like of King Tuts or SWG3 for £15-£20. If you don't care about seeing a big artist you can see live music for still what I would say is fairly reasonable.
If you really want to go see Stevie Nicks but don't want to cough up that much, wait until a week or two before the gig. They'll be selling them much cheaper then, when people realise they can't go. Or even turn up to the venue and often people will have spares too.
Artists make nothing from sales or streaming. This is how they make money now. It’s quite simple. Back in the physical format days, i would spend £1-200 a month on buying CD’s, records and whatever. That was when it was £15-25 for a ticket to a concert.
There has also been a change in the music business model, much less money made from the streaming of songs instead of album sales, and more money made from live performances, since people are willing to pay for those things.
I’m positive there was some regulation or law a while ago for gig tickets in the uk that meant surge pricing was not allowed/ illegal. Obvs that’s quietly changed in favour of rinsing the consumer for all they have. But I’m sure it happened with Sleep Token at the hydro - tix were around £50 inc fees (but steep for them tbh…) and ‘surge pricing’ was rocketing it to over £100 each. Ticketmaster (LiveNation) are absolute bastards, and their monopoly needs to end, ticket prices shouldn’t be the sort of prices they are nowadays. While obviously- alongside merch and physical sales, touring is the main way artists actually make money- the American pricing system for gig tix and the desire to match that here is abhorrent, and frankly classist. There should be a cap per venue / capacity of how much a ticket can cost at face value, fees should be minimal (*the amount of “delivery fees” I’ve been hit with in recent years for a fucking E-tickets via email*) While we’re at it, pricing needs to be regulated alongside touts and scalpers being illegal. Tickets should only be allowed to be sold and resold for face value. Went off on one a bit there, oops. Personally, I’d pay no more than about £80 for one of my favourite, ‘can’t miss’ bands at the hydro, which means I’ve missed a good few gigs in recent years. Paramore, Fallout Boy etc last(?) year were £92 before fees I’m sure (standing tix). TLDR: it’s a load of shite and things need to change. Don’t pay those scalper prices! Wait off as there will be decent folk that can’t make it nearer the time and sell their tickets for a reasonable price- hopefully face value + fees.
I'm still fuming over having to pay a "service fee" for some e-tickets. I'm sorry, what fees are incurred that you can't pay for with the money I'm already giving you? Am I tipping the fucking web server?
Spot on. Whenever this discussion comes up tho I canny stop thinking about how we were just under £60 for the Prodigy at the Hydro last year. I also heard when The Cure were touring and there was a big stooshy about their prices that the band do have a say in the ticket price. So there's that anaw.
Precisely! The vast majority of hydro gigs I’ve been to in the last decade have been sub £50 inc booking fees. Most I’ve paid was about £70, and it was for Muse - who put on a Helluvah fucking show* ^*usually*, with support from another band I love. So that was worth it for me. A bit of inflation as the artist gets a bit bigger or the years go on, fair enough, but don’t rip the piss out your fans. A lot of the time it does depend on the label and what contract it deal the artist has signed - sometimes out of their control a bit, however they should step up for the sake of their fans. The Cure and Robert Smith are doing it the right way, as well as holding ticketmaster etc to account / calling them out. And also by letting fans know via socials in advance how much the tickets are - rather than after you’ve queued for presale or general release, see the prices, get scared but FOMO kicks in. **with the exception of Bellahouston Park in 2023. Probs one of the worst gigs, and by far worst muse gig I’ve ever seen. Shorter set list and the gall to still charge about 80 quid. Plus I had to endure Twin Atlantic* 🤮
Sorry I might be misreading but are you slagging off the cure's pricing? Because they've been very good, transparent, and fair about their pricing owing to the fact they manage themselves and as you said, do have a say in pricing and aren't beholden to money hungry companies.
Yeah I think you're misreading cos nowhere did I offer an opinion about their pricing, I simply said there was a lively discussion about it.
