Quote
Dan

Quote
NashvilleBlues
How well would tickets sell now if they never broke up and toured the US and Europe consistently? Do they really have the following to maintain big yearly tours, or is the excitement mainly due to the fact they had broken up for a long period of time?

(I’m 45 and clearly remember their peak in the 90s)

They were always a stadium act in England.

Otherwise amphitheatre tour every other year with Third Eye Blind or whatever.

Once they started doing stadia regularly, from about the year 2000 onwards, getting tickets was easy and cheap. While the venues were well filled, the weren't absolutely full and late cheap tickets were very easy to score. Other than one offs, their natural habitat for performing live was arenas in their early years.

Bob Lefsetz offers his take:

The Oasis Kerfuffle

We don’t have a band like this in the U.S. Never mind an act that’s left money on the table, who live outside the system and sneer at it.

Noel Gallagher is an incredible quote machine. He is almost single-handedly carrying on the rock star ethos.

And if you’re in the U.K., this is all anybody wants to talk about. It’s palpable. Bigger than Taylor Swift. They’re BACK!

And if you were around back then you need to go to relive the experience.

And even if you weren’t born yet, you need to be there, you don’t want to be left out.

But not everybody can go.

So, what is a ticket worth?

The truth is the fans don’t want low prices. Because in that case, they won’t be able to get a ticket. When the prices are high, your odds are better.

I know that sounds counterintuitive, but work with me here.

All the tickets are going to evaporate as quickly as Ticketmaster can spew them out, and only Ticketmaster can handle this level of demand. And everybody is buying the maximum, and demand outstrips supply, and chances are you’re going to be SOL.

But if every ticket is a grand… They’re not going to fill the stadium instantly.

So what’s a ticket worth?

WHAT SOMEONE WILL PAY FOR IT!

And the bottom line, no matter what the punters and the government believe, if you don’t sell the tickets at fair market value, the scalpers will. And the scalpers will get the entire uplift, and the band will be SOL.

So, the bands want to capture this uplift…

They’re afraid of looking bad, charging too much, which is ridiculous, because look at how much these same customers are paying for luxury goods and…

Liam and Noel said they had no idea that prices would be flexed, raised according to demand.

Oh, give me a f*cking break.

There you have it in a nutshell folks. The acts hide behind Ticketmaster, that’s what the company is paid for. Ticketmaster makes no music, it’s inert, and therefore it can accept all the blame.

But the bottom line is Ticketmaster does nothing that the band does not agree to. NOTHING!

And if you tell me your manager and agent did it behind your back… A. I don’t believe you. B. You’re doing the tour for the money and you’ve got no idea what’s on the table, how much you can take home?

As for caring about the fans… The fans are going to come anyway.

So what’s the fair market value of an Oasis ticket?

NO ONE KNOWS!

Which is why they flex the price. When they encounter the demand.

Now you could keep the price low, and make every ducat paperless, but the customer HATES THIS! The customer wants to be able to scalp the extra tickets they’ve purchased.

As for the customer waiting hours online only to find the price has changed…

The reason they spend hours online is because Oasis wants to put up all the shows at once, to create mania. Everybody’s hyped up, word is you can’t get a ticket, and everybody races to buy one. But if there’s one stadium show and it doesn’t sell out instantly… Good luck selling the tickets to the rest of the gigs instantly, if at all.

So if you think Liam and Noel have clean hands…

This is the problem, the public just won’t believe that the acts are greedy. It must be someone else!

And you pay fair market value for everything else, why not for concert tickets?

As for waiting for hours… That’s your choice. As far as the price changing… YOU DON’T HAVE TO BUY THE TICKETS!

And if you want to blame anyone for the price change, blame the Oasis boys, they’re doing it, Ticketmaster is only the order taker.

So look at it this way. You put an ad on Craigslist offering your car for $5,000. And two people arrive at your house. One offers $10,000, the other says they got there one minute before, while you were still in your house, and you must sell them the automobile for $5,000. Watcha gonna do?

