Rod Stewart last night

[lawrieleslie]

Did any other South West Stokies see him last night at Plymouth Argyle. The show was fookin awesome.

[dadofsam]

been listening to a lot of 'Faces' and early, solo Rod recently - he was pretty shit hot you know.

[Arthurdollar]

I saw him live in his show in Tenerife in May. I was like i dunna like guinness as the Mrs dragged me along.

What a great show.

[wembley4372]

Does he still mime?

[lawrieleslie]

Thought I’d resurrect this thread from 2009 because Rod Stewart is again appearing at Home Park in Plymouth. In the original thread from 2009 the tickets were £37.50 (the mrs still has the stubs pinned to the programme, she does things like that). This year the same seats are £168.50. They are far from the most expensive which are £352.
Doing a quick inflation calculator thingy and £37.50 in 2009 is now £65. Wtf.

[elystokie]

Jun 12, 2023 7:45:31 GMT lawrieleslie said:

Thought I’d resurrect this thread from 2009 because Rod Stewart is again appearing at Home Park in Plymouth. In the original thread from 2009 the tickets were £37.50 (the mrs still has the stubs pinned to the programme, she does things like that). This year the same seats are £168.50. They are far from the most expensive which are £352.
Doing a quick inflation calculator thingy and £37.50 in 2009 is now £65. Wtf.

Paul Spencer is obviously the expert but is it possibly to do with artists making less money from their recorded material nowadays?

Horrendous prices all the same.

[redstriper]

My wife has bought 16 stadium tickets in total in the last 12 months for The Killers, Billie Eilish and Harry Styles.

The total cost is higher than we've spent on holidays in the same period! - stadium events are an absolute rip off.

I'm off to see the Chameleons at a small venue in Homefirth in a few weeks, £14 and i get to stand at the front.

[iancransonsknees]

Jun 12, 2023 7:55:18 GMT elystokie said:

Jun 12, 2023 7:45:31 GMT lawrieleslie said:

Thought I’d resurrect this thread from 2009 because Rod Stewart is again appearing at Home Park in Plymouth. In the original thread from 2009 the tickets were £37.50 (the mrs still has the stubs pinned to the programme, she does things like that). This year the same seats are £168.50. They are far from the most expensive which are £352.
Doing a quick inflation calculator thingy and £37.50 in 2009 is now £65. Wtf.

Paul Spencer is obviously the expert but is it possibly to do with artists making less money from their recorded material nowadays?

Horrendous prices all the same.

He's sold his back catalogue off like most of his peers from that era seem to be doing.

[iancransonsknees]

Jun 12, 2023 8:04:03 GMT redstriper said:

My wife has bought 16 stadium tickets in total in the last 12 months for The Killers, Billie Eilish and Harry Styles.

The total cost is higher than we've spent on holidays in the same period! - stadium events are an absolute rip off.

I'm off to see the Chameleons at a small venue in Homefirth in a few weeks, £14 and i get to stand at the front.

And it's a better venue than any of those stadiums either. Love the picturedrome.

[elystokie]

Jun 12, 2023 9:02:28 GMT iancransonsknees said:

Jun 12, 2023 7:55:18 GMT elystokie said:

Paul Spencer is obviously the expert but is it possibly to do with artists making less money from their recorded material nowadays?

Horrendous prices all the same.

He's sold his back catalogue off like most of his peers from that era seem to be doing.

Yes so I gather.

Do you think that has any effect on what they're charging for tickets?

[Deleted]

Jun 12, 2023 7:45:31 GMT lawrieleslie said:

Thought I’d resurrect this thread from 2009 because Rod Stewart is again appearing at Home Park in Plymouth. In the original thread from 2009 the tickets were £37.50 (the mrs still has the stubs pinned to the programme, she does things like that). This year the same seats are £168.50. They are far from the most expensive which are £352.
Doing a quick inflation calculator thingy and £37.50 in 2009 is now £65. Wtf.