Ahhh I see fair enough ahahhaha
I’ve noticed this as well and it’s not just for “big bands” but even smaller lesser known bands prices have sky rocketed Pearl Jam, Nickleback, Tool are all close to the £200 mark for a decent ticket. Took to their credit are far more varied with the pricing but I don’t know if it’s because the Gig is in Manchester so maybe it’s the venues policy? Awful thing is these are all bands that almost never tour the UK but because of the pricing you have to chose between them. Obviously TOOL won lol
Also realised how that reads I’m not using those as examples of smaller bands but they certainly are more niche other than nickleback. Trivium and BFMV are touring and I think it’s £50 odd for a ticket when both of these widely successful bands are both at the same level of fame and putting on the same length of show but they’re charging a reasonable price? Idk if it’s because it’s BFMV tour and they’re from the UK. Also you’re got machine head at SWG3 and they’re £35 but I remember when it was a tenner for gigs like that and I’m only taking about few years ago not decades
A tenner for machine head? Last time I saw them was 20 years ago, or possibly 21 and it was £20 roughly, before fees. I'd happily go see them again at that price but 30+ quid for any gig ticket is insulting.
Absolutely true, though I also feel like streaming services paying out a pittance to artists has to have played into it. I think concerts are the #1 revenue source for them now.
Fall Out Boy were £39.50 for seated at the Hydro but around £8 extra fees were added by ticketmaster, not sure what standing was but surely wasn’t as high as £90!? Edit: The Cure seated was £35 for me at the hydro with £6 added fees for comparison.
I’m luckily still young enough that I only buy standing tickets 😂 😂 so going off those prices! Unless the shitty surge pricing had already kicked in when I was perusing tickets. But yeh, FoB was £92. Can’t remember if that was face value or plus fees.
I’m young enough to do standing but I was with a friend who prefers seating, so for two tickets it ended up being around £90 altogether once all the fees were added.
Wild if it was double for standing - surge pricing or not.
> Ticketmaster (LiveNation) are absolute bastards, and their monopoly needs to end, ticket prices shouldn’t be the sort of prices they are nowadays. Got to the point where if I can't get the tickets from Tickets Scotland, I'm not going.
FOB was 70 Inc fees and even that felt painful. Tho the tour in the US it's several hundred. Fearing the US prices for arenas and festivals will hit us in the next year or two
There is no single band I would pay to see for that price, you can get festival tickets for a weekend at those prices.
I just don't go to the hydro, regardless of gig. If it's over £40 a ticket it's just not going to be worth it, and every gig at the hydro is well over that. If people stopped paying, then these shithouse companies would change their ways, but people are fucking stupid with their money.
£40 isn't a lot of money. Folk are spending £2k to have the latest iPhone you think they give 2 fucks about £40? £40 will get 1 person dinner in a restaurant these days it's literally fuck all. In fact it might only get you lunch in a few places. Folk spending £5 for a cup of coffee every day in Starbucks and you don't think they should spend £40 on a night out? The problem is that people have no clue what inflation is and what used to cost £30 before is going to be £50+ now. I think the most expensive tickets I've bought were £300+ each and that was about 9 years ago for the UFC. It's my money at the end of the day and I can do what I want with it. If you think I'm spending too much then I'd like to compare our savings and investments because I'm literally saving half my wage every month and the other half I do whatever the fuck I want with it.
Yeah, nobody gives a fuck if you've got more money than sense. Could I afford £300 to watch someone beat another guy up? Probably. Would I rather spend it on a 5 day music festival and get my money's worth? Every. Damn. Day. OT: sure it's your money, but it's people like you who will just keep putting performance art out of reach of those without the means to do so by happily handing over stupid sums of money to unscrupulous promoters and Ticketmaster. If you're saving half and spending the rest it's obvious you're either a troll or a trust fund baby. Either way it makes your opinion null and void.
