Oh for the joys of dynamic ticket pricing, the method by which the ticket-selling behemoths get richer still by ripping off music fans, as of course do the acts themselves. Just two days ago, I wrote a piece about one of the main reasons concert ticket prices are so high is because hardly anyone pays for their music consumption these days, except by way of a minimal donation to streaming sharks like Spotify. Artists, I said, have to make a living somehow and now along come Rush.
The legendary Canadian rockers, led by the helium-voiced Geddy Lee, are undertaking a massive world tour in order to make vast sums of money to celebrate 50 years of making music and the life of their deceased drummer Neil Peart and they’ve just announced some arena shows in the UK. Rush are not quite at bucket list level for me – I like them a lot and I love some of their songs – but I’d have fancied seeing the old boys live in concert just the once. That was until I found out about the ticket prices.
Not that the ticket prices seem to make a lot of sense because, as is the way with dynamic pricing, they keep changing. A friend of mine went onto the Rush presale site last night and the cheapest tickets he found came in at £340. I went on some of the ticket sides this morning and so called VIP seats were £650, but you could get a ticket somewhere in the next postcode for about £112. The £650 tickets were going last night for £900, so that’s all right, then.
This is a prime example of what we experts call taking the piss. What’s more it makes my arguments about touring being the only way for artists to make money, hence the high ticket prices, appear a little redundant. One person wrote that it wasn’t actually down to the band how much the ticket sellers charge, but actually it is. The likes of The Cure and Paul Heaton simply don’t fleece their fans with dynamic pricing, but more artists do than don’t. Even the great Man of the People, Bruce Springsteen’s tickets are sold by way of dynamic pricing, although somewhat feebly when questioned he said his people find out what everyone else is charging and to charge his fans a few dollars less. So that’s a few dollars less while using rip off dynamic pricing. Hmm.
None of the furore about pricing will greatly trouble the band because these gigs will be sold out very quickly. They come across as very decent blokes if this puff piece in The Guardian is anything to go by. For all the reasons I gave in my previous blog, I expect to be ripped off when I go to a show, by either paying a big wedge for tickets or through overpriced merch, but I do think that anything over £200 for maybe 90 minutes entertainment is a little stiff.
Of course, no one is forced at gun point to be ripped off but I do understand the ultra hardcore fans who have dreamt of seeing their favourite bands in the flesh. They will pay the prices and some will put themselves in debt to do so. In the end, we’re the mug punters who encourage dynamic pricing because we pay for the tickets. Except at these prices, I wouldn’t go near a gig. Unless the two dead Beatles came back to life and joined the surviving ones for a reunion tour. I’d sell a kidney to pay for that. You see? I’m a mug punter, too.