The calculator I’m using doesn’t think inflation has been that high since 2009. £37.50 converts to about £55.80.

Still though, the £168.50 now is equivalent to about £113 in 2009. Even using your calculator it’s around £90 in 2009. It’s a ridiculous price increase regardless of which calculator is correct. Maybe it’s being billed as some farewell tour? It seems a shitty move if so and almost emotional exploitation of his loyal fans. I’m sure rod stewart didn’t set the prices but I’m also sure he’s aware and has a say. I like to think I wouldn’t attend on principle even if I was a huge Rod Stewart fan and lived in Plymouth.

[salopstick]

They charge high prices because they know people will pay

The likes of Ticker master crashes every time a major star released stadium tickets.

It then causes the secondary market to inflate.

Complete rip off.

However simply adjusting a ticket price for inflation doesn’t tell the whole story of the massive costs of hosting these gigs.

Still a rip off though

[Deleted]

Jun 12, 2023 7:45:31 GMT lawrieleslie said:

Thought I’d resurrect this thread from 2009 because Rod Stewart is again appearing at Home Park in Plymouth. In the original thread from 2009 the tickets were £37.50 (the mrs still has the stubs pinned to the programme, she does things like that). This year the same seats are £168.50. They are far from the most expensive which are £352.
Doing a quick inflation calculator thingy and £37.50 in 2009 is now £65. Wtf.

I wouldn't go and watch the daft old scrote if they paid me £352.

[spiderpuss]

Jun 12, 2023 9:46:36 GMT @stokiepmre89 said:

Jun 12, 2023 7:45:31 GMT lawrieleslie said:

Thought I’d resurrect this thread from 2009 because Rod Stewart is again appearing at Home Park in Plymouth. In the original thread from 2009 the tickets were £37.50 (the mrs still has the stubs pinned to the programme, she does things like that). This year the same seats are £168.50. They are far from the most expensive which are £352.
Doing a quick inflation calculator thingy and £37.50 in 2009 is now £65. Wtf.

The calculator I’m using doesn’t think inflation has been that high since 2009. £37.50 converts to about £55.80.

Still though, the £168.50 now is equivalent to about £113 in 2009. Even using your calculator it’s around £90 in 2009. It’s a ridiculous price increase regardless of which calculator is correct. Maybe it’s being billed as some farewell tour? It seems a shitty move if so and almost emotional exploitation of his loyal fans. I’m sure rod stewart didn’t set the prices but I’m also sure he’s aware and has a say. I like to think I wouldn’t attend on principle even if I was a huge Rod Stewart fan and lived in Plymouth.

Mostly driven by daft cocks in the first place paying those prices on secondary markets. The original artists had a think and thought, well we should be charging what people are prepared to pay, rather than something reasonable. Just means normal people won't attend any more. All these stars charge the same and Rod isn't unusual or ripping people off, it's the market value.

[Paul Spencer]

Jun 12, 2023 7:55:18 GMT elystokie said:

Jun 12, 2023 7:45:31 GMT lawrieleslie said:

Thought I’d resurrect this thread from 2009 because Rod Stewart is again appearing at Home Park in Plymouth. In the original thread from 2009 the tickets were £37.50 (the mrs still has the stubs pinned to the programme, she does things like that). This year the same seats are £168.50. They are far from the most expensive which are £352.
Doing a quick inflation calculator thingy and £37.50 in 2009 is now £65. Wtf.

Paul Spencer is obviously the expert but is it possibly to do with artists making less money from their recorded material nowadays?

Horrendous prices all the same.

You are absolutely right Robbie, back in the day, artists used to tour to promote their recorded music and would quite often lose money in the process.

Nowadays, artists make very little money from their recorded music (streaming revenues are tiny in comparison to CD or vinyl sales) and they now release recorded music to promote their tours, from which they make the majority of their income.