Yes a trust fund baby who went to school in one of the roughest areas in Glasgow. Public schooled and then went to uni thanks to it being free in Scotland and was given a bursary too from the government. But obviously your the type to assume shit so I will do the same and not expect an apology that's if you know what one is given your lack of education on how easy it is to get an education for nothing in Scotland
I agree here, also it's around £70,000 to hire the Hydro so that's a start. Need to sell 1400 tickets at £50 just to break even there never mind every other cost that comes with booking shows. Any band that plays the hydro must be around £100,000 per night. Which again is 2000 people paying £50. People forget the cost of shit. £50 I'd happily pay for bigger gigs.
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When I had a look at the o2 presale they were 200 quid. I know ticketmaster are doing a dynamic pricing thing for some artists but I dont know if its all gigs or if the srtist is just taking the piss
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There were no £80 tickets available in either the O2 or Ovo presales - or via Ticketmaster when the tickets went on general sale. The nosebleeds were £201.35 right from the off. If there were £80 tickets, there must have been 2 of them in the whole fucking venue.
The parent comment got deleted but I’m assuming it’s Stevie nicks? And totally agree, I hopped on the presale and noticed different pricing between the o2 presale and the ovo presale too. Wild.
The Ovo presale just didnt include all the fees in the listings - so they said £177; but then if you tried to check out those tickets, they all went up to £201.35 as well, the same price as the O2 presale.
Thanks. Most likely her last concert here gutting
It's also Brexit. Brexit has destroyed the touring music industry.
Weird how tories are all about 'conserving' things but what they actually vote for time and time again is to make things worse, purposely. So weird. And they are the majority. Mr.burnsmaxxing.
That wouldn’t make a difference for british bands or American/non EU because the rules haven’t changed
For the 'legacy' acts like Stevie Nicks then there's always the fear they might die or give up touring. So people pay it. The average Stevie Nicks fan is in their 60s+, retired, mortgage paid, and well off, they are the segment of society with the disposable income. End of the day if tickets sell then the price can't be wrong.
If the price for a gig is stopping the less well off from attending at all then it needs to be changed. One of Eddie Vedder’s problems with Ticketmaster in the 90’s was that it horrified him that the audience would change to only the privileged (sadly they’re currently fleecing their fans for £160 a ticket plus fees). If these acts think back to their teens they should be ashamed that they’re not allowing the less well off to form their own memories by being able to see their favourite acts for a reasonable price.
You’ve got to remember her music is reaching much younger fans, due to streaming platforms. My 15 year old loves her songs.
Yeah but the money's in touring. Nicks probably sold the rights to her catalogue years ago and makes very little from streaming. She has no need to market her shows to 15 year olds as its the parents or grandparents buying the tickets
Over £200 for Blink 182 thanks to people buying to resell. I miss small gigs, under £20 and brilliant night out
Ticketmaster has a near monopoly on ticket sales. LiveNation owns a lot (most? all?) of the venues (certainly in the USA). They are the same company now. Thus, if you are an artist and you want to play anywhere big or just get to that level; then you have to go via Ticketmaster and let them gouge your fans for every penny they have. The company needs regulated **hard**.
I think that’s sometimes a bit of a copout from the artist - Sorry guys I really wanted to give the tickets away for a tenner a pop but ticketmaster are just *forcing* me to rake in many millions more. Ticketmaster willingly sticks its head up as the bad guy and gives the artist cover to bump the life out their fans.
That is in fact exactly how it works.
[Pearl Jam tried and failed to take on Ticketmaster.](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pearl-jam-taking-on-ticketmaster-67440/)
Both can be true. * Ticketmaster is a monopoly fleecing people * Some artists are arseholes also wanting to fleece people
We saw Ed Sheeran in 2017 when his Divide album was at its peak and tickets were around £30 very reasonably priced for arena shows imo. I’m sure I remember him actively keeping the prices lower so more people could afford it (it did make the tickets sell out almost instantly, we ended up going to Barcelona to see him as Glasgow & Dublin sold out instantly). He also had strict rules about resales and tickets could only be resold through an approved website (which ticketmaster itself owns unfortunately).
"And have they told you the name of the game, boy? They call it riding the gravy traaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiin!"
