Concert Tickets Shouldn’t Be So. Freaking. Expensive
Somewhere, a bunch of suits have collectively agreed that it’s okay to hike the prices up. They saw the opportunity to play with our emotions and pockets and they took it.
By Elissa Sanci
I don’t care who think you are. I don’t care that you’ve been in the limelight for over eight or 18 years now. I don’t care how many followers you garner on Twitter, nor do I care how many venues you’ve previously sold out. I don’t care that you’re Lady Gaga, Maroon 5, or even Beyoncé.
Tickets to see you live and in concert should not cost my college tuition.
I work hard for my money, as hard as the next desperate college student. I work long shifts, deal with rude costumers, and, generally, have better things I could be doing with my life, like sleeping or watching Netflix. I work hard and, for the most part, I don’t enjoy spending the money I’ve slaved away for.
What makes it okay to charge that much for your concert? How do you sleep at night, knowing you’ve exploited your fans, sucking them of all the cash they have? You were a kid once, weren’t you? Heck, you’re still a kid now! You’re only year older than me! Really, who do you think you are?!
You’re a legend? Do you remember who you were before you were famous? You were probably into music. You probably loved concerts. But you probably didn’t enjoy paying an arm and a leg for them, did you? I don’t even know you, but I can answer for you: no. No, you didn’t like being charged hundreds of dollars for a single ticket, feeling violated and left without so much as a five-dollar bill to buy an overpriced pretzel once at the concert.
I suppose it’s supply and demand, simple economics. You’re popular; everyone wants to see you. Your record label is employing a lot of people to set up the stage, to promote the show, to book the venue, to make the costumes, to travel from city to city. That’s a lot of expenses. And somewhere, a bunch of suits have collectively agreed that it’s okay to hike the prices up. They saw the opportunity to play with our emotions and pockets and they took it. Fair enough — I suppose if I were as famous as you, or produced music as brilliantly as you did, I would do the same. In the end, however, I have to say that I don’t agree with your business tactics; you are human, made of the same stuff I am. You just happen to have vocals gifted upon you from the heavens, something I was not graced with.
Even if the ticket prices were cut in half, the amount of revenue you would generate wouldn’t fall that much. If anything, perhaps it would go up — more fans would be able to afford tickets, and you’d sell out more arenas, filling up even the largest of venues.
Music is a gift. It’s this beautiful thing, something that’s so hard to describe, something that can cause some of the wildest emotions. Sometimes, music is there for you when no one else is. And that’s something you should consider when you determine prices. Think about how much you could help some one with your gift, just by decreasing prices slightly, even if only by $20. Live music shouldn’t only be available to the rich, and music shouldn’t rob of us our paychecks.
If you look at the attendance of concerts, you probably would never guess how much tickets cost. You would never assume that they cost more than an entire outfit from Forever 21 (not that that’s a particularly hard feat to accomplish). Some would call us foolish, too generous with our money, maybe even stupid, but I would have to disagree. If anything, it’s an enormous compliment to the artist. More so, it emphasizes just how influenced society is by the power of music; like I said earlier, music is invaluable to some, leading them out of their darkest times, times so bleak they didn’t ever think they’d see light again.
At the end of the day, however, concert tickets just shouldn’t cost that. much. money.
But I’ll pay for them anyway. I’m still the person who spends two weeks’ worth of my paycheck to get decent seats and who waits on line for hours to hopefully stand front row. I’m the one holding the sign proclaiming my love to you even though you made me pay an incredulous amount for my spot in the crowd. I’m the one who’s been there and who always will, even when, eventually, your tickets will be so expensive I’ll have to resort to selling body organs. 