The internet and the proliferation of mobile phone ownership, has meant that the monetary value of recorded music has virtually disappeared but although you can stream whatever you want, whenever you want, for virtually free, what the internet can't provide, is that visceral emotion a fan experiences when sharing a concert experience together with other people.

And as such, the demand for such experiences has sky rocketed. And (as Salop has said above) that specific demand, drives the fees charged for tickets.

Promoters are incredibly adept at knowing what punters are prepared to pay and (like bookies) they very rarely make an incorrect call, inflation has got absolutely zero influence on the market.

However, the most disgusting thing that has been introduced by Ticketmaster in recent years, is their concept of Platinum tickets (a process that is banned throughout most of Europe but not in the UK), whereby a provisional price is set for tickets but this price will alter depending on the amount of people attempting to buy the tickets when they go on sale.

By way of example, Madonna is playing at the O2 in London in October and initially only 2 shows were announced (even though more dates had already been booked by the promoters) creating an artificially large demand for tickets for those 2 shows.

When the tickets went on sale, hundreds of thousands of fans were attempting to get through on the phones and the vast majority weren't successful. However, if you were 'lucky' enough to get through, you were presented with two options, option 1 to buy tickets at the regular price (which would almost always inevitably be already sold out) and option 2 to buy tickets at the Platinum price, which would mean having to buy tickets at double, treble or even more than face value, if you wanted to go. We're talking about tickets being sold by Ticketmaster for £600 or £700 in really poor locations in the arena.

And the thing is, they would then slowly drip feed the release of tickets for the other shows (that they had booked but not told the public about) in order to maintain the artificially high demand for tickets because fans who wanted to go, couldn't run the 'risk' of anymore shows not being added.

This is the current face of 2020's capitalism in all it's glory, it is essentially legalising corporate ticket touting on an industrial scale.

As I said, it's a process which is banned throughout most of Europe but not here in the UK, funny that.

[hamsta2]

I remember when you bought tickets at Mike Lloyds in Hanley

[marylandstoke]

Jun 12, 2023 7:45:31 GMT lawrieleslie said:

Thought I’d resurrect this thread from 2009 because Rod Stewart is again appearing at Home Park in Plymouth. In the original thread from 2009 the tickets were £37.50 (the mrs still has the stubs pinned to the programme, she does things like that). This year the same seats are £168.50. They are far from the most expensive which are £352.
Doing a quick inflation calculator thingy and £37.50 in 2009 is now £65. Wtf.

Ticket agents are what happened.

[lawrieleslie]

Jun 12, 2023 12:58:14 GMT Paul Spencer said:

Jun 12, 2023 7:55:18 GMT elystokie said:

Paul Spencer is obviously the expert but is it possibly to do with artists making less money from their recorded material nowadays?

Horrendous prices all the same.

You are absolutely right Robbie, back in the day, artists used to tour to promote their recorded music and would quite often lose money in the process.

Nowadays, artists make very little money from their recorded music (streaming revenues are tiny in comparison to CD or vinyl sales) and they now release recorded music to promote their tours, from which they make the majority of their income.

The internet and the proliferation of mobile phone ownership, has meant that the monetary value of recorded music has virtually disappeared but although you can stream whatever you want, whenever you want, for virtually free, what the internet can't provide, is that visceral emotion a fan experiences when sharing a concert experience together with other people.

And as such, the demand for such experiences has sky rocketed. And (as Salop has said above) that specific demand, drives the fees charged for tickets.

Promoters are incredibly adept at knowing what punters are prepared to pay and (like bookies) they very rarely make an incorrect call, inflation has got absolutely zero influence on the market.

However, the most disgusting thing that has been introduced by Ticketmaster in recent years, is their concept of Platinum tickets (a process that is banned throughout most of Europe but not in the UK), whereby a provisional price is set for tickets but this price will alter depending on the amount of people attempting to buy the tickets when they go on sale.

By way of example, Madonna is playing at the O2 in London in October and initially only 2 shows were announced (even though more dates had already been booked by the promoters) creating an artificially large demand for tickets for those 2 shows.