I know what you’re gonna do.

The only way out of this mess is to do what the Stones do, charge what the tickets are worth, and then they don’t sell out instantly. How badly do you want to go, are you willing to pay for it?

And you may not be, but there’s a good chance someone else will.

But you think you’re entitled to a deal, because…

Exactly why? Turns out the tickets were underpriced, the price was raised and you want an exceptional deal. Why should you benefit and not the act you love so much?

Oh, let’s just blame the ticketing company and go home.

And this is exactly what Ticketmaster is paid for.

And even the government can’t understand.

NEXT!

[lefsetz.com]

Just read that Definitely Maybe is #1 in Britain after 30 years! Greatest Hits and What's the Story are in top 5.

“The truth about Ticketmaster’s Platinum (‘in demand’) gig tickets — and who REALLY sets the prices”

Superb, detailed and illuminating article shedding light on what’s going on. Must-read IMHO.

[medium.com]

Quote
RisingStone
“The truth about Ticketmaster’s Platinum (‘in demand’) gig tickets — and who REALLY sets the prices”

Superb, detailed and illuminating article shedding light on what’s going on. Must-read IMHO.

[medium.com]

interesting article

“Oasis, so-called ‘dynamic pricing’ and how Ticketmaster’s two-tier ticketing system ACTUALLY works”

A follow-up to the above article by the same author, Warren Chrismas.

[medium.com]

Ticketmaster always sucked. Pearl Jam tried to warn people of that and no one cared or joined them in their crusade. Then everyone started scalping tickets to high heavens, meaning the artists were really getting the raw end of that deal. Damned if they charged that much, out a ton of money when consumers sell their tickets. Eventually, they figured "what the hell", started charging sadly what people will pay (I've never really been in favor of fans spending $500 and more to see the Rolling Stones as they age), and TM takes the hit because, I mean really it won't affect them anyway.

Our society created this system. Glad I saw people while I could afford it, or more appropriately could stomach paying what I thought they were actually worth. I don't look forward to when my child wants to see the next Taylor Swift level act. I'll have to mortgage my house.

I saw them in July 95, March 96 & twice in Aug 96, Second of those Aug shows I got a ticket for £15, £7.50 under asking price… Bit of a difference from todays prices!!

I think I’ll give this a miss unless it lands on my door at a reasonable price. That was a great era to live through and seeing them live then, as those singles and albums were being released just cannot be replicated. I don’t expect it to be but for myself it couldn’t match seeing them then. The Liam Gallagher DM30 tour I would love to have seen though.

(I wouldn’t be surprised at all however that IF the Toronto date is confirmed I find myself looking at flights and tickets )

Quote
Paddy
I saw them in July 95, March 96 & twice in Aug 96, Second of those Aug shows I got a ticket for £15, £7.50 under asking price… Bit of a difference from todays prices!!

I think I’ll give this a miss unless it lands on my door at a reasonable price. That was a great era to live through and seeing them live then, as those singles and albums were being released just cannot be replicated. I don’t expect it to be but for myself it couldn’t match seeing them then. The Liam Gallagher DM30 tour I would love to have seen though.

(I wouldn’t be surprised at all however that IF the Toronto date is confirmed I find myself looking at flights and tickets )

Yep! You caught them at their peak, Paddy. I only saw them the one time: Wembley Stadium, 2009; the very fag-end of their career; until next year, of course! It was a still a monumental and utterly unforgettable experience, though; with the entire audience bouncing for 2-hours straight. A plastic pint glass in one hand; lit ciggie in the other. I 'hope' it'll be a similar type of audience participation next year, but with smartphones, who knows.

Quote
Big Al

Quote
Paddy
I saw them in July 95, March 96 & twice in Aug 96, Second of those Aug shows I got a ticket for £15, £7.50 under asking price… Bit of a difference from todays prices!!

I think I’ll give this a miss unless it lands on my door at a reasonable price. That was a great era to live through and seeing them live then, as those singles and albums were being released just cannot be replicated. I don’t expect it to be but for myself it couldn’t match seeing them then. The Liam Gallagher DM30 tour I would love to have seen though.

