If one assume that elder people earn more than young people, or that the marginal effort to get 1 Euro is more demanding for the latter than for the firsts,I took the example I know best, i.e. Stade de France - Paris


Paris - Stade de France ( 80,000 )
FY 2005 - 2006


Audience Audience FOS Weighted Rank
Average Price FOS Price
Age Euros Euros



a) Stones 80,000 45 91 91 3)

b) Macca 80,000 45 80 80 4)

c) U2 160,000 30 70 120 1)

d) Coldplay* 17,000 20 52 117 1)

Disposable income for us babyboomers with kids, mortgage etc means that it can be very difficult to justify paying big bucks for any band.

I was checking out the price I paid for FOS at Hampden in 1990......£20(with no fees!)

This time around £174 (with fees that can`t be avoided)

Are you sure 91 Euros is the top price?

It's 150 punds in UK.

I don't know about Europe but,in the U.S.,the Stones are charging the most by far.Look at the seating chart for the T.D. Banknorth Garden.Club section 111 is up for $450 + charges.It is second deck seating half of the way down the venue.This is (or was up until now) unheard of.

I took the FOS gold price for every band. For the Stones, you can check on Ticketnet.fr . Re-"Pelouse OR"

The problem with quoting FOS prices is that sometimes this figure covers a small section with the majority of tickets being more reasonable.

In the case I quoted above as I recall EVERY ticket in 1990 was £20

This time we are talking £75 to £175 (inc fees)

I realise we can get into the arithmetic/statistics but a better comparator would be the mean price or the modal price.....

I thought about this but I do not have on hand the number of tickets per each category. But do not think it will change the scorecard. For France anyway.

I know ......I`m guilty of taking this price thing too seriously!

Not to mention the Cream Reunion tickets... weren't they up in the 400's and more ?

"It's just that demon life has got me in it's sway..."

The Cream reunion tickets were certainly very expensive, I'm not sure of the top price. I personally know someone who paid $1,000 to see McCartney in St. Petersburg a couple of years ago. Madonna certainly ain't cheap either and £60/$100 for a programme is extortionate by any standards!

With regard to ridiculous merchandise prices I simply don't buy any and there's always an unofficial t-shirt to buy at a reasonable price if I really want one.

With regard to ticket prices I can understand the pissed off people posting here and it certainly makes it very expensive to go to a number of shows on one tour. But on the other hand it really IS supply and demand - I don't think that's just a cliche. I can't judge their market all over Europe but they will sell out all the UK gigs I'm sure. So if the tickets were half the price they'd have to do twice the number of shows or have a very high number of dissapointed people.

At the end of the day people pay vast sums for events like the Olympics and World Cup. A Stones show also only comes around every few years and is a brand leader in its market in the same way. I don't like using this business terminology but it's not the 1960s anymore and this is the reality.

To lighten up for a moment, what about the video/DVD of the Hyde Park concert? Just watch Mick of 1969 telling us they might as well play for free cos there's no money to be made touring! Well, how times have changed!!