When the tickets went on sale, hundreds of thousands of fans were attempting to get through on the phones and the vast majority weren't successful. However, if you were 'lucky' enough to get through, you were presented with two options, option 1 to buy tickets at the regular price (which would almost always inevitably be already sold out) and option 2 to buy tickets at the Platinum price, which would mean having to buy tickets at double, treble or even more than face value, if you wanted to go. We're talking about tickets being sold by Ticketmaster for £600 or £700 in really poor locations in the arena.

And the thing is, they would then slowly drip feed the release of tickets for the other shows (that they had booked but not told the public about) in order to maintain the artificially high demand for tickets because fans who wanted to go, couldn't run the 'risk' of anymore shows not being added.

This is the current face of 2020's capitalism in all it's glory, it is essentially legalising corporate ticket touting on an industrial scale.

As I said, it's a process which is banned throughout most of Europe but not here in the UK, funny that.

Your explanation regarding touring to promote a new album that no longer happens makes complete sense why ticket prices are so high. But how does the likes of Amazon Music Unlimited and Spotify etc distribute money to artists? I understand (I think) that radio stations pay royalties for playing songs and that is easily regulated, but with streaming music sites it would be much more difficult as these sites provide music on demand.

[Paul Spencer]

Jun 12, 2023 16:53:45 GMT lawrieleslie said:

Jun 12, 2023 12:58:14 GMT Paul Spencer said:

You are absolutely right Robbie, back in the day, artists used to tour to promote their recorded music and would quite often lose money in the process.

Nowadays, artists make very little money from their recorded music (streaming revenues are tiny in comparison to CD or vinyl sales) and they now release recorded music to promote their tours, from which they make the majority of their income.

The internet and the proliferation of mobile phone ownership, has meant that the monetary value of recorded music has virtually disappeared but although you can stream whatever you want, whenever you want, for virtually free, what the internet can't provide, is that visceral emotion a fan experiences when sharing a concert experience together with other people.

And as such, the demand for such experiences has sky rocketed. And (as Salop has said above) that specific demand, drives the fees charged for tickets.

Promoters are incredibly adept at knowing what punters are prepared to pay and (like bookies) they very rarely make an incorrect call, inflation has got absolutely zero influence on the market.

However, the most disgusting thing that has been introduced by Ticketmaster in recent years, is their concept of Platinum tickets (a process that is banned throughout most of Europe but not in the UK), whereby a provisional price is set for tickets but this price will alter depending on the amount of people attempting to buy the tickets when they go on sale.

By way of example, Madonna is playing at the O2 in London in October and initially only 2 shows were announced (even though more dates had already been booked by the promoters) creating an artificially large demand for tickets for those 2 shows.

When the tickets went on sale, hundreds of thousands of fans were attempting to get through on the phones and the vast majority weren't successful. However, if you were 'lucky' enough to get through, you were presented with two options, option 1 to buy tickets at the regular price (which would almost always inevitably be already sold out) and option 2 to buy tickets at the Platinum price, which would mean having to buy tickets at double, treble or even more than face value, if you wanted to go. We're talking about tickets being sold by Ticketmaster for £600 or £700 in really poor locations in the arena.

And the thing is, they would then slowly drip feed the release of tickets for the other shows (that they had booked but not told the public about) in order to maintain the artificially high demand for tickets because fans who wanted to go, couldn't run the 'risk' of anymore shows not being added.

This is the current face of 2020's capitalism in all it's glory, it is essentially legalising corporate ticket touting on an industrial scale.

As I said, it's a process which is banned throughout most of Europe but not here in the UK, funny that.

Your explanation regarding touring to promote a new album that no longer happens makes complete sense why ticket prices are so high. But how does the likes of Amazon Music Unlimited and Spotify etc distribute money to artists? I understand (I think) that radio stations pay royalties for playing songs and that is easily regulated, but with streaming music sites it would be much more difficult as these sites provide music on demand.

