Inflationary pressures among midtier veterans

We’ve all heard about the extraordinary prices of tickets for current superstars, but I was surprised by ticket prices on two consecutive announcements of artists whom I view as mostly cult figures.

A.C. Newman is touring on the 20th anniversary of his album Slow Wonder, and the tickets are listed in DC at $40 a person. That seemed like a lot considering most people would only know his work as a New Pornographer, not as a solo artist.

And then I saw that Alison Moyet is scheduled to play the suburbs of Washington. I’ve always liked Yaz and I enjoy some of her solo work, so I thought to check that out. The ticket price showed up at $63.50 and I initially thought that was for two tickets. Nope, that’s the price for a single ticket with fees included. How many people out there are desperate to see Alison Moyet for $63 a person? I looked at Ticketmaster I saw that all of her shows in America are priced around that range, except one in Atlanta is $20 cheaper. Not clear if it’s because of a deal she’s got with the promoter but that seems inappropriately expensive for an artist with her likely fanbase.

I've been buying tickets more and more at the box office for this reason, really the only thing I can do at this point to offset increases. Doesn't work for high profile shows where you're pretty much forced to buy from Ticketmaster (either because all the tickets will sell out through Ticketmaster before the box office opens, or in some cases where you actually have no other option) but fortunately a lot of mid-tier shows I go to are GA and don't sell out that quickly so waiting until I can travel to the venue is totally feasible.

There's an old movie theater a block from my house - the Wildey - that's been converted into a community owned concert & event space. They generally have tribute bands* playing there, but they also have quite a few old timers show up - I've seen Roger McGuinn, Al Stewart, Andy Summers, John Sebastian, the Motels, 10,000 Maniacs and a few others there. Most of those were reasonably priced, in the $40 range - McGuinn might have been around $70, but it's Roger McGuinn - he could be selling out larger venues across the river in St. Louis itself, but I guess he likes this dinky little theater in my town, because he keeps coming back.

Recently, Renaissance had a show there. I know a grand total of one song by Renaissance ("Northern Lights"), but my oldest brother was a prog fan back in the '70s, so he looked in to getting tix, and they were $85. He said no thanks to that, especially since it was really only Annie Haslam and hired hands and no other members of the original band (who my brother could actually name, the sad bastard).

Crazy that a lower-mid tier prog band from 50 years ago was charging $85 for tickets. I guess they could maybe get away with it because of the weird status KSHE radio has in St. Louis - it is pretty much the word of God for a large chunk of St. Louisans who grew up in the 70s & 80s, and it's a weird beast - mainly a standard classic rock station, but also with its own quirky set of KSHE Klassics - songs on heavy rotation there, but not on any standard classic rock station. "Northern Lights" by Renaissance is a KSHE Klassic and thus is pretty well-known to a decent chunk of St. Louisans. I think the band has a few other songs that made the cut at KSHE, so it maybe made sense that they could charge an arm and a leg, I dunno.

The band Gypsy, another ancient KSHE band that is unknown anywhere else in the world, has gotten such rapturous responses at the Wildey, that they recorded a live album there.

On the other hand, the neighboring town of Collinsville recently followed the Wildey's example and converted their old downtown movie theater, the Miner's, into a concert space. They've mostly had tribute bands also, as well as Head East, who'll show up anywhere in the Midwest that you can fit more than three people into. But this past Friday night, they very unexpectedly hosted Steve Wynn on his book reading/solo concert tour, which was cool. Given that maybe 30 people showed up, I don't know that they'll be too eager to book many more shows for people of Wynn's ilk, but points to them for trying. Tickets for Wynn were only $25, with an option to pay $40 if you felt bad for him.

*The proliferation of tribute bands is getting kind of alarming. When it was relegated to community owned small town venues like the Wildey and the Miner's, it made sense. They aren't going to attract that many big names, so sure, have some burly old bear with the right voice come out and belt two hours of Bob Seger tunes for the enjoyment of the local yokels. But I've noticed more and more of the more "big time" venues in StL itself are filling their calendars with tribute bands. This tells me that either a. touring has become such a losing financial proposition for younger bands that joints that used to fill their calendars with such artists are now having trouble booking enough of them to remain profitable so they're having to promote Shiny Happy People, the REM tribute band from Jefferson City (made up example) as a major concert event or b. That the concert-going experience has gotten so heinous that people would rather just go see knock-offs performing songs they like rather than park themselves at the computer and buy tickets in the first minute and pay $70 for seats in row XXX in the upper balcony and then on the day of the show survey the venue from your lofty perch and see that 2/3 of the seats in front of you are empty. If you're going to pay $500 bucks to go see Sabrina Carpenter and need the Hubble Telescope to distinguish which speck she is on the stage, why wouldn't you just decide to shell out $25 to see the Sabrina Carpenter XPerience at the local bar that used to host World Party or Camera Obscura?

