Why are concert tickets so expensive all of a sudden?
Why Concert Tickets Have Become So Pricy All of a Sudden?
Another important sociological factor that has been evident is that the cost of concert tickets continues to increase year by year. Audiences are frequently dismayed to find that tickets for various concerts they expect to watch featuring their favorite musicians and bands are sold expensively, even the worst seats in the house. This means that ticket prices have also risen way past the current inflation rates within the past couple of decades. As we see, this causes several questions in the minds of many fans - why are concert tickets so costly these days? This is true several factors occur.
Increased Demand
The first and perhaps one of the most valid reasons why tickets have been sold at a higher price in the past is because the demand for tickets keeps rising. That is why live music has experienced a significant boost in popularity after a slow period during the early years of the current millennium when people were able to download music legally and especially illegally. Now people want that interaction or the real experience of seeing an artist live. Moreover, the accomplishments and increased visibility of popular touring artists such as Beyonce, Swift, and U2 have contributed to a trend toward the development of large-scale, spectacular concerts. People look forward to several things when they go to concerts now and are ready to spend their money. Additionally, other music festivals such as Coachella and Lollapalooza have been selling out within a few hours, thus showing that the public is eager to attend more live performances. They require high prices for tickets because people shall pay for them.
Higher Costs
More often than not, the artists and promoters incur huge costs in arranging large, high-technology productions. Where drugs, lighting, and pyrotechnics were once enough to light up a stage and blast fans with intense sound and light shows, such expenses have grown massively over the last 20-30 years. Musicians also usually perform with much larger backing bands and an entourage of dancers/singers now which means more busses, rooms, and food requirements. The expectations are much higher when it comes to visuals and quality of sound in the case of the fans. Most performances now require several trucks of HD screens, moving stages, other props, and other elaborate forms of digital media. These immense shows are not cheap to tour and are usually very expensive. They end up being borne by ticket consumers or the ticket purchasers.
Dynamic Pricing
A significant portion of people’s surprise that sticker prices have not been reduced is attributable to dynamic and surge pricing models. Similar to how ticket prices are set in airlines and accommodations, concerts use formulas that change often, reflecting supply-demand ratios. Unfortunately, instead of a single flat ticket price set many months ahead, the price varies during the presale and general sale period. This enables promoters to maximize their value from ‘super’ fans who are willing to pay for such high ticket prices and subsequently sell out any relatively cheaper ones. The digital ticket marketplace allowed for this pricing strategy due to the change in ticket prices. This means that a ticket can go through twenty switches in price before it reaches a buyer’s hand.
Secondary Marketplaces
However, the case is different in the first instance where the ticket prices are fixed by the artists and promoters. However, third-party resellers can obtain a significant number of seats as part of presales allocations. They immediately resell those tickets on online platforms, such as StubHub, VividSeats, and even the ticket-selling platform, Ticketmaster. People go there planning to purchase tickets which are difficult to obtain, and then are forced to buy seats at four hundred to one thousand dollars mark up on the face value prices. Brokers benefit from the situation which escalates demand against a limited number of stocks. This has turned the market for secondary sales into a very profitable business for the second-hand market and artists who get a share of the extra charges and prices. Eager aficionados have to ask themselves how much willingness to pay is there at their favorite events, the concert in particular.
Premium Packages
This is because with ticket resellers now making money from the resale secondary sites, primary sellers such as ticket master have sought to counter this by introducing their own “premium” tickets at ridiculously high prices. The package tickets to allegedly prime positions with autographed merchandise, dinner meets and greets, lithographs, and others. Such packages may cost thousands of dollars per seat in a single package. Some even enable the paying audience to meet certain members of the band backstage for a mere $10,000. These ‘premiums’ are very profitable for the platforms as well as for the artists, making millions of dollars. The critics claim that they endanger the patrons with this policy while occupying the best sections for the corporate partners not for the rank-and-file listeners.
Service Fees
Less than half of most of the money that people pay for concert tickets nowadays actually goes to the base price of any given ticket. The truth is that there are usually between eight and ten additional concealed fees on top of the stated price, which are extremely vague ‘convenience’, ‘processing’, and ‘facility’ fees. These additional charges rise rapidly and could easily run to $35 or even more per seat. Consumers are protected from knowing the actual prices while ticket sellers like Ticketmaster and other third parties continue reaping huge revenues from fees. They can also new court rulings exclude fee amounts in advertised ticket prices. This as a $39 ticket immediately jumps to $76 when you key in your payment details. This Lets platforms deceive price while inflating costs even more through hidden charges.
In Conclusion
From ever-increasing fans’ expectations, over-the-top production performances, and technological advancement making prices flexible and concealed charges, a ticket to a concert has become almost as expensive as airfare. The fans can no longer attend shows for as low as twenty-five dollars but have to spend as much as a few hundred dollars for one show. Both musicians and event promoters understand the fans’ willingness to spend any amount of money to watch their favorite performer on stage. They keep experimenting with what levels of price are capable of reaching without affecting the consumption rates. Therefore, unless tickets are to be poorly sold for a price that does not make commercial sense to the targeted listener, costs are set to rise in the foreseeable future. Music lovers might simply have to sit back and take the reality that getting to watch your beloved artists perform live is not going to be easy.
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