Amazon and Spotify have massive systems in place that record every single stream (that lasts for over 30 seconds), that calculation is then turned into a monetary value, currently in the UK, Spotify pay 0.004p per stream to the artists record label, of which they will pay the artist (if they are lucky) 20% of what they have received from Spotify. They also have to pay publishing revenue to the artists publishers, which is much lower but I wont get too technical on that.

By way of comparison, in the late 90's, when the sale of CD singles were at their height, an artist could easily expect to receive 50p-60p per CD single sold.

[spitthedog]

Jun 12, 2023 13:03:22 GMT hamsta2 said:

I remember when you bought tickets at Mike Lloyds in Hanley

£2 to see Deep Purple at Trentham Gardens 1974 (you could get £1 tickets for their Hammersmith London gig)
£2 to see Eric Clapton and Muddy Waters at Victoria Hall 1976
£1.50 to see The Police at North Staffs Poly 1978

all bought from Mike Lloyds I seem to remember, I think there was another record shop in Stoke where you could get tickets as well?

aay lad!...them were the days!

[iancransonsknees]

Jun 12, 2023 17:24:45 GMT Paul Spencer said:

Jun 12, 2023 16:53:45 GMT lawrieleslie said:

Your explanation regarding touring to promote a new album that no longer happens makes complete sense why ticket prices are so high. But how does the likes of Amazon Music Unlimited and Spotify etc distribute money to artists? I understand (I think) that radio stations pay royalties for playing songs and that is easily regulated, but with streaming music sites it would be much more difficult as these sites provide music on demand.

Amazon and Spotify have massive systems in place that record every single stream (that lasts for over 30 seconds), that calculation is then turned into a monetary value, currently in the UK, Spotify pay 0.004p per stream to the artists record label, of which they will pay the artist (if they are lucky) 20% of what they have received from Spotify. They also have to pay publishing revenue to the artists publishers, which is much lower but I wont get too technical on that.

By way of comparison, in the late 90's, when the sale of CD singles were at their height, an artist could easily expect to receive 50p-60p per CD single sold.

You'd be better off investing in crypto than being a musician.

[lawrieleslie]

Jun 12, 2023 20:24:47 GMT spitthedog said:

Jun 12, 2023 13:03:22 GMT hamsta2 said:

I remember when you bought tickets at Mike Lloyds in Hanley

£2 to see Deep Purple at Trentham Gardens 1974 (you could get £1 tickets for their Hammersmith London gig)
£2 to see Eric Clapton and Muddy Waters at Victoria Hall 1976
£1.50 to see The Police at North Staffs Poly 1978

all bought from Mike Lloyds I seem to remember, I think there was another record shop in Stoke where you could tickets as well?

aay lad!...them were the days!

Went to the Deep Purple Trentham Gardens gig in 74.

[mtrstudent]

Jun 12, 2023 9:46:36 GMT @stokiepmre89 said:

Jun 12, 2023 7:45:31 GMT lawrieleslie said:

Thought I’d resurrect this thread from 2009 because Rod Stewart is again appearing at Home Park in Plymouth. In the original thread from 2009 the tickets were £37.50 (the mrs still has the stubs pinned to the programme, she does things like that). This year the same seats are £168.50. They are far from the most expensive which are £352.
Doing a quick inflation calculator thingy and £37.50 in 2009 is now £65. Wtf.

The calculator I’m using doesn’t think inflation has been that high since 2009. £37.50 converts to about £55.80.

Still though, the £168.50 now is equivalent to about £113 in 2009. Even using your calculator it’s around £90 in 2009. It’s a ridiculous price increase regardless of which calculator is correct. Maybe it’s being billed as some farewell tour? It seems a shitty move if so and almost emotional exploitation of his loyal fans. I’m sure rod stewart didn’t set the prices but I’m also sure he’s aware and has a say. I like to think I wouldn’t attend on principle even if I was a huge Rod Stewart fan and lived in Plymouth.