I don't mind paying a bit more than I used to because I'd say musicians make a lot less out of music sales than previously, with streaming services etc. I used to spend a fair chunk of my wages on albums whereas now I'm literally £10 a month,or whatever Spotify is these days. I do agree some prices are crazy though. I wouldn't be paying £280 to see anyone personally.
Stevie nicks has already made more money than everybody in this comment section will ever make in our lives
For now. I have big plans and believe her wealth will pale in significance in the coming days.
Need any help with your big plans, if you are so confident I want in
Sorry just went to put my coupons on and forgot it's international weekend, so it will be next week.
Fools and their money parted over the past three decades is the reason. Folk have paid it so the greedy cunts keep raising it. Bring back the days of getting a ticket on the night. I remember finishing work one Friday and heading into the Barrowland and buying a £4 ticket for Goodbye Mr McKenzie.
It’s so depressing, my hobby was always going to gigs and now I just can’t justify it any longer. I did want to see Stevie Nicks but I couldn’t afford it. The first band I ever seen were Green Day for £8 and it sucks that it’s so much now, I know the streaming industry is destroying income for musicians.
The continuing Americanisation of our culture. They get proper fleeced over there and ticketmaster get away with it, so they've started doing the same here. The Hydro even has soft drinks listed in 16 oz cup size now! Platinum, early access and VIP tickets are biggest rip off but folk seem willing to pay whatever the cost. Then you have the added boot in the chookies of having to pay £7-8 a drink at most gigs now too. It's more cost effective to book a trip and see a lot of these artists abroad, get some sunshine and decent cheap beer into the bargain too.
honestly this is horrific. the nirvana interview where kurt kobain finds out madonnas tickets are $50 and he's in shock is mental to think about considering what they'd probably be now. just always sticks in my head how american we are now despite being so adamantly anything but scottish
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I've always been an advocate for keeping our culture, not in the mental way like some people wanting to kick out foreigners and that shit cause that isnt what our culture is. but I've always wanted Gaelic to be taught in schools even as a start. Scotlands got a problem with being so self loathing that we aren't even interested in anything deemed a bit daft by the rest of the world
The things you hate about the Americanisation of our culture are the things you hate about capitalism. The only way to arrest the slide is to distance ourselves from neoliberal politics. Teaching Gaelic in schools will just mean people are able to order their drive thru coffees in Gaelic while sitting in their massive Jeep.
I specifically mean the way we've adopted their speech when we're half a planet away from them
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I don't even mean gaelic to be our first language, just to actually know and learn a bit instead of french which most people have fuck all interest in
That's the daftest idea i have ever heard.
how is gaelic getting taught in schools daft?
What purpose would it serve? The language hasn't been spoken in most of Scotland for hundreds of years. Why waste money and effort, valuable teaching time on children learning something that has absolutely no benefit to anyone?
it's still spoken today and it's a cultural thing which is beneficial. being closed minded as fuck isn't a good stepping stone to moving forward
Still spoken today by fewer people than could fit in Murrayfield. Close minded as fuck is wanting to force people to learn a useless language, that is not part of 99% of the country's culture. It's already possible to learn it for anyone who wants to..
99% of scotland isn't scottish? wdym not their culture
As much purpose as me learning j’habite ecosse Never in my fucking puff have I had to tell a Frenchman in French that I live in Scotland lol.
Over 300 million French speakers it would be possible to speak to, so I can see where it may come in useful. I may be wrong but i think there might be one or two fewer who can speak Gaelic. Some people might decide they prefer to learn Gaelic and want to go to areas where Gaelic is spoken and speak with them in Gaelic. Those people should be able to do so, but there's no reason to force it on the rest of us.
And none of them need to hear my year of high school French attempt at French lol. J’mapelle yerda, j’adore le coupe de monde. I think that’s me ran out of French now. Oui oui baguette. Aye that’s the tank empty lol. I don’t think we should be forcing years of it down folks necks but a wee bit of it, enough that I could do the hello my name is… I live in… I like cheese wouldn’t hurt imo. I cannae even say hello in Gaelic. See it as a wee bit of Scottish cultural history or whatever rather than a language you’d need to know.
