So the Eagles' billion-dollar, 40-year run is starting to falter? Cry me a river. Ditto for the Limp Bizkit reunion tour, and Liz Phair. Those veins were played out 10 years ago. Their fans are older, and don't have the time or money to go out and see these acts.
But that's alright. The great thing about music is there are always talented upstarts willing to do the work on the ground floor in terms of songwriting and touring. Some of them will have no trouble bypassing the stadiums and Ticketmaster, and will sell out smaller clubs and connect with their fans in other ways, including online. They may not make a million bucks, but at least they're making good music.
> To score a pair of tickets to see singer-songwriter John Mayer in Cincinnati on July 27, Beth Collins of Radcliff, Ky., spent $172, including about $30 in service fees, for the best two seats available on Ticketmaster at the time, in section 700, adjacent to the rear lawn at the Riverbend Music Center. Ms. Collins, a 27-year-old homemaker whose husband works in a UPS warehouse, borrowed $75 from a local loan service to help pay for the seats; with interest, she paid the service about $100.
I can't help but think this sort of thing is why poor people remain poor.
Using a loan service to pay for concert tickets is unbelievable. This is EXACTLY why states like KY remain poor. A person that clearly has no savings would do so much better to have $200 in their savings account.
It's a waste of time and money. Plus it's fun to discover new musicians that are good.
Most of the shows I go to only cost $10 to $15. I also end up getting to see a bunch of bigger acts at music festivals like ACL where you get a great bang for your buck.
The music industry has got to be the largest industry I can think of which seems to be full of people that just fundamentally don't seem to understand the issues of supply and demand. And I don't mean the musicians, since that's not really what they are there for, I'm talking the management.
When demand drops, you have to have some combination of lowering the price, lowering the supply (smaller venues), or having excess production (in this case, empty seats). It doesn't matter if you blame the customers (really stupid), blame the economy, or blame the moon, some combination of those three things is going to happen. The laws of economics demand it. Most industries have money people that seem to actually understand this.
(The natural hurr hurr response is to claim this is because they are used to just lobbying for things from the government, but it goes beyond that, just as in this article in which they appear mystified about what to do with empty seats and someone has to actually suggest that maybe the price needs to be dropped. Maybe if they hired an economics sophomore as an intern next year they could get this earthshakingly-brilliant idea before a news story is written.)
...because the artist asks them to. Check out lefsetzletter.com sometime, the guy's an ex-industry lawyer with some bombastic opinions and astute observations about what's been going on in the music industry, and he gets emails from all walks of it.
Those fees that get slapped on to your ticket? Some of them are from the venue, some of them are from Ticketmaster, but some of that's been mandated by the artist being greedy.
And now it's anecdote time! Back in the late 90s in DC the radio station 99.1 WHFS put on a festival called the HFStival - 20 bands for 20 bucks. The headliners were national acts, as were most of the bands on the lineup, and there were a few local bands who'd round things out earlier in the day.
Now you can't even get lawn seats at a pavilion for $20, and that's not counting parking, convenience charges, charging you money to print the ticket at home rather than having it mailed to you at no charge (WTF), the $45 tshirt (because the venue takes $20 per shirt sold), the overpriced drinks, etc. etc.
You want to see live music? Get involved in your local scene. Plenty of people out there playing small (non-livenation) venues for $5-$15, playing their hearts out.
TicketMaster typically obtains agreements to become the sole provider of tickets for all the commonly used venues. They already have quite a few competitors, but these exclusive deals prevent competitors being able to compete in most venues.
it seems that the music industry was making more money than it ever should have been in the first place. when you look at declining sales compared to previous years, of course it seems like something is wrong, but perhaps the years that made the most amount of money were a fluke, and now things are headed back to where they should be.
in the past decade it has become incredibly easy to develop a fine-grained taste in music. the activation energy for seeking music you enjoy has essentially dropped to 0 (searching the internet vs listening to the radio or physically buying cds/tapes/records), which means less people can be fooled into liking bands like U2 or Limp Bizkit. it seems like a no-brainer that less people care about going to those concerts anymore. the music industry needs to update their model, they can't game the consumer into spending money as easily as they use to.
This bothers me, as well. I can't speak to any proven efficacy, but when I find myself in such a loud venue (also some bars, obligatory parties such as before/at weddings, etc.), I take a "flesh colored" plain cylinder foam ear plug, cut in half, and place one half into each ear canal. My ears don't "crackle" -- the halves still seem to work pretty well -- and the smaller size is unobtrusive so I don't feel self-conscious.
But that's alright. The great thing about music is there are always talented upstarts willing to do the work on the ground floor in terms of songwriting and touring. Some of them will have no trouble bypassing the stadiums and Ticketmaster, and will sell out smaller clubs and connect with their fans in other ways, including online. They may not make a million bucks, but at least they're making good music.