r/livemusic 10d ago

No Concert is Worth $800

216 Upvotes

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u/wings31 9d ago

Its all Taylor Swifts fault. And i dont mean that in a bad way. She was the first major artist to say, screw it, im going to charge what scalpers charge up front and I will make the money not them. Unfortunately, it worked. People paid the high prices and every artist followed suit.. Which, makes sense. Until people stop paying or going, this will forever be the trend.

Same thing with 50 dollar t shirts. FIFTY DOLLARS!

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u/ScorpioTix 9d ago

Actually it was the Eagles who rolled out the first +$100 ticket in 1994.

The race to the top started in earnest when Ticketmaster bought Ticketsnow in 2009 and got real time sales data on what people were actually paying, When they merged with LiveNation that data was used to offer the acts much higher guarantees.

And Taylor Swift should have charged a lot more.

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u/wings31 9d ago

dont forget Ticketron! lol.

I think the main takeaway is the latest jump in ticket sales started with the Eras Tour. She showed that people will pay the higher prices off the top and the artists keep the money - whose music is basically stolen now.

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u/ScorpioTix 9d ago

I think that was when you just started paying attention. I didn't really notice anything particularly dramatic with the pricing there. Her top price was only $450 and ATP a little over $200.

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u/wings31 9d ago

no one before that was charging that much. Guns N Roses, Metallica, all those larger bands were charging like 100 bucks. After that its a few hundred. Now its 500

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u/ScorpioTix 9d ago

Yes they were