Anyhow, it seems to me that the rise of established venues treating tribute bands concerts like big events (Hell, a goodly chunk of shows at the local City Winery have been tribute bands, and City Wineries are supposed to be prestige places) is a troubling indication for the touring industry. And in the post-Napster world, touring was billed as the way bands made most of their money (a position loudly proclaimed mostly by the people who killed recorded music as a viable way to earn cash), so if touring is also now a money-losing, soul-destroying abyss for anyone not named Taylor, Chappelle or Beyonce, why is anyone going to bother in the future?

I won't even get into the rise of celebrity tribute bands, such as Adrian Belew's recent Talking Heads and King Crimson projects - those are basically just more honorable versions of "the third guy to play drums in Neon Portrait (not a real example) got the rights to the name and has been keeping himself fed at the Waffle House by touring under the band name for the last 40 years". Belew is worth seeing because he's goddamned Adrian Belew, and he's not pretending to be Talking Heads or King Crimson.

The Michael Shannon Plays REM thing transforming into a going concern is weird, though. When it first started as Actor Plays REM songs, it was "Huh. Well, whatever." But now it's enough of a thing that he's doing the "Plays entire album" schtick. He's currently touring Fables of the Reconstruction. And that just strikes me as extremely odd. We've reached the point where it doesn't even need to be the beloved artist playing the beloved album (or in this case, Fables of the Reconstruction) anymore?

Of course, all this moot to me, as I'm doing my best to honor my retirement from concert going. Steve Wynn playing a small town movie theater 5 miles away was an exception. And the Ocean Blue will be in St. Louis for the first time in 35 years in March, and that's tempting. But otherwise, I prefer to be on my couch laughing at Paranormal Caught on Camera to dragging my ass out to stand behind the 7 ft tall asshole who elbows his way in front of me as soon as the headliner takes the stage at every show I go to.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2024 09:12AM by breno.

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2024 11:26AM by breno.

Doesn't the venue have something to do with it? Tickets at the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa are crazy. I just checked, for the sake of this post, on the upcoming Cheap Trick show on Dec 17. The back row is going for $110 a seat! For Cheap Trick! A ticket in the back row at the preceding show at the Macon City Auditorium is "only" $56.75. Still not cheap, but you can see the difference.

The venue definitely has something to do with it, as the Moyet shows are mostly at Fillmore theaters, and they seem to all have those higher prices.

The A.C. Newman show is at an odd venue called Miracle Theatre near Eastern Market in Washington, which is (among other things) a retro movie theater, concert venue, and home of some kind of nondenominational evangelical church.

Quote
belfast
I've been buying tickets more and more at the box office for this reason, really the only thing I can do at this point to offset increases. Doesn't work for high profile shows where you're pretty much forced to buy from Ticketmaster

Agreed, so all of the tickets I buy for the IMP ecosystem (The Atlantis, 9:30 Club, Lincoln Theater, The Anthem, Merriweather Post Pavilion) I buy in person at the box office at the 9:30 Club, which saves a boatload in ticket surcharges.

The main venues in StL to see bands that I would want to see - the Pageant and Delmar Hall - are owned by the same guy and share a box office. I used to always buy tickets at the box office, because if you pay in cash, you skip all the fees and pay the actual ticket price only. However, a year or two ago, they cut the hours of operation of the box office to a couple of hours a day one or two days a week (neither of which being the weekend), making it virtually impossible to actually get to the box office when it was open.

One more reason I've said fuck you to concert going.

Here is the Miracle Theatre show for A.C. Newman. Not TicketMaster; not sure how how one could reduce the fees or surcharges. Just looks like a straight $40 ticket.

