Ticketmaster and Live Nation have destroyed the concert experience. But it didn’t use to be this way. Today, Oasis and Taylor Swift tickets might go for thousands of dollars, but back in 1955, you could see Elvis Presley in concert for less than the modern-day equivalent of $20.
I think Ticketmaster and Live Nation absolutely are to blame for hyperinflated ticket prices.
The fact that scalpers also operate is reprehensible.
I will however say that production values of a modern gig are many factors higher than they were decades ago.
Safety standards are much higher, requiring more crowd control, more planning, more specialised equipment (both for the venue, and for the production).
It’s no longer “a stack of speakers and a mixing desk with 8 channels”. PA design and installation is both a science and an art in itself to achieve an even frequency response throughout as much of the venue as possible. Never mind the production of the actual music.
It’s no longer “120 par cans over the stage and a bunch of power”, it’s a huge quantity of intelligent lighting fixtures with months of planning and days of programming.
Never mind the video side of things requiring months of preproduction with kit that would make the lighting or sound budget look like fisher price.
And all of this has to be built and run with redundancy, so the equipment list is essentially doubled, and likely a lot of spares.
Venue costs are also higher. So all of that production has to be orchestrated to go in and come out in as fast a time as possible. And packed on and off trucks in specific ways to facilitate this. Logistics of a tour are intimidating.
There are also entire university degrees based around these roles in production, people want and make a career out of touring. Places on tours are highly sought after.
Gigs are no longer just a band playing. There is a lot more show to it.
Whether this is actually what fans want is up for debate. And if it actually makes the experience better is also up for debate.
Ticket prices are obscene, and I don’t think they are inline with the production provided.
However, if the live music is in demand then there will be people that pay. A band can only play so many gigs, and venues are limited.
Some of the increased cost can be attributed to making the job easier and safer for all the crew, staff and fans.
Some of the increased cost can be attributed “putting on a better show”.
Some of the cost can be attributed to some of these jobs moving from the “passion and hobby” to “a career”.
Some of these costs can be attributed to the increased skill level required to put on these gigs.
Some of these costs can be attributed general cost of living & inflation increases.
But I think most of the costs can be attributed to the exploitative behaviour of Ticketmaster etc.
Mixing now requires phenomenally less equipment. We went from massive mixing boards to a collection of individual dials and now we are on very powerful digital modeling systems with a laptop interface.
Sure, these need to be dialed in at every venue, but most of the settings are staying close to the same to recreate a studio type sound with autotune turned slightly down and letting the chord change strum be left in.