Zach Schonfeld: I interviewed booking agents, tour managers, and other experts about the Black Keys debacle and why some high-profile arena tours are struggling to sell tickets right now. New piece for Stereogum:

I interviewed booking agents, tour managers, and other experts about the Black Keys debacle and why some high-profile arena tours are struggling to sell tickets right now. New piece for Stereogum:

The Curious Case Of The Underselling Arena Tourswww.stereogum.com It's not just the Black Keys. Why are so many big tours selling poorly?

ticketmaster needs to be broken up with a hammer

In the works, unless a change of administration sinks it: www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justi...

Justice Department Sues Live Nation-Ticketmaster for Monopolizing Markets Across the Live Concert Industrywww.justice.gov The Justice Department, along with 30 state and district attorneys general, filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Ticketmaster LLC (Li...

Legally sure but also

I don't want to pay $150 for a ticket that was marketed to me as $100 for an event that I can't bring my camera or my own bottle of water to.

There have definitely and sadly been events I was excited and ready for up to until the point I got to the added fees at checkout, whereupon I just noped right off the webpage.

They are too expensive, and, contrary to popular opinion, not every single person who might otherwise go to a concert is willing to get Covid-19 for it. Mainly it's the money tho imo. Even for those who can afford it, it's not a reasonable amount in exchange for the experience you can expect.

NB: I did try to read the piece, and I appreciate that it includes several notes about pricing. I could not finish it however because I have limited ad-blocking capability on iPad, and the pages were so filled with animated ads that they wouldn't load.

Okay so it's not me. I had to back out and reload 3 times before I gave up. Once the ads finish loading it would freeze within a few seconds.

Yeah it's fine on a PC (I'm at one now), but the blockers don't catch everything on mobile devices, idk why not. And these ads today! Wow.

I was a touring DJ for 20 years, love music, love big crowds, love festivals and concerts, and I have not been to a single large indoor concert since COVID started. Probably won't be back.

Sorry man. That blows. It's a much less dramatic change for me, but I do miss concerts. And since so many people won't get vaccinated, and/or won't keep up with vaccinations, it doesn't seem likely that these will ever be low-risk environments.

I'm lucky that I'm also just getting older lol and have a kid now so there was gonna be a lot of scaling back anyway, but it does remain frustrating that I just can't do things I would like to do - my partner is immune compromised and as much as I love a good show, I love her more.

I wouldn't spend more than 50 bucks to see anyone. I'm doing local festivals and small venues. You won't catch me in another arena, especially at $200 plus.

All of this. Cost me close to $300 with fees to take my kid to his first show. You want to fill seats? Drop prices. Not even going to get into $6/can of water.

They are too fucking expensive. The end.

Going to see Cindy Lauper at $48/seat. Skipping Billie Eilish at $178/seat in the same venue for worse seats. The "experts" make too much money if they can't see the problem.

Thank you for mentioning dynamic pricing in your article. bsky.app/profile/torr...

Still true: “Yes, Ticketmaster - Live Nation takes advantage of its monopoly. But the real problem is "dynamic pricing." The blame resides w/ Swift, Harry Styles, Springsteen etc. They all *choose* to take part in “dynamic pricing” so that they MAKE MORE MONEY.” newrepublic.com/article/1689...

Go Ahead and Blame Taylor Swift for Ticket Pricesnewrepublic.com Yes, Ticketmaster takes advantage of its monopoly. But the real problem is dynamic pricing.

Who want's to pay over $200 a ticket to see… anything, much less disposable entertainment? These "business" types sure are fucking stupid.

It worked for a long time (remember the Simpsons' joke about Mr Burns buying Ticketmaster, and having a '100% service charge'), but the scales have been tipped now - costs a lot to put on a tour, but people have reached the point where they won't pay to go (which is a perfectly reasonable stance)

"costs a lot to put on a tour" It has always cost a lot to put on an arena-scale tour. Hell, Pink Floyd put on friggin' rock operas with huge sets and massive inflatable puppets back in the day, and still sport the most impressive light show going.

The article touches on some of it - only so much equipment to go around, supply and demand etc. Cost of everything has gone up - making those inflatable puppets? Costs more now. Lighting? More. Huge sets? More. Moving everything from city to city? More. And so on.

Not buying. There is a lot of markup going on that didn't used to. The fact that revenue for the artists themselves via music sales isn't what it used to be in the older record-revenue streams vs. post-napster/streaming era, artists are upping their fee/prices + the TicketMaster price gouging.

Hundred bucks for the ticket. Plus convenience fees, Plus the fee to print it on your own printer. Plus 50 bucks for parking. Plus venue fee. Plus hospitality fee. Plus taxes. No, I don't care to spend all this money.

How many people got covid at cute blonde girl concert?

Apparently thousands in Spain.

Yeah, that was my point.

Tickets cost too much $200-$700 for most bigger shows is not affordable for most folks

How is this a mystery to anyone? The tickets cost too much and the artists are the ones getting hosed

Back when tickets to Porter Robinson's Smile :D tour went live, I rushed to buy tickets, but balked at the $265 general admission tickets at Forest Hills. I checked again today and it was like $88. (I am now going.)

People are killing themselves trying to come up with complicated excuses for why people can't or won't spend ~$20 to go see a movie in a theater. And then they seem shocked that people don't want to give Live Nation a week's wage just to see a band play in some giant arena venue.

Pearl Jam tried to warn us.

Eh, I’m just through with large arena shows. They are a lot of hassle, too much money and aren’t nearly as good as smaller venue shows.

Nice article. We saw the Black Keys in an arena before and really enjoyed the show - they are great live. But, we decided this time around to pass because of the ticket price and all the other expenses as mentioned.

Too expensive and fewer people want to sit in huge impersonal stadiums and watch a screen because the stage is so far away. Small gigs/festivals are the way to go.

is it because tickets are expensive and people are realizing the ticket sellers are playing "silly buggers" by artificially limiting supply to justify those prices?

I wonder too about folks being hesitant about these large venues with poor escape routes and which might attract a monster who wants to murder as many people as possible on his way off the planet. I know I sadly now give it some thought before I would take my family to this type of location.

There's nothing curious about any of this.

Too much $$ for crap view and crap sound.

I'm washing my hair that night

Let me add a NYC element: the likelihood that the show will sell out in five minutes, mostly to bots. Nerve-wracking to try to buy tix, depressing to lose, then infuriating that Ticketmaster is now selling the scalped tix at 5x the price. So why bother? The show is already ruined.

The most most expensive band I've ever seen was U2 who cost $50 in 1992 and then $100 in 2001 (for 300 level seats). I saw The Cure twice in 2022 for 91€ and 61€. Bjork was a little over 100€ last October On their latest tour, Depeche Mode prices meant this is one band I'll sadly never see.

Terrific article. Very well written.

You could've stopped the article when you got to "Live Nation"

Maybe it’s because the black keys don’t have enough fans to fill up one arena let alone multiple arenas

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