I bought 4 tickets to Taylor Swift for my girlfriend and her friends and paid $407.57 total after all of the bullshit Ticketmaster fees.
~$101 per ticket isn’t cheap, but $900+ per ticket is either scalper/resale prices day of the show, or for some fancy VIP tickets, or just a made up number.
Note that the only source listed is bls, and I am pretty sure they don’t track concert tickets 🤔.
lol yes exactly. Kind of hilarious and stupid that they reference BLS as a source, which I’m assuming they meant for the minimum wage figure to calculate the hours, but they also don’t show what that minimum wage figure is on the infographic….
Just a really poorly crafted piece of rage bait designed to do exactly what it’s doing here - piss people off so they share it.
If it’s any consolation I am still annoyed that you had to pay $100/ticket.
Yeah I can’t think of a single artist off the top of my head that I would personally pay that much to see, but it made my girlfriend happy and that’s worth $100 to me any day
Prime MJ mightve been worth the $100 in hindsight, that dude was built different
100$ still feels like a discount when you think of how much of a show he used to put on. I would have loved to see him live in his prime.
Look for a novel, ‘The Crook Manifesto’ by Colin Whitehead.
A retired Harlem fence has to reach out to his old running buddies to get tickets to a Jackson 5 concert for his daughter. Hijinx ensue…
based and lovepilled
Taylor Swift chose to list on Ticketmaster with full knowledge that those fees would be included.
They sometimes don’t have a choice. But also fuck Ticketmaster https://youtu.be/-_Y7uqqEFnY
They always have a choice lmao
The large venues usually have an exclusivity deal with a ticket seller like Ticketmaster or AXS. So if they want to play massive stadiums, no they don’t have a choice but to use Ticketmaster. It’s on the venue, not the performer.
So what you’re saying is, we need to build out own arena with hookers and gambling?
Taylor is big enough where she could have made a better/different deal. I’m sure slightly smaller venues would bend over backwards to have her, this was purely a greed thing.
That’s not really how the corporate world works. There’s billion dollar contracts involved that are much bigger than one artists tour. No matter how big they are. It’s use Ticketmaster, or you can’t use our venue. Full stop.
You’re making a statement without addressing the heart of the discussion. Artists like Taylor Swift are much bigger than Ticketmaster. If she actually used her platform and her voice to go against TM, she could effect a real change. But she (and so many other big artists) choose not to
How does it benefit Taylor Swift to have ticket master take a bigger cut? The best thing for her to do would be to sell the tickets directly through her site, not working with ticket master
Then, like, don’t play massive stadiums then? If Taylor Swift (don’t care about her but it’s kinda the main point of this thread) actually listened to her fans and decided postpone and restructure her tour around smaller independent venues and sell non-transferable tickets directly to fans she could’ve started a real change in the live music community. But she didn’t. Because, ya know, it wouldn’t make as much money.
But then only a tiny fraction of her fans would be able to see her at all. Even if she did round the clock shows she wouldn’t compete with the density those mega venues provide.
As opposed to only a tiny fraction of her (rich) fans? Doesn’t really seem like an argument to me
So what would you do under the regime?
not sell my soul to corporations, taylor swift doesnt need more money
Yeah but we’re not talking about Ticketmaster fees, we’re talking about ticket prices. If you exclude the fees and just talk about the ticket price itself, they were $79 each, which further invalidates this “infographic” if you can even call it that.
Ticketmaster sucks fucking ass, no debate, but that’s not the point here.
And also, saying any artist “chose” to list on Ticketmaster is kind of disingenuous, almost every large stadium and venue (in the US at least) has a contractual requirement to only sell through Ticketmaster, which, again, is proof that Ticketmaster sucks fucking ass, but isn’t really any artist’s fault. It’s the Ticketmaster monopoly.
Other than understating the old ticket prices, non of the reality of Ticketmaster invalidates the point that capitalism has made concerts much more expensive.
No, the Elvis cocert didnt include $60 in fee on that ticket.
The problem is the insinuation made by the infographic is that artists are to blame for ticket prices.
This would be a much more powerful (and factually accurate) infographic if it focused on fees and how Ticketmaster is largely to blame for the balloon in costs for event tickets over the last few decades.
But it doesn’t say that, at all.
Also, the fees per ticket for Taylor Swift were $22. Not cheap by any means, and a total rip off, again, at the fault of Ticketmaster. But let’s not throw around made up numbers if we’re trying to be factual.