(I wouldn’t be surprised at all however that IF the Toronto date is confirmed I find myself looking at flights and tickets )

Yep! You caught them at their peak, Paddy. I only saw them the one time: Wembley Stadium, 2009; the very fag-end of their career; until next year, of course! It was a still a monumental and utterly unforgettable experience, though; with the entire audience bouncing for 2-hours straight. A plastic pint glass in one hand; lit ciggie in the other. I 'hope' it'll be a similar type of audience participation next year, but with smartphones, who knows.

"Until next year, of course" ???
I always thought of you as a Rolling Stones fan ( fan is too modest here).
Next year they will almost be at your doorstep. Don't tell me you would prefer fake Oasis??? Noël is a respectabele guitarist, but his brother??? Nooo ...



I'm a GHOST living in a ghost town

Oasis refutes rumors in The Sun



[x.com]

UNCUT 333 ------ October 2024



ROCKMAN

Quote
bye bye johnny
Bob Lefsetz offers his take:

The Oasis Kerfuffle

We don’t have a band like this in the U.S. Never mind an act that’s left money on the table, who live outside the system and sneer at it.

Noel Gallagher is an incredible quote machine. He is almost single-handedly carrying on the rock star ethos.

And if you’re in the U.K., this is all anybody wants to talk about. It’s palpable. Bigger than Taylor Swift. They’re BACK!

And if you were around back then you need to go to relive the experience.

And even if you weren’t born yet, you need to be there, you don’t want to be left out.

But not everybody can go.

So, what is a ticket worth?

The truth is the fans don’t want low prices. Because in that case, they won’t be able to get a ticket. When the prices are high, your odds are better.

I know that sounds counterintuitive, but work with me here.

All the tickets are going to evaporate as quickly as Ticketmaster can spew them out, and only Ticketmaster can handle this level of demand. And everybody is buying the maximum, and demand outstrips supply, and chances are you’re going to be SOL.

But if every ticket is a grand… They’re not going to fill the stadium instantly.

So what’s a ticket worth?

WHAT SOMEONE WILL PAY FOR IT!

And the bottom line, no matter what the punters and the government believe, if you don’t sell the tickets at fair market value, the scalpers will. And the scalpers will get the entire uplift, and the band will be SOL.

So, the bands want to capture this uplift…

They’re afraid of looking bad, charging too much, which is ridiculous, because look at how much these same customers are paying for luxury goods and…

Liam and Noel said they had no idea that prices would be flexed, raised according to demand.

Oh, give me a f*cking break.

There you have it in a nutshell folks. The acts hide behind Ticketmaster, that’s what the company is paid for. Ticketmaster makes no music, it’s inert, and therefore it can accept all the blame.

But the bottom line is Ticketmaster does nothing that the band does not agree to. NOTHING!

And if you tell me your manager and agent did it behind your back… A. I don’t believe you. B. You’re doing the tour for the money and you’ve got no idea what’s on the table, how much you can take home?

As for caring about the fans… The fans are going to come anyway.

So what’s the fair market value of an Oasis ticket?

NO ONE KNOWS!

Which is why they flex the price. When they encounter the demand.

Now you could keep the price low, and make every ducat paperless, but the customer HATES THIS! The customer wants to be able to scalp the extra tickets they’ve purchased.

As for the customer waiting hours online only to find the price has changed…

The reason they spend hours online is because Oasis wants to put up all the shows at once, to create mania. Everybody’s hyped up, word is you can’t get a ticket, and everybody races to buy one. But if there’s one stadium show and it doesn’t sell out instantly… Good luck selling the tickets to the rest of the gigs instantly, if at all.

So if you think Liam and Noel have clean hands…

This is the problem, the public just won’t believe that the acts are greedy. It must be someone else!

And you pay fair market value for everything else, why not for concert tickets?

As for waiting for hours… That’s your choice. As far as the price changing… YOU DON’T HAVE TO BUY THE TICKETS!