Mate asked me if I wanted to go watch Blink 182.

Almost $300 after fees, that's £240ish.

I said nah thanks.

[spitthedog]

Jun 12, 2023 21:20:18 GMT lawrieleslie said:

Jun 12, 2023 20:24:47 GMT spitthedog said:

£2 to see Deep Purple at Trentham Gardens 1974 (you could get £1 tickets for their Hammersmith London gig)
£2 to see Eric Clapton and Muddy Waters at Victoria Hall 1976
£1.50 to see The Police at North Staffs Poly 1978

all bought from Mike Lloyds I seem to remember, I think there was another record shop in Stoke where you could tickets as well?

aay lad!...them were the days!

Went to the Deep Purple Trentham Gardens gig in 74.

If you convert that Hammersmith Deep Purple gig 1974 into 2023 prices thats the equivalent of £9.20 for a ticket to see one of the best rock bands ever in an iconic London venue or £18.40 for the Trentham Gardens gig!

What happened eh?

[spitthedog]

Jun 12, 2023 21:20:18 GMT lawrieleslie said:

Jun 12, 2023 20:24:47 GMT spitthedog said:

£2 to see Deep Purple at Trentham Gardens 1974 (you could get £1 tickets for their Hammersmith London gig)
£2 to see Eric Clapton and Muddy Waters at Victoria Hall 1976
£1.50 to see The Police at North Staffs Poly 1978

all bought from Mike Lloyds I seem to remember, I think there was another record shop in Stoke where you could tickets as well?

aay lad!...them were the days!

Went to the Deep Purple Trentham Gardens gig in 74.

Brilliant!....I remember Black Sabbath (Masters of Reality tour I think) and Roxy Music played there the same year. Still got my Roxy Music ticket (£2)

Sorry to hijack Rod Stewart thread btw! Would have loved to have seen The Faces though

[mtrstudent]

Jun 12, 2023 22:23:45 GMT spitthedog said:

Jun 12, 2023 21:20:18 GMT lawrieleslie said:

Went to the Deep Purple Trentham Gardens gig in 74.

If you convert that Hammersmith Deep Purple gig 1974 into 2023 prices thats the equivalent of £9.20 for a ticket to see one of the best rock bands ever in an iconic London venue or £18.40 for the Trentham Gardens gig!

What happened eh?

Fuck me. That's less than the £15 they charge for a can of pisswater beer at some of the shows I went to this year.

[wapiti]

Read where he wasn't good enough to play professional Footie so he made a career out of his second choice of a career.

[JoeinOz]

Jun 12, 2023 12:58:14 GMT Paul Spencer said:

Jun 12, 2023 7:55:18 GMT elystokie said:

Paul Spencer is obviously the expert but is it possibly to do with artists making less money from their recorded material nowadays?

Horrendous prices all the same.

You are absolutely right Robbie, back in the day, artists used to tour to promote their recorded music and would quite often lose money in the process.

Nowadays, artists make very little money from their recorded music (streaming revenues are tiny in comparison to CD or vinyl sales) and they now release recorded music to promote their tours, from which they make the majority of their income.

The internet and the proliferation of mobile phone ownership, has meant that the monetary value of recorded music has virtually disappeared but although you can stream whatever you want, whenever you want, for virtually free, what the internet can't provide, is that visceral emotion a fan experiences when sharing a concert experience together with other people.

And as such, the demand for such experiences has sky rocketed. And (as Salop has said above) that specific demand, drives the fees charged for tickets.

Promoters are incredibly adept at knowing what punters are prepared to pay and (like bookies) they very rarely make an incorrect call, inflation has got absolutely zero influence on the market.

However, the most disgusting thing that has been introduced by Ticketmaster in recent years, is their concept of Platinum tickets (a process that is banned throughout most of Europe but not in the UK), whereby a provisional price is set for tickets but this price will alter depending on the amount of people attempting to buy the tickets when they go on sale.