I never thought the infographic was insinuating it was the artists fault.
Its the record companies and promotion companies and everyone else who uses capital to lay claim to any resources they can and then use that control to leverage greater and greater profits at the cost of everyone else.
In other words, capitalism.
I find your arguments sound and well-sourced, and I appreciate you sharing your experience.
Utterly unsure of where the controversy is, but those downdoots are lookin mighty. I think it’s important for communists to do self-reflection like this. We have the truth on our side, and should be willing to criticize ourselves for accidentally spreading dis/misinformation. I’ve had to do it. I apologized and rectified my mistake to the people I misinformed, even though I agreed with the ideals what I shared presented. (In this case, the thing I shared was a completely believable mass shooter’s alleged Facebook post about hating Asian women, right before he murdered them. The post was faked. It presented the shooter as a vile racist, which he most certainly was – he killed 8 people, 6 of them being Asian women – so why fucking fake it?
I’d wager to create traps for us to fall into, so we can be discredited and ignored. But I’m pretty paranoid.
The point is still the same when the true numbers are shown, and it still hits hard enough. There is absolutely no need to lie or exaggerate. Why did the creator of this graph?
More info about the price
“life is short and tomorrow is not guaranteed” is FOMO propaganda.
Okay so they used resale prices, AND based it off of average ticket cost for a show in San Francisco, one of the highest COL areas in the country?
That’s not making the logic they used any more sound….
They didn’t use the resale price, they mentioned how the resale price was 17 hundred. Also, all the prices are based in Cali for what I can see. So the point of capitalism driving the prices higher stands. Why are you so fervently defending capitalism?
I’m fervently defending not posting misinformation. Don’t get it twisted.
It is not misinformation based on the historical data of ticket prices of the region they are using. Your rant is to invalidate their point and to argue that capitalism isn’t as bad as the graph is showing.
You have no data to confirm that the historical data on ticket prices they used is also specific to the Bay Area, only the Taylor Swift ticket price.
You shared this because it aligns with your world view without taking a moment to consider the validity of the data, which is perfectly ironic considering how full-throated you are to try and make a piss-poor argument that I’m somehow trying to be an apologist for capitalism because I dared to challenge data that’s obviously incorrect.
Capitalism is plenty bad for a myriad of reasons, it doesn’t require false information to prove that point. Hyperbole does not strengthen an argument, it weakens it.
Do some self-reflection.
“Do some reflection” is so ironic from someone who kept repeating that they were using scalper/resale prices when the data right there said that those prices were higher than the ones that they were using in the graph $900 vs $1600.
It is more that the graph doesnt align with your world view and you are looking for excuses to tear it apart just so your point of view stays unshaken. That is shown by the fact that I provided the description that said that the price of resale tickets that they encountered was significantly higher than the one they used, yet you blatantly chose to ignore it, on the reply to the description. You didn’t do any critical analysis. Yet you are here preaching me about critical analysis.
You say that capitalism is plenty of bad yet you keep undermining its effects. Sounds like revisionist bullshit to me.
Fuck Ticketmaster. Seriously fuck Ticketmaster.
I honestly prefer seeing smaller bands, not as crowded, sometimes you find wonderful shows, food/drink is usually cheaper. And let’s face it, maistream music is just bad nowadays.
It took two hours of working minimum wage to buy an Elvis ticket ticket.
Elvis ticket cost in 2023 dollars: $31
But minimum wage is $7.25/hr, so $31 is more like four hou… oh wait.
They meant back in the day it took that time
I know! The point is that we’re seeing the combined effect of ticket prices increasing relative to inflation and minimum wage falling relative to inflation, compounding the unaffordability.
I talk about the real cost of living all the time.
1960 minimum wage was $1.00/hour and the cost of the average house was $11,000.00. Cost of the average house today is over $300,000.00. Minimum wage should be $30.00/hour, right?
As someone who works in the residential housing industry, the difference between an $11,000 1960s house and a 2023 $300k house is staggering.
Granted, nobody is building houses that are 750-900 SF with one bathroom and no garage (in the US) these days, mainly because they can make more per lot by building bigger, and land is what is in short supply (in desirable, public service areas).
Houses are still impossibly priced for minimum wage because while housing prices have increased (median) 4-5% per year, wages have been lagging for two decades. And that really is a loss in buying power by about a factor of two.
