It doesn’t take much for me to realise just how out of touch I am with the modern world. An old pal messages with a little quiz question: someone he knows has just bought four tickets to see Harry Styles at his Wembley Stadium show. How much did he pay? God, I have no clue, before venturing a wild guess at £600. When my pal’s laughter had stopped and I’d made another inaccurate guess, he revealed the true cost. A few bob over £1300, around £260 of which was ‘fees’. This, as they say, is the modern world.
I appreciate that Harry Styles is not someone whose work crosses my path. I know that he was a member of One Direction, a boy band put together for the X Factor by Simon Cowell. My out of touchness probably begins here. I have never seen the X Factor so obviously I never saw them come third to Matt Cardle and Rebecca Ferguson (I looked that up, obviously), two other pop stars I know nothing about. I am not an expert on these things but I imagine that One Direction had more hits than The Beatles and sold more records than anyone in history. If you told me that, I would not be in a position to argue. But here’s the thing: I could not name you a single song they recorded. And not only is Styles playing Wembley Stadium this summer, he’s playing eight nights.
While I have been known to complain at the price of tickets for gigs, I am well aware that no one is compelling people to buy tickets. I thought I was paying at the top end last year when I shelled out over £100 a ticket to see Toto and a lot more than £100 a ticket to see The Doobie Brothers but it looks like I was actually in the Home Bargains ticket store. £325 a pop does sound a little excessive to me, even if we know that rock stars need to make money from live shows because they’re being fucked over by streaming companies and the likes of YouTube.
I reflected back to the one time I went to Wembley Stadium to see a concert. It was back in 1975 and it starred, in order: Stackridge, Rufus feat. Chaka Khan, Joe Walsh, The Eagles, The Beach Boys and Elton John. Not bad, eh, and to make matters even better a beautiful topless woman stood by us for the afternoon part of the show when The Eagles were playing. You might have thought this would have distracted me from watching the show, but 50 years ago stadium shows were rare and there were no big screens. The acts were dots on the stage, way in the distance, in our case I reckon well over 120 yards away. But I digress. What did that little lot cost me? £5. Just £5, no service charges or anything else, unless they were part of my fiver. It was an afternoon and early evening to remember, earlier than we intended because Elton John foolishly decided to play his new album, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy in its entirety when no one in the crowd had ever heard it. After The Beach Boys played a greatest hits set as the sun went down behind Wembley’s twin towers, this was not Elton’s smartest move. As soon as he started to play the overlong title track, we left to get the train home. I did not complain at that price, though. Imagine what it would cost today?
The first time I was shocked by the rise in the cost of concert tickets was in 2002 when Brian Wilson brought his Pet Sounds tour to the Bristol Colston Hall. I had already seen him perform the show at London’s Festival Hall and when I learned he was coming to Bristol, I was in near wild heaven. I almost fell through the floor when I heard the tickets cost £50 a pop. But hey, Brian’s show was truly magnificent, backed as he was by a stellar line-up of singers and multi-intrumentalists, and he banged out a setlist that comprised of 42 songs. 42!!! I even got to meet the great man after the show. £50? Pah. Peanuts.
Prices have only gone one way since then and to be honest, it rarely bothers me. If a legendary band comes to play – and I always see Toto when they tour – I’ll pay whatever it costs. But mainly, I visit small halls, rarely paying over £30 to see some of my favourite artists. And I’ll buy merch to support them, too. The business of music is the same as business everywhere: you charge as much as you can get away with. No one can blame Harry Styles for charging £325 a pop because people love him and anyway no one is forcing them to go. It’s the marketplace in effect, all well and good if you can afford it, not so good if you have to count your pennies.
In a few years, Bristol will have its own arena, only half a lifetime behind every major city, and even town, in the UK. I will have little interest in most of the acts who will be performing there, as I have little interest in most acts who play arenas elsewhere but at last we are catching up and will soon have the pleasure of dynamic pricing just to make things even more expensive. Well, we in Bristol have moaned often enough about not having an arena. Once it’s here, we can moan about how much tickets cost.
Harry Styles is an immensely talented young man, according to folk who know about these things, so good luck when you see and hopefully that £325 will be money well spent. I’d never pay that much, except that I probably would if I could get tickets for Paul McCartney or The Rolling Stones this summer. I can moan about the prices all I like, but I know, just like the people who love Styles, that I’d do the same to see Sir Macca or Sir Mick. You only live once, don’t you, and you can’t take it (your money) with you.