By way of example, Madonna is playing at the O2 in London in October and initially only 2 shows were announced (even though more dates had already been booked by the promoters) creating an artificially large demand for tickets for those 2 shows.

When the tickets went on sale, hundreds of thousands of fans were attempting to get through on the phones and the vast majority weren't successful. However, if you were 'lucky' enough to get through, you were presented with two options, option 1 to buy tickets at the regular price (which would almost always inevitably be already sold out) and option 2 to buy tickets at the Platinum price, which would mean having to buy tickets at double, treble or even more than face value, if you wanted to go. We're talking about tickets being sold by Ticketmaster for £600 or £700 in really poor locations in the arena.

And the thing is, they would then slowly drip feed the release of tickets for the other shows (that they had booked but not told the public about) in order to maintain the artificially high demand for tickets because fans who wanted to go, couldn't run the 'risk' of anymore shows not being added.

This is the current face of 2020's capitalism in all it's glory, it is essentially legalising corporate ticket touting on an industrial scale.

As I said, it's a process which is banned throughout most of Europe but not here in the UK, funny that.

It was particularly disappoimting when Springsteen did the price surge thing in his USA tour. He's supposed to be a man of the people. It's sometimes suggested the artists have no conrol over ticket prices but I don't believe for a minute someone of the stature of Bruce couldn't insist on appropropriate pricing. And the demand for Peter Kay tickets in the UK is colossal but he personally instructed them to make sure plenty of them were affordable.

[Paul Spencer]

Jun 14, 2023 11:37:32 GMT JoeinOz said:

Jun 12, 2023 12:58:14 GMT Paul Spencer said:

You are absolutely right Robbie, back in the day, artists used to tour to promote their recorded music and would quite often lose money in the process.

Nowadays, artists make very little money from their recorded music (streaming revenues are tiny in comparison to CD or vinyl sales) and they now release recorded music to promote their tours, from which they make the majority of their income.

The internet and the proliferation of mobile phone ownership, has meant that the monetary value of recorded music has virtually disappeared but although you can stream whatever you want, whenever you want, for virtually free, what the internet can't provide, is that visceral emotion a fan experiences when sharing a concert experience together with other people.

And as such, the demand for such experiences has sky rocketed. And (as Salop has said above) that specific demand, drives the fees charged for tickets.

Promoters are incredibly adept at knowing what punters are prepared to pay and (like bookies) they very rarely make an incorrect call, inflation has got absolutely zero influence on the market.

However, the most disgusting thing that has been introduced by Ticketmaster in recent years, is their concept of Platinum tickets (a process that is banned throughout most of Europe but not in the UK), whereby a provisional price is set for tickets but this price will alter depending on the amount of people attempting to buy the tickets when they go on sale.

By way of example, Madonna is playing at the O2 in London in October and initially only 2 shows were announced (even though more dates had already been booked by the promoters) creating an artificially large demand for tickets for those 2 shows.

When the tickets went on sale, hundreds of thousands of fans were attempting to get through on the phones and the vast majority weren't successful. However, if you were 'lucky' enough to get through, you were presented with two options, option 1 to buy tickets at the regular price (which would almost always inevitably be already sold out) and option 2 to buy tickets at the Platinum price, which would mean having to buy tickets at double, treble or even more than face value, if you wanted to go. We're talking about tickets being sold by Ticketmaster for £600 or £700 in really poor locations in the arena.

And the thing is, they would then slowly drip feed the release of tickets for the other shows (that they had booked but not told the public about) in order to maintain the artificially high demand for tickets because fans who wanted to go, couldn't run the 'risk' of anymore shows not being added.

This is the current face of 2020's capitalism in all it's glory, it is essentially legalising corporate ticket touting on an industrial scale.

As I said, it's a process which is banned throughout most of Europe but not here in the UK, funny that.