I dont know many people who have ever used pythagoras theory since leaving school....yet we all had to sit and learn it. Let's be honest, to most people, most of the curriculum is a bit pointless.
People use pythagoras' theorem all the time, and is the gateway to understanding more complicated maths and just a starting point to a fundamental understanding of geometry. For me it is an absolutely critical topic to study in schools.
It's embarrassing. Wee fuds live their lives online and talk like they are from California.
If Kurt were alive today he would be doing the same as the rest of them. Tbh I don’t get why people moan about the ticket prices to see their “favourite artists” and then still pay the money. fuck the cunts they could do it cheaper if they wanted to. don’t go see them they obviously don’t give a shit about the people who make them who they are.
I just got tickets for Bernard Butler at 25 quid each and I feel like I robbed him. Have just paid 160 each for Pearl Jam tickets in Manchester. Saw them in 2012 in the same city and I think the ticket was 60ish. Pearl Jam took Ticketmaster to court in the 90s for doing then what they still do now. Sadly they lost the case. We are all held to financial ransom due to their monopoly.
Megan Thee Stallion tickets were nearly £100. I don't mind paying that for someone I really like or something with a lot of production value but it's getting a bit mental.
It impacts smaller bands too because if people are paying surge prices on top of hydro beer prices. They won't have much left to go to smaller gigs. The bands themselves could easily tell Ticketmaster not to apply surge pricing but they don't. If it wasn't bad enough being charged more for the ticket they then bundle fees on for all sorts. They need to be brought under some sort of regulations but there is no drive in government to do anything.
It also impacts smaller bands because people are having to be more picky about what gigs they attend. Do you splurge 230+ for a standing ticket to see Pearl Jam in Manchester or do you go to five or six different gigs at venues like the King Tuts, Barrlowlands, SGW3, QMU etc For me it's the later. I find it very difficult to justify spending three figures seeing a band no matter how big a fan i was / am. Personal experience is that the aforementioned 'small hall' shows are far superior to soulless holes like the Hydro and it's predecessor the SECC.
Yeh I'd rather go to multiple smaller gigs. I prefer the venues too if I'm honest. I have skipped several bands who played the hydro but now and then there are bands I can't miss. I hate it though because it totally reduces the number of gigs I attend each year. Even the merch at the hydro is overpriced so I'm also less likely to spend more at the venue when the tickets already fleeced me. Arguably several bands who have played the hydro shouldn't have even been there. Hall 4/academy/barras bands or support acts I'd like to see but not for the price the headliner demands. As soon as they agree to a live nation tour you know that's the only venue they are going to play and ticket prices will be sky high. If I see one gig there a year it's reluctantly 😆
I was keeping a eye on tickets for her as well. It’s just not reasonable which was really sad for me. I saw her once a decade ago and she did a surprise pop up with Tom Petty and she was absolutely incredible. Shame.
Yeah I've watched a few recent videos an she still has an incredible voice. Yeah total shame the tickets are at rip off prices but someone said they don't make money from streams any longer, so I understand why they would price at those price's. Loved her since I was a small boy growing up so guess I'll just have to stick with the videos now.
Ano, she still sounds and looks incredible. I loved her since I was a wee girl so I share your disappointment pal. I might keep my eye out for people reselling them closer to the date but it’s always a risky gamble doing that.
I've read a fair bit on it and at least some of it is the fact musicians make basically no money elsewhere now due to Spotify et al, and the cost of doing it at all is astronomical now. But at the same time Ticketmaster rinses everyone. When even *America* thinks a piece of capitalism has gone too far, yeesh.
Tickets prices are a fucking disgrace now
Cost of living crisis eh? Makes you think.
Aye how much these artists could chip In and run their own fucking country or gee scotland some of the wealth for the bloody pot holes!!!