[www.unionstagepresents.com]

It would be way too embarrassing for me to do this, but one time I went to MSG, a communications mix-up meant that a friend of mine asked for a ticket for his wife even though she wasn't going to join us. This wasn't made apparent until we arrived at MSG, so I told him we'd just sell her ticket to whoever wanted it outside of the venue. Seemed reasonable as it was a sold out show and you always see people walking around asking "extra ticket?" Of course what they're looking for is a bargain, and if you say you have an extra ticket, they get really aggressive. "I'll give you $20! Too low? What are you going to do then? EAT IT??" It was the last minute so we had little choice, but once we got in, the guy didn't bother to sit with us. Even though our tickets were for the 200 level, he stayed downstairs and said he was going to find a spot on the floor. How he expected to do that, I don't know, but his demeanor suggested this was something he did regularly. Anyway, I guess that's one way to deal with inflationary pressures.

Yeah, we had that experience, at one of the earliest shows we saw in Seattle. A guy was sort of paralleling the line of attendees, waiting to get in, asking if anyone had an extra ticket. We did, owing to one of our friends getting sick the day before the show. When I showed him the ticket, and asked for face value, he gave me a dumbfounded look. "I was hoping you'd give it to me," he said blandly. "I mean, why not? The instant you step through that door, the ticket becomes worthless anyway."

I explained that the ticket had been paid for by a friend, and I was hoping to get her sunk cost back. The guy actually laughed, and made it clear he had no intention of helping her out with the loss; that was her problem.

At that point, I decided the ticket was not for sale to this guy, at any price. It was a reserved seat, and I couldn't stomach the thought of this smug bastard sitting near us. I mean, jeez, if he had at least bargained with me over the price ...

On the other hand, one of my concert buddies goes to a lot of shows in Seattle -- and I mean a lot of shows. Literally, every week, he has a photo or two from at least one show to post on social media. I asked him recently how he can afford such a busy concert schedule. He said he keeps an eye out on the ticket sites for low all-in prices. A show that hasn't sold out yet can generate some last-minute bargains.

When I was up at NYC to see Madness one night and the Damned the next. This guy was walking up and down the line asking for tickets. Apparently he always does this. The second night some people I was talking to saw that he was in the venue and were disappointed that he had got in. I've never really seen this in DC but I guess it happens.

On the flip side, a couple of times when I've gone to a show intending to buy tickets at the box office, people have come up to me to sell their tickets at low value.

How’s about $76-$116 to see something called “Oingo Boingo Former Members”? And this isn’t in a big city, this is out in a desert Indian casino.

(And by the way - For all that money, I would expect at least an actual band name. Really, they couldn’t come up with a better name than “Oingo Boingo Former Members”?! Good luck fitting that on a t-shirt.)

I bet Garfunkel, Messina & Oates would sell out theaters at those prices.

> I bet Garfunkel, Messina & Oates would sell out theaters
> at those prices.

Throw in Ridgeley, and you can elevate the tour to stadiums.

I must thank you, Zwirn, for the fact that your post alerted me to Alison Moyet's upcoming tour. The Seattle show (next May) is priced at $60, just as you described. But it's at a venue that my wife and I really love ... and yes, we're big enough fans to pay for the tickets.

What is that venue in Seattle? She is at the Fillmore Silver Spring just outside of Washington, a big boring box of a venue, all general admission on the floor and some small areas in the balcony. Not my favorite.

> What is that venue in Seattle?

The Showbox, a gem of a place on 1st Avenue, right near Pike Market. It's mostly SRO, with a few tables here & there. The main floor in front of the stage is a half-circle shape, framed by more elevated spaces. The sight lines are good throughout the place, except at the very far edges to either side of the stage (which my friend Leilani calls "sideboob seating"). And wherever you are in the place, you're never too far from a bar. Plus, if you come to the bar next door an hour for the show, and order at least one drink, you're granted first entry when the doors open.

Not to be confused with the Showbox Sodo, which is down by the stadiums. That place is one of those "big boring boxes" you mentioned. (Of course, if the artist onstage truly delivers the goods, then they're worth seeing at almost any venue. The Specials, Placebo, X, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Death from Above 1979, and The Kills have all crushed it at the Showbox Sodo.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/25/2024 11:40AM by Delvin.

Think yourselves lucky. I'm seeing New Model Army next year for $88. Interestingly, I'll also be seeing Idles next year in Tokyo at a large modern venue for about $70.