It was particularly disappoimting when Springsteen did the price surge thing in his USA tour. He's supposed to be a man of the people. It's sometimes suggested the artists have no conrol over ticket prices but I don't believe for a minute someone of the stature of Bruce couldn't insist on appropropriate pricing. And the demand for Peter Kay tickets in the UK is colossal but he personally instructed them to make sure plenty of them were affordable.

Artists of the stature of Springsteen absolutely can determine the price of their concert tickets Joe.

Indeed the very fee that he demands, is the starting point for the pricing of tickets by the promoters.

For all of the Hyde Park concerts there are different ticket prices based upon how close to the stage you want to be. For some artists, this can mean prices in the range of £400-£500 (face value) if you want to be in the Diamond Circle at the front.

However, when Pearl Jam played there last year, they insisted on a flat ticket price of £95, regardless of where you were situated in the park. And as such, there's not a doubt in my mind, that they would have received the lowest fee (by some distance) of any artist who played that year. The only thing that alters in terms of a cost to the promoters for each concert, is the fee of each individual artist.

Springsteen tickets this year are £360 for the Diamond Circle and £435 for the terrace.

[ChesterStokie]

Jun 12, 2023 12:58:14 GMT Paul Spencer said:

Jun 12, 2023 7:55:18 GMT elystokie said:

Paul Spencer is obviously the expert but is it possibly to do with artists making less money from their recorded material nowadays?

Horrendous prices all the same.

You are absolutely right Robbie, back in the day, artists used to tour to promote their recorded music and would quite often lose money in the process.

Nowadays, artists make very little money from their recorded music (streaming revenues are tiny in comparison to CD or vinyl sales) and they now release recorded music to promote their tours, from which they make the majority of their income.

The internet and the proliferation of mobile phone ownership, has meant that the monetary value of recorded music has virtually disappeared but although you can stream whatever you want, whenever you want, for virtually free, what the internet can't provide, is that visceral emotion a fan experiences when sharing a concert experience together with other people.

And as such, the demand for such experiences has sky rocketed. And (as Salop has said above) that specific demand, drives the fees charged for tickets.

Promoters are incredibly adept at knowing what punters are prepared to pay and (like bookies) they very rarely make an incorrect call, inflation has got absolutely zero influence on the market.

However, the most disgusting thing that has been introduced by Ticketmaster in recent years, is their concept of Platinum tickets (a process that is banned throughout most of Europe but not in the UK), whereby a provisional price is set for tickets but this price will alter depending on the amount of people attempting to buy the tickets when they go on sale.

By way of example, Madonna is playing at the O2 in London in October and initially only 2 shows were announced (even though more dates had already been booked by the promoters) creating an artificially large demand for tickets for those 2 shows.

When the tickets went on sale, hundreds of thousands of fans were attempting to get through on the phones and the vast majority weren't successful. However, if you were 'lucky' enough to get through, you were presented with two options, option 1 to buy tickets at the regular price (which would almost always inevitably be already sold out) and option 2 to buy tickets at the Platinum price, which would mean having to buy tickets at double, treble or even more than face value, if you wanted to go. We're talking about tickets being sold by Ticketmaster for £600 or £700 in really poor locations in the arena.

And the thing is, they would then slowly drip feed the release of tickets for the other shows (that they had booked but not told the public about) in order to maintain the artificially high demand for tickets because fans who wanted to go, couldn't run the 'risk' of anymore shows not being added.

This is the current face of 2020's capitalism in all it's glory, it is essentially legalising corporate ticket touting on an industrial scale.

As I said, it's a process which is banned throughout most of Europe but not here in the UK, funny that.

So Paul in the Madonna example above, where Ticketmaster were selling, say £150 face value tickets as, say £500 'Platinum' tickets, does Ticketmaster get the extra £350 or does the Artist and / or the Promotor get some of it?

I guess the answer is whatever is in the contract, but is there some sort of industry standard as a starting point?

Edit: in this example presumably the £500, £600, £700 ticket is fully VATable? Quite an incentive for the Government not to regulate it.