And if you want to blame anyone for the price change, blame the Oasis boys, they’re doing it, Ticketmaster is only the order taker.

So look at it this way. You put an ad on Craigslist offering your car for $5,000. And two people arrive at your house. One offers $10,000, the other says they got there one minute before, while you were still in your house, and you must sell them the automobile for $5,000. Watcha gonna do?

I know what you’re gonna do.

The only way out of this mess is to do what the Stones do, charge what the tickets are worth, and then they don’t sell out instantly. How badly do you want to go, are you willing to pay for it?

And you may not be, but there’s a good chance someone else will.

But you think you’re entitled to a deal, because…

Exactly why? Turns out the tickets were underpriced, the price was raised and you want an exceptional deal. Why should you benefit and not the act you love so much?

Oh, let’s just blame the ticketing company and go home.

And this is exactly what Ticketmaster is paid for.

And even the government can’t understand.

NEXT!

[lefsetz.com]

The fair price of a ticket is a price that the typical fan can afford whilst allowing the artists and promoter to make a reasonable and worthwhile profit.

Nobody can argue that the current sate of play with ticketing is in any way "fair".

But unless governments legislate against it...nothing will change.

Artists can't or won't help

Their standard response , as with Oasis, is "...nothing to do with me mate"

“Artists can't or won't help”

The Stones have “helped” us for a long number of years with Lucky Dips. I think if the artist cared they could do something similar.

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Paddy
“Artists can't or won't help”

The Stones have “helped” us for a long number of years with Lucky Dips. I think if the artist cared they could do something similar.

A small amount of tickets to these shows are held as "Lucky Dip", many being bad seats anyway, and thats considered helpful? They're the only affordable tickets in the venue, and it helps move crappy seats lol. I give them credit, its quite literally better than nothing (again, largely because no other tickets are under $100, so its for appearance more than anything). But to use it as a model of anything other than a gimmick I would say is pretty weak. The three times I've done it I'm like "yup, they gave me seats I wouldn't choose to pay this much for", but you gotta love a good lottery. They're no more benevolent as I am a fool.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2024-09-12 23:53 by RollingFreak.

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RollingFreak

Quote
Paddy
“Artists can't or won't help”

The Stones have “helped” us for a long number of years with Lucky Dips. I think if the artist cared they could do something similar.

A small amount of tickets to these shows are held as "Lucky Dip", many being bad seats anyway, and thats considered helpful? They're the only affordable tickets in the venue, and it helps move crappy seats lol. I give them credit, its quite literally better than nothing (again, largely because no other tickets are under $100, so its for appearance more than anything). But to use it as a model of anything other than a gimmick I would say is pretty weak. The three times I've done it I'm like "yup, they gave me seats I wouldn't choose to pay this much for", but you gotta love a good lottery. They're no more benevolent as I am a fool.

It’s not ideal but at least it’s something. Reality is for a lot of folks that they just can’t afford a better seat or full price tickets. So having even a small amount of tickets at an affordable cost is like you say better than nothing at all. It shows the artists can go something and some do. I’ve gotten PIT tickets in the draw before so it’s not just the crap seats.

Quote
Spud
The fair price of a ticket is a price that the typical fan can afford whilst allowing the artists and promoter to make a reasonable and worthwhile profit.

Nobody can argue that the current sate of play with ticketing is in any way "fair".

But unless governments legislate against it...nothing will change.

Artists can't or won't help

Their standard response , as with Oasis, is "...nothing to do with me mate"

Governments should legislate how much a band is allowed to make on tour?

Who says this is supposed to be fair?

And as far as what a typical fan can afford - how about this - Oasis tickets aren't meant for people who can't afford Oasis tickets.

Quote
Dan
[...]
And as far as what a typical fan can afford - how about this - Oasis tickets aren't meant for people who can't afford Oasis tickets.

Which is a nice summary of why this whole Oasis act of "being from the the working class, just one with the lads" is just a load of ... nonsense.

