Comments on: Toilet Paper And Soap Are Recession-Proof… Expensive Concert Tickets? Not So Much

By: iconoclasm12

iconoclasm12 — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:53:20 +0000

i still don’t get why anyone would ever read lefsetz. he is a lousy writer and a dolt.

By: undrum1

undrum1 — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:39:25 +0000

Screw these major label acts and thie greedy co-conspirators in the concert business. Now more than ever is the time to support your local artists. Here in Austin we have hundreds of local bands, dozens of which are infinitely moretalented and enjoyable than so much of the tripe coming through our town charging ten times as much to see. It’s high time fans start voting with their feet against the blatantly expoitive concert business. It’s literally killing music’s reputation as a viable entertainment alternative to games and movies.

By: karnak12

karnak12 — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:34:55 +0000

About 15 years ago a friend and I went to see Dave Brubeck play in a small venue in LA. I think the door was around $10 as I recall (I could be wrong, memory is so unreliable about stuff like that), and there weren’t more than 100 people in the place. It was well attended and sort of impromptu, but as I said it was a small place.

The last time I looked for tickets to any kind of show was for Eddie Izzard playing here in the Bay Area. Minimum was $180 each. I like Eddie Izzard, and I make a decent wage (God knows how long that’s going to last), but $360 for 2 people for one evening was not going to happen.

By: AlexandraLynch

AlexandraLynch — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:20:39 +0000

Ticket prices are a large part of why we don’t go anywhere. $500 to go watch our Local Football Team play? That’s two weeks’ pay. Sorry, no.

By: robo

robo — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:19:32 +0000

Any hope the NFL might die out? That would be worth all the rest of the pain.

By: hs3144

hs3144 — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:07:04 +0000

I went to see Tina Turner for the first time in 25 years. A little bigger venue with a few more people (30,000 vs. 1200). In 1984, I remember thinking how cool it was and I had the rest of my life to do fun things like this. Last night, the person I went with and I both agreed that instead of looking forward to fun things like this, it was probably not going to happen again anytime soon if ever. It is a sad state.

By: Knut

Knut — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:48:48 +0000

Thinkng about small venues. I saw Mississippi John Hurt in a small bar in Washington DC a few days before Kennedy’s assassination. He must have been in his 80s, and sung with that soft lilting voice. I never again witnessed anything like that performance. We must have been about 40 people listening.

By: SanderO

SanderO — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:26:01 +0000

hahahaha. I haven’t been to a pop concert in over 40 yrs. But I find the “music” insufferable anyway. I do spend on ballet and opera and consider a $100 ticket pricey, but I get a very good seat for that and an opera production at the Met costs $1MM to mount. This is a real show with very talented artists. Some of these production involve hundreds and hundreds of people. orchestra, chorus, leads, company actors, dancers and so on. This is well worth the ticket price,

I don’t by or listen to pop music either. I would consider a blessing if we could be spared from the constant assault of pop music wherever we are. Silence and nature sounds are so lovely.

On the other hand, small intimate venues for folk, jazz and so forth are acceptable to me, but these are rarely expensive. Thank dog they got rid of smoking because these clubs and bars were intolerable.

Greed drives these ridiculous prices to a little come uppance is in order.

I have a client who is in the music biz. He’s hurting.

By: corry342

corry342 — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:18:26 +0000

I have always wondered at the peculiar economic logic of adding a “handling fee” as a way of disguising the actual ticket price. I understand that music is a business and artists and promoters will charge what they think the market will bear, but the strange history of Ticketmaster always added a stench to the experience of buying a concert ticket.

By: waynec

waynec — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:15:10 +0000

A few years ago I heard Simon and Garfunkle were coming to San Francisco and I looked into buying tickets. For my wife, daughter son and myself. The Face value was $55.00 per ticket. Ticketmaster was charging $250.00 per ticket. Needless to say, we didn’t see the concert. I haven’t even looked into a concert since then.