Re: Artists Taking Advantage of Fans?

A few select established artists can and do charge high ticket prices. For example, The Rolling Stones are charging over $400. for "good seats" for their Fall tour. Paul McCartney charges just above $250. for "good seats" for his upcoming tour. Both acts also offer VIP travel packages in excess of $1400. to $2500. To be fair, those travel packages incude hotel accomodations and transport to the shows. Just the same, I wonder if expensive shows like those suck all the air out of the concert business for other acts, most other acts, who cannot command ticket prices like McCartney and the Stones. Maybe price is relative. If a person chooses to spend that much money for one show, why should anyone care? On the other hand, just because some people can ask for the moon and get it, should they do it?

there appears to be little fairness in these grand scale concerts. personally, find it difficult to get my $400 worth for a 2 hr show because i find crowds difficult. for others, however, maybe it is a utopian experience of being in a sea of humans with a common icon, or it could be an opportunity to see one's superiority ranked by the number of people behind you. how would this "suck all the air out of the concert business for other acts?"- some kind of gentrification? certainly, contolled audience placement via exhorbitant fees disconnects the crowd, which sucks soul out of the concert. this lends a trashy quality to the band, too, that supposedly is some kind of guiding light for the spectators. at least the greed for money of another big, impractical business focused on consumer hype affects an enclosed community, affecting a certain people in a certain time frame.

What I mean by "suck the air out of the concert business for other acts" is simply economics. People who go to the shows of one of the expensive acts I cited might also see other acts if the prices of their tickets weren't so high. McCartney and the Stones will likely get the lion's share of concert goers' dollars when they tour.



Post Edited (06-20-05 17:14)

Support your local club venue. Suck the air out of unscrupulous promoters and the sports teams that overcharge the city and the users for the use of 'their' venues. The strongest vote in the world - The US Dollar.

clubs... DIY spaces... more intimate and better than seeing the bloated dinosaurs...

it's just as tough to get decent Red Sox tickets here in Boston now, too... well, almost as tough.