What would help is to make it illegal for "secondary" ticketing agents to buy tickets which have not as yet been sold to an individual customer.


They should simply not be allowed to buy the tickets made available to the public by the promoter/venue via official channels.

To be fair to Oasis and their promoters, the original price of the tickets when first made available was, by today's standards, half reasonable ...

...It's the nonsenses which followed that needs to be stopped !



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2024-09-13 09:58 by Spud.

Dan —

Over the years, having read your posts concerning the price hike of concert tickets in these times and your generally defending, even supporting stance on the musicians/management/agencies/promoters/ticket companies, whatever, price-gauging or profiteering (dynamic pricing being part of it), I sometimes cannot help but wonder if you are connected to or even belong to the exploiting side of the business, rather than the consumers’ side.

Am I reading too much or missing something?
Sorry if my guesswork is off the mark.

Fairness is not part of a market economy. It's very simple - supply and demand decide the prices. If they can charge 500 dollar a ticket they won't charge 100 dollar because some people think that is fair.
I don't get this - most people vote liberal (that is the true sense of the word not other interpretations) still they think the government will act and set the prices to a level considered fair.
Where is the the logic in that?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2024-09-13 15:15 by Stoneage.

Quote
RisingStone
Dan —

Over the years, having read your posts concerning the price hike of concert tickets in these times and your generally defending, even supporting stance on the musicians/management/agencies/promoters/ticket companies, whatever, price-gauging or profiteering (dynamic pricing being part of it), I sometimes cannot help but wonder if you are connected to or even belong to the exploiting side of the business, rather than the consumers’ side.

Am I reading too much or missing something?
Sorry if my guesswork is off the mark.

Sorry, this isn't addressed to me but I'm taking the bait.

I don't like high prices for tickets. But when you say "price gauging", that is normally something I'd consider an appropriate term used for unscrupulous sellers that say, jack the price of food, water or gas during an emergency, taking advantage of people when they have no other choice for a need. And there are laws against that.

A $5000 ticket to a Taylor Swift show is a luxury item and is dictated by supply and demand. Price controls aren't going to work in this situation because the black market invariably pops up because people are willing to pay excessive prices for a ticket, rather than wait in a lineup around the block for the ticket office to open, or spend 3 hours on the phone trying to get through, or wait in the online "room" for the queue to eventually land on you.

I think the controls around ticketing should exist around fees that Ticketmaster takes...this is a monopoly in most respects and little competition to have them act in their customers best interests.

Musicians can't even make money on their creative works anymore because we just stream everything. In that respect, price controls on an artist's tickets could even be immoral in some respects.

Quote
treaclefingers


...Musicians can't even make money on their creative works anymore because we just stream everything. In that respect, price controls on an artist's tickets could even be immoral in some respects.

Totally agree with that treacle ...but "dynamic pricing" doubling the price of tickets whilst folks are actually waiting in the queue to buy them is perhaps equally immoral.

Liam Gallagher wants ‘established acts’ to support Oasis on their reunion tour

Exclusive: Band are planning to find time to discuss who they want to join them on tour next year

Roisin O'Connor
12 Sep 2024

[www.the-independent.com]

--

Liam Gallagher in spat with Fontaines DC after Oasis reunion comments

Irish rock band’s guitarist said he ‘couldn’t really give a s***’ about the reunion

Roisin O'Connor
13 Sep 2024

[www.the-independent.com]

Quote
RisingStone
Dan —

Over the years, having read your posts concerning the price hike of concert tickets in these times and your generally defending, even supporting stance on the musicians/management/agencies/promoters/ticket companies, whatever, price-gauging or profiteering (dynamic pricing being part of it), I sometimes cannot help but wonder if you are connected to or even belong to the exploiting side of the business, rather than the consumers’ side.

Am I reading too much or missing something?
Sorry if my guesswork is off the mark.

I am am American who believes in freedom.

I have flipped tickets in the past. I am of the belief if I buy a ticket, it's mine to do whatever I want with.

