No wonder so many are in financial woe.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/mar/14/john-oliver-ticketmaster-live-music-costs

A solution I just thought up isn't simple but ticketmaster would need to go cold turkey on its secret inflated buddy ticket broker system that greatly increases their revenues. If numerically numbered ticket transfer were only allowed by a process after single ticket sales by identified buyers only at original face value through ticketmaster itself controlling payment and not sites like stubhub etc, jacking up prices would not occur. Note many fans to music and sporting events also buy multiple tickets they then sell in order to make enough profit to fully offset their own used ticket costs. So the basic issue is resale processes ticketmaster or any venue cannot control through concert and sports buyers they cannot id.

So lets say a credit card id'd person has a ticket they cannot use. Maybe are sick, won't be available due to business or whatever. If they were forced to return it to ticketmaster that then had sell it to other credit card id'd persons at face value, there would be few ways to jack prices by external resale. A person might still give their ticket to someone else on the day of the event that would be able to enter a venue if the venues did not check id's. So another element of the solution would be to require some level of credit card id checking at venues. That could potentially cause slow gate entry issues. Thus investment in a bunch of card readers that if problems getting in occurred those few would require more manual entry by going to the ticket office where they could check say driver's license names against the original credit card names. The few kids that ever go to such events would need to be through their adults. Some criminals might be able to print counterfeits but those doing so would be miniscule in numbers to the extent the whole broker system would evaporate. If a person is not id'd at entry then someone could buy at any time before an event say your $50 for $500, and just walk in.
 

I thought paying $100 for a concert ticket was ridiculous back when I paid that much to see Neil Young, Eric Clapton, CSN & Y, and a few others... no, not together, all at their respective concerts. Those were all good shows... very professional, polished...

Concerts were cheap back in the '70s and '80s, but you never knew what you were going to get. Musicians might be drunk or heavily drugged. Most of the time, they were good. Back then, bands made their money from album sales and concerts were just to promote the albums. These days, musicians make their money from concerts since, unless you want to own their CDs or albums, their music is available for free on the internet. That's why concerts are so expensive now.
 
My daughter introduced to me a Taylor Swift's song "Anti-Hero". Her voice is awesome and even with wearing Cochlear Implants it sounds great. So, yes, I would pay that for a ticket just to hear her live. And yes, there has been a pandemic and I haven't been able to go anywhere! Too bad she isn't coming here.
 
I wouldn't know Taylor Swift if she walked through the front door. View attachment 250887

However, Elton John's Dodger Stadium concert is only starting at $81???
This is what happens to musicians that become oldies. They are dinosaurs among the young generation of today. However, I was going to get tickets to see Lionel Richie in Atlantic City, but the seats were $300, so I passed. I paid $115 to see Celine Dion in Las Vegas. That’s the most I ever paid to go to a concert.
 
How do you know the people that would spend that kind of money don't actually have it? I don't have that kind of money, but I do know quite a number of people who do. Like buying their kid a brand new car when they graduated high school, buying houses around the country for their personal use when skiing, or hunting , really expensive art work, etc etc.
I don't have that kind of money, for sure, but if I did I wouldn't waste it on something so trivial.
 
"$5.65
A Beatles ticket stub for their legendary concert at Shea Stadium on August 15, 1965, in Flushing, New York. The cost of the ticket was only $5.65!"

I was there. Also saw them Forest Hills for $6.90. Our tickets to Carnegie Hall were comped by Sid Bernstein (a client of my father). We would have had to pay $4.50-$6.50. Our seats were in the first few rows, no higher than seven row center. I guess these would have gone for $6.50.
Yeah, that was about the price to see The Beatles , in New Orleans, in 1964
 
Taylor Swift tickets are [as per radio news] selling for $600 - $4500 per seat through [stub-hub] ... if still available, most are bought up . Sold through "scalper" sites Top seats are selling for $8000 [thousand] . And through either outlet , tickets are hard to get !

14 million people flooded the original ticket site, shutting it down .

Add to this, $75000 suv's & electric vehicles , etc & so-on ... and it's no wonder people are in financial trouble.

I don't get it ... maybe I'm just too old.
Supply and demand has determined those are the optimum prices to generate maximum profits.

Personally, you'd have to pay me a few hundred dollars to attend a Taylor Swift concert. That's not my idea of a good time, but I'm old. I don't get the appeal of today's pop music. There's nothing interesting about it. The music is just electronic crap and the lyrics are stupid.
 
Bought six tickets for the Stones back in the late 60's/early 70's ... that's all one person could buy. Was $36.

Paid $150 for two tickets to Leonard Skynyrd a few years ago. Worth it.

As for Taylor Swift, not at all interested. But I don't think the price of her tickets is why so many are in financial woe.
 
Those Beatle ticket weren't as cheap as you think. In 1965 a $6 ticket was worth about $56, today. ($8 in '65= $74, today). Still cheap? But you were only making a grand total of $50/week in 1965. So, $6 was 10+% of your average salary, before taxes.
But, if you want to pay big $$$ to see Swift, I won't stand in your way.
 
I thought it was.. isn't it??
Not really. I knew a man in the Marines that scalped tickets, until the Marines caught him. There are no federal laws against scalping. It’s up to each state whether to criminalize scalping or not. Presently, I think most of the eastern states are the states that don’t allow scalping.

I never bought tickets from a scalper, but know a few men that have. I know one man that paid something like $300 a ticket to go to a Bon Jovi concert. He bought 2 tickets. I kind of think it was twice the face value of the ticket.
 
Ticket scalping, which is whats going on, should be illegal.
Why is that? Tickets just like any commodity go up and down in price, why not allow people to speculate on them.

When I was at LSU ticket scalpers were always standing outside the games, holding fingers in the air to let you know how many tickets they had. For some of the big games prices were quite high, for others you could sometimes get them for less than the scalpers paid.

I was living in Utah in 2002, for the Winter Olympics. Tickets were mostly sold by lottery, I put in for lots, but did not get many. Had it not been for the scalpers I would not have been able to see many events. I don't think I paid a whole lot over face value.
 
With scalpers, my worry would be that the tickets might be counterfeit.

My father & a friend got caught in that trap years back when buying tickets for the Daytona 500. Arrived at the gate .... tickets were no good. Had to buy again , or go home. Result was paying about 11/2 times for the tickets , as opposed to getting them at a bargain.

He showed me the bogas tickets on my next trip down ... there was no difference, they looked legit .
 


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