Or you can just get a house that was built during that time period and is worth that much
But nah you want all the modern comforts for less effort on your end like a true little virtue socialist
So, you think that things like air conditioning were invented because of inflation?
You think they won’t increase the price of the house?
You used to pay more for things like an automatic transmission in a car, power windows, radio, and air conditioning.
A VCR was an incredible luxury.
At the technology improves, the price of things should go down.
Why don’t you go out there and find a cheaper way to develop these things
Why can’t you zoomers ever contribute to society and instead just have to complain that you have to have a job
Translation = I can’t actually refute your statement, so I’ll resort to name calling.
I feel like all entertainment is for the wealthy only now.
When I was a kid in the eighties, I could mow one lawn and get enough money for a field level box seat at either an A’s or Giants game with enough left over for a Coke and a bag of peanuts.
I can’t even comprehend going to an NFL game today.
Fortunately, I can still see pretty good local or regional bands in bars for anywhere from ten to thirty dollars depending on the band.
it’s so obvious here who supports the locals and who doesn’t
never in my life would i pay that much for a show when i could see probably 50 local shows for that much. And even have a chat with the band afterwards if i want to.
908 dollars???
Yep, that’s one expensive concert ticket. Feels like I’m just getting old and making “back in my day” observations, but I think there’s also something wrong happening here beyond normal inflation.
When you buy something through the internet, you can bet there are lots of mediators taking cuts between producer/consumer, even when buying it through official means. Add in credit cards inflating prices through interests, then add in FOMO marketing to increase prices, then add in scalpers reselling already inflated ticket prices, and tons of other ways that we don’t even know that are happening. Abstractions over abstractions over abstractions, modern day innovation is finding a way to put yourself between producer/consumer to extract value without doing any material work. “Survival of the richest by Rushkoff” has some interesting insights on the contemporary tech industry.
More info about the price
Lol what? This is straight up misinformation, who posted that, the concert promoters?!
In the old days, bands didn’t make shit from record sales, only from touring.
Now it’s more common for artists to have rights and resources to sell their own merch including albums, so they get much more from record sales on average.
Oftentimes, the expenses for putting on a modern show, complete with the massive crews needed to pull it off, ends up operating at a loss. I could see this being justification for an increase, but not one of this magnitude.
Whole thing reeks of corporatism and greed. So I guess that part hasn’t changed too much.
It literally says they’re looking at resale price for Taylor swifts concert. How is looking at scalper prices in any way relevant
They took the actual price and then mentioned what the resale price was, reason why they mentioned that the resale price was $16 hundred the $900 they put in the graph
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More info about the price
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Went to see Coldplay last summer. I think for two persons we had to pay like 320 euro. That’s almost as much as we spent on 2.5 weeks of holiday this year.
Where would you be able to spend a 17 day vacation for two for 320 euro? That’s 20 Euro per night. Maybe enough for accomodation, but not for transport, food, etc.
The industry changed. In the past artists would make fortunes selling albums and shows were a nice way to make the album more popular.
Today music sales is very low and streaming pays 0.004 per stream (average) to an artist, so the album is just a way to push people to buy tickets for shows.
It’s a completely new paradigm for them.
Except for a few big artists, it never was really paying to sell albums. In the 90s, out of a 20$ cd, the artists would only get around 15% of it. The store, distributer and label took the largest part Concert have always been much more paying because of the share from the tickets and the fact that you basically can take all the profits from the merch. Now with most of the streaming platforms and the way they share revenus within pools of artists, it’s basically impossible to make a living from selling music, except for 1% that are pushed by labels. Meanwhhile fucking Spotify can give 100$ millions to Douche Rogan and buy the FC Barcelona. Capitalism has won the brainwashing war. I teach music in college amd University and pretty much all of the kids have never bought an actual album and dont see any problem with the current revenue models. Imagine what we could do if we simply ditch Spotify for an user controlled platform.
there are millions of indie artists you can support without dealing with: ticket fees, lines, crowds, overpriced drinks
I go to tons of punk and hardcore shows. Never deal with ticketmaster or anything like that, tickets are usually free-$20.
And when you get there, you’ll probably have to look through the phone of the asshole in front of you who thinks there’s going to be an alien space ship landing so they have to record it, and not attending something where seeing it with your own eyes is the most important and you can listen to all the pre-recorded songs whenever the hell you want, at infinitely higher quality than what your phone can do. $908 says they never even looked at that video again and it’s just dead weight in their phone memory.