Nowadays I am strictly a consumer, my recent Missouri adventure aside. An educated one at that and an education that wasn't free.

But my feelings on the matter really predate that. I also go to a massive amount of events, now ONLY buying last minute and secondary market. 2007-ish to 2014 I was pretty financially strapped so I could only afford "scalper" tickets. All this means is I missed Taylor Swift but not much else.

So instead of whining about the system and demanding someone step in and "do something," I merely use it to my advantage. Any ticket bought intending to flip at a profit is also at risk of being sold at a loss. This summer there were so many $5-20 concerts that even I kinda tired of the thrill of grabbing a bargain and going just for the hell of it.

Of course I don't know @#$%& all about buying a house or a car or a lot of other things that it really benefits you to know what you are doing. Now I wouldn't mind a bit of government invtervention in that realm considering I no longer qualify for housing at all.

But I am more of the belief stated below that these are luxury items and entertainment. In Los Angeles there are gobs of free concerts, many poorly attended. So no one here is being denied entertainment even if they can't get Taylor Swift tickets.

Your love of a band, even the Rolling Stones, doesn't confer any sort of exceptionalism on you requiring government intervention to insure you can worship at the altar. Only 2 million tickets available for a show that 10 million want to see is not going to be fair in any way whatsoever.

Quote
treaclefingers

Quote
RisingStone
Dan —

Over the years, having read your posts concerning the price hike of concert tickets in these times and your generally defending, even supporting stance on the musicians/management/agencies/promoters/ticket companies, whatever, price-gauging or profiteering (dynamic pricing being part of it), I sometimes cannot help but wonder if you are connected to or even belong to the exploiting side of the business, rather than the consumers’ side.

Am I reading too much or missing something?
Sorry if my guesswork is off the mark.

Sorry, this isn't addressed to me but I'm taking the bait.

I don't like high prices for tickets. But when you say "price gauging", that is normally something I'd consider an appropriate term used for unscrupulous sellers that say, jack the price of food, water or gas during an emergency, taking advantage of people when they have no other choice for a need. And there are laws against that.

A $5000 ticket to a Taylor Swift show is a luxury item and is dictated by supply and demand. Price controls aren't going to work in this situation because the black market invariably pops up because people are willing to pay excessive prices for a ticket, rather than wait in a lineup around the block for the ticket office to open, or spend 3 hours on the phone trying to get through, or wait in the online "room" for the queue to eventually land on you.

I think the controls around ticketing should exist around fees that Ticketmaster takes...this is a monopoly in most respects and little competition to have them act in their customers best interests.

Musicians can't even make money on their creative works anymore because we just stream everything. In that respect, price controls on an artist's tickets could even be immoral in some respects.

The whole thing about fees has been explained ad nauseam but it's not an issue in California anymore because we no longer see them. Problem solved. And remember, Ticketmaster's actual clients are Rolling Stones and SoFi Stadium and you are their customers.

Quote
Dan

Quote
RisingStone
Dan —

Over the years, having read your posts concerning the price hike of concert tickets in these times and your generally defending, even supporting stance on the musicians/management/agencies/promoters/ticket companies, whatever, price-gauging or profiteering (dynamic pricing being part of it), I sometimes cannot help but wonder if you are connected to or even belong to the exploiting side of the business, rather than the consumers’ side.

Am I reading too much or missing something?
Sorry if my guesswork is off the mark.

I am am American who believes in freedom.

I have flipped tickets in the past. I am of the belief if I buy a ticket, it's mine to do whatever I want with.

Nowadays I am strictly a consumer, my recent Missouri adventure aside. An educated one at that and an education that wasn't free.

But my feelings on the matter really predate that. I also go to a massive amount of events, now ONLY buying last minute and secondary market. 2007-ish to 2014 I was pretty financially strapped so I could only afford "scalper" tickets. All this means is I missed Taylor Swift but not much else.

So instead of whining about the system and demanding someone step in and "do something," I merely use it to my advantage. Any ticket bought intending to flip at a profit is also at risk of being sold at a loss. This summer there were so many $5-20 concerts that even I kinda tired of the thrill of grabbing a bargain and going just for the hell of it.