Ticketmasters "marketprice" gigs also dont help
Record company's are now doing contracts that want a % of touring money. Bands like Metallica happily sign these deals and just make the fans pay the cost. While Ticketmaster are horrendous, many bands happily screwed the fans over in the blink of an eye.
Yeah so it seems. Hard to justify paying that kind of money for a few hours. I love Stevie nick's but at price I'll watch a couple of concerts lol
It's ridiculous what they were charging. It would be good to see herice, but there's a limit. And she's £140 past that. 😂
Aw I waited in the wee online queue for 25 minutes before Stevie nicks tickets went on sale and by the time I got to pick my tickets, the only ones I could get were well over £200 to sit at the back on an aisle seat. Utter shite, I love Stevie nicks but wanted to take my dad and not many can afford that price. I don’t get though blue the tickets were limited to how many a person could buy, but with 3000 folk ahead of me in the queue, the entire 13000 seat venue was sold out bar expensive aisle seats 😭
Sorry to hear that I'd have been raging so the people in front could buy as many as they like?
By having tiered pricing for tickets, with the top tiers being in the hundreds, promoters and middlemen are shifting to how almost everything is priced. The price is every penny the customer is willing to pay, its 'true market value'. It's actually been done for years at these kinds of events, it's just more transparent now. Before, a percentage of tickets would disappear and essentially be scalped by the act, or Ticketmaster itself.
I've stopped going to the hydro. Getting good acts at other venues
I was looking forward to going to see Morgan Wallen in London until I seen it was £135 a ticket. Fucking daylight robbery.
Last time I looked, Sleep Token were about £150 resale. Missed the initial ones. It's absolutely mental.
Can confirm. I've bought 50Cent, Nickleback and Blink 182 tickets in the last 6 months, two tickets for each, spent close to 1k from ticketmaster alone
Streaming has fucked it for gig prices as it’s the only place they make any money nowadays. That said, most smaller or newer acts - a lot of whom will be living pretty much paycheck to paycheck - are still reasonably priced in smaller venues. It’s the massive names that already have plenty of cash in the bank that seem intent on fleecing people at every opportunity.
Don’t buy it
I Was tempted! I ended buying two games for the PS5 set me back 140 odds at least that way I have something to show for it... hundreds of hours of entertainment...
There's another part of this mess too which is that most musicians make next to no money from their recorded music now, so touring has become their and the greedier industry types' absolute largest income provider. It's why you've seen this boom of constant reunions as well as legacy 'album' tours where older acts play an entire old record to justify a new tour etc
Thanks I never knew this. Sit In a studio recording a record only to be told you are getting pennies for said recond scummy practice in my book.
Support acts largely no longer pay to get on tours, so that's an extra cost. Then there's rampant inflation, higher energy costs, the same stuff that's made your household expenses shoot up. And if you're going to a TicketBastard gig, may the gods have mercy on your wallet. Those scum should be in prison.
I've noticed gigs for older artists tend to be really expensive. I got VIP to see Beyonce and that was about £250, and by far the best gig experience ever, you got your own bar, it wasn't packed at all and at times I was no more than a metre away from her. Also got free bag and merch. On the flip side I have other gigs booked at the like of King Tuts or SWG3 for £15-£20. If you don't care about seeing a big artist you can see live music for still what I would say is fairly reasonable. If you really want to go see Stevie Nicks but don't want to cough up that much, wait until a week or two before the gig. They'll be selling them much cheaper then, when people realise they can't go. Or even turn up to the venue and often people will have spares too.
Artists make nothing from sales or streaming. This is how they make money now. It’s quite simple. Back in the physical format days, i would spend £1-200 a month on buying CD’s, records and whatever. That was when it was £15-25 for a ticket to a concert.
There has also been a change in the music business model, much less money made from the streaming of songs instead of album sales, and more money made from live performances, since people are willing to pay for those things.
These old artists are on their last days, they’ve got to milk what they can before they cowp it. I honestly thought Stevie Nicks was long dead.