Why is Taylor Swift so popular? She sings well but I don’t get the hype.
I think a lot of it is a “right place at the right time” as she really got going in the early days of YouTube with songs/videoclips that appealed a lot to teenagers, and now those teens are adults who can actually afford to go to concerts. Kinda like One Direction, Justin Bieber or Katy Perry if they hadn’t fallen off of the face of the earth.
isn’t harry styles literally just the remnants of one direction, and also one of the most popular artists of all time?
Oh yeah, but the band itself disbanded very quickly and only Styles remained really famous (I don’t even remember the names of the other ones off the top of my head). He himself is just like Swift in that they’re very popular nowadays because of their great timing with YouTube, catchy songs and very well produced videoclips, though 1D also had that thing where every cishet man decided they were the spawn of the devil and that made their careers very complicated. They’re also still very active and competent, they’re today kind of what Michael Jackson was in the late 90s/early 2000s, but without all the tabloid racism.
Monopolies is what causes this. Capitalism is just the enabler. But don’t kid yourself if you think the rich don’t gatekeep certain things in “communist” countries.
There aren’t any communist countries, only a handful of states run by communists, who don’t even claim to have reached socialism yet.
The problem is the commodity form – goods and services made for their use value and their exchange value. This is a problem in the states run by communists. They don’t claim otherwise. Neither does any Marxist.
The world is currently dominated by imperialists. According to Marxists, imperialism is the ‘monopoly finance’ stage of capitalism, which is what you identify.
In a society that doesn’t make commodities or which protects certain goods and services from the logic of commodities, the ‘gatekeeping’ of art (or any other good or service) wouldn’t need to happen.
Art under capitalism, like everything else – food, shelter, clothes, air, water, etc – is commodified. This has awful consequences, which affects every commodity-producing society.
The ‘communist countries’ have only started on the path to abolish the commodity form. It will take decades to complete, maybe a century or more, and is unlikely to be fully achieved before the world is communist.
who don’t even claim to have reached socialism yet.
This is wrong. They correctly call their states in the socialist phase of development. So they have, accoding to themselves, reached the socialist stage and thus socialism. Please stop talking about value form when you do not even know the difference between the socialist stage and the communist stage.
Is what I said about the commodity form incorrect?
Communism is not about safekeeping, capitalism is. Communism is about democratically sharing the means of production. Capitalism is all about class struggles and private property.
There are still plenty of cheap concerts to be found if people stop going to see only the most overhyped LiveNation-signed artists ever. In the past year I’ve seen Black Midi, Black Country New Road, Weyes Blood, Horsegirl, and Jpegmafia all for less than $20 a ticket by supporting my local venue. I really don’t feel sorry for people who pay $900 to see an artist from several hundred (or thousand) feet away just so they can flex on social media about it…
Horsegirl are fantastic! I saw them last year and even had a chat with them afterwards. Front row, no barrier, hardly even a stage. They played for less than 50 people and gave it their all. I’m so happy to see them get a little bit bigger.
They killed their set, they were touring (my show was the last stop of the tour) with Lifeguard who also did great. Some of the best energy I’ve ever felt at a show and beers were only $5 a pint! It’s crazy how enjoyable concerts are when you don’t feel the need to go to the biggest ones around
the energy is just different and more intense when there’s around 100 people in the audience.
I play in a small band myself and i’ve played big shows and small shows, and my favourites are the small shows when people are really into it.
It’s pretty funny that the only form of relatively affordable in-person live entertainment now is opera
908? Where? Cheapest I saw here was 1750 for bleader seats
Several of my professors, who were otherwise quite anticommunist, had personal experience with the Soviet Union’s subsidizing of the arts, and praised it quite highly. One, who grew up in socialist Hungary, said that during the 60s and 70s you could to a concert with world-class artists for the equivalent of just a few US dollars. And audiences (he said) tended to be quite musically literate, because recordings of Soviet and even some western artists were cheap and everywhere – not luxury items in any sense.
Another professor fondly recalled being in Prague during the 70s, and how you could go into almost any church or concert hall and hear very fine performance of often quite obscure early music. He went back years later after “democracy” was “restored,” and found that the concerts were still there – but it was all hack performances of the same two or three pieces that tourists like to hear.