Of course I don't know @#$%& all about buying a house or a car or a lot of other things that it really benefits you to know what you are doing. Now I wouldn't mind a bit of government invtervention in that realm considering I no longer qualify for housing at all.

But I am more of the belief stated below that these are luxury items and entertainment. In Los Angeles there are gobs of free concerts, many poorly attended. So no one here is being denied entertainment even if they can't get Taylor Swift tickets.

Your love of a band, even the Rolling Stones, doesn't confer any sort of exceptionalism on you requiring government intervention to insure you can worship at the altar. Only 2 million tickets available for a show that 10 million want to see is not going to be fair in any way whatsoever.

Thank you for a rational answer. I see there is a certain logic there although I don’t agree with all of the points you made, let alone like them.

I have never traded a ticket above face value, selling or buying.

Quote
RisingStone


Thank you for a rational answer. I see there is a certain logic there although I don’t agree with all of the points you made, let alone like them.

I have never traded a ticket above face value, selling or buying.

Hopefully you never paid below face either.

Unless you are old, like most of us, face value doesn't really mean anything anymore.

Also if you sell an in demand ticket to someone below market value you are basically gifting them that uplift. I mean it's different with friends and stuff of course.

The referred to "Missouri adventure" by the way involved selling tickets for way below face value even if the price I paid was far less but anyone could have done the work and waded thru the shit and found the bargains themselves.


ps I've sold plenty of tickets for below face value too



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2024-09-13 21:01 by Dan.

I'd genuinely be curious if there was a way to fix the system, just to tweak it so that there's a new "normal". You can't stop bands from charging a lot to see them, nor honestly should you. Yes, the norm was set by the Eagles and the Stones but the concert business changed and, as many mentioned, artists don't make money off their music anymore so I get why it meant higher ticket prices. I feel there's 4 tentpoles that either need to be addressed or acknowledged with the concert business today:

1. It should be fair for everyone. That's probably the only bit of "fairness" I would put into the system, but the whole Verified Fan and other things Ticketmaster does and scalper impede on... that should be stopped. If 10 million people want 2 million available Taylor Swift tickets, everyone is NOT going to be able to get in. But to gate it off so only certain people even got the code to access I disagree with. I don't know how to do it better than the clusterfuck that just happens on TM for an onsale if everyone is let in at once, but that meant everyone had the same shot at tickets as everyone else and that was better than not even being given the opportunity, IMO.

2. There shouldn't be dynamic prices. You set the prices and you don't upsell as the tickets are onsale to cause panic buys. If you want to set tickets for $800, do that, but don't have them start at $500 then 10 minutes later that ticket is $800 due to "demand". You can generally expect demands for people these days. If you wanna sell it for $800, do it from the start. How you deal with lowering later to move unsold inventory? Yeah, I don't know. I wanna say thats just bad luck for those that bought onsale and didn't know better but maybe thats not the answer. Either way, the dynamic pricing should go.

3. Artists should charge what they want and stand by that price. They need to own what their ticket is worth and not bitch about it or punt the blame elsewhere like Ticketmaster. They control their worth, TM is going to sell them and tack on a fee. Taylor Swift or anyone shouldn't be FORCED to charge say $250 a ticket if she is much more in demand than that. If she does that, those tickets will be bought and sold for much higher prices online. And if thats the case, Taylor deserves to sell them for that amount from the start. And she shouldn't feel bad about it. They're expensive, but thats supply and demand. Unless you want to lose money as a big time artist, they should charge what they want and have to acknowledge "yes, those $500 platinum seats" I signed off on, not say "we had no idea this was being done."

4. You gotta fix the secondary market and the bots. The robotic buying of tickets solely to scalp them needs to end. There is always going to need to be an outlet for people to sell tickets they can no longer use, you can't force someone that bought a ticket to go to a show. There are extenuating circumstances, and they should be able to sell tickets if they need to. But thats very different than a scalper market that is just there to make money for themselves at the expense of others and the band. Figuring that out is easier said than done, but the bots should end and the ability for people to just gather up a bunch of tickets and try to make money off them is wrong/unnecessary. If that's your livelihood, get another job, but I just don't see how that helps. Either ticketmaster should incorporate a better way of doing that than they have now where you can sell things for face or less, and they add whatever fee they have to, or you regulate how the scalper market currently is. I don't know if paperless tickets being specific to your account is the answer, cause again you'll always have less minute cancellations, but it does feel you can cap the limit on the scalping of things.

I'm sure thats all very wishful thinking but it doesn't seem like it couldn't happen. The top half needs to own what things cost these days and they need to regulate and fix the rest that's just gotten so out of control. Tickets to see the Rolling Stones sadly won't be $5 anymore, thats no longer the business, but they could fix the growing problems there are and set that new standard which is long overdue.

One thing to address to here, even if you are using the terms bots and brokers interchangeably is that, in the US bots have been illegal for almost 10 years, there have been subsequent prosecutions (though in one there were no bots used) and as far as I can tell aren't particularly widespread, if they ever were. The one person I know who admitted to using them said there were too many problems and they actually worked best scanning for ticket drops than harvesting tickets in the on sales. Hired pullers and multi-source browsing are the norm now and quite possibly always were.

Ticketmaster's tech team has always worked against widespread ticket harvesting. Remember when there was no queuing or text verification or account log in? The sale went live and you hit the best available on drop down menu and hit search? If it was a high demand event it might take 20 seconds more to pull the ticket. Queing both gauges demand to adjust pricing, builds anticipation so the customer is more likely to buy regardless of price due to the sunk cost fallacy of time already invested as well as deprioritize what their system assesses to be bad actors. Accounts that abuse the system are deprioritized with bad que positions if not locked out altogether. Predictably I do not like the queing system. Not that it matters, aside from Lucky Dips I stopped buying any tickets.

I can't say a promoter or artist lowering prices to sell more as well as bring more revenue to the building should be considered a problem to be addressed, it's very common now but if it's something that concerns you, wait to see if the prices go down. Like I do. By the same flip they give away tickets out the back door (a concept called papering) in order to bring more ancillary revenue to the building but that doesn't mean that because some tickets are free, every ticket should be free. When the Universal Amphitheatre was open they would give away hundreds or thousands of tickets per show.

Pricing arbitration has been a fact of life in anything and everything as long as you have had consumer products and services. I had a friend who supported himself just by buying sale items and selling them on Amazon. I do believe there should be severe consequences for Stubhub taking someone's money and stringing the buyer along to the last minute and not delivering the ticket, even if they are the middleman but not sure how to regulate that. That's just basic consumer protection. Customer discipline and personal responsibility should absolutely play a roll. If it's too expensive, don't buy it. It's okay not to go.

Remember, aside from a few high profile events, most shows don't sell out. Not sure how it is now that there is really a few mega promoters but one reason it was tacitly approved is that it was a sort of insurance policy. Now selling the tickets and meeting financial markers is someone else's problem.

A big problem for some people at least with non-transferable tickets and Ticketmaster's fan exchange is that the ticket is locked into the price you paid. This most recently came up with the recent Foo Fighters tour where people were trying to sell their surge priced tickets on fan exchange competing with much better and cheaper newly released tickets as well as brokers who have workarounds. Personally I don't think it was about protecting fans so much as not devaluing the product because I have never known the Foo Fighters to be a moneymaker when playing traditional venues. Not just anecdotal as it was coming up on the fan forums and people were personally contacting me asking for advice how to recoup something on a ticket they paid an inflated price for.

In the weeks leading into the BMO Stadium shows (I was watching because my girlfriend had to go to both) expensive and sometimes more normal priced tickets would leak out and get gobbled up. Day of show, a sea of red and blue dots with the blue dots much cheaper for a change. I actually halfway drafted an essay about this I might rework and post to my blog soon now.