Uncategorized

Is it frightening to think that an un-scalped ticket to see The Police this summer could be as high as $232? Jay-Z & Mary J. Blige… $172? Bon Jovi… $130? Alicia Keys… $125? Celine Dion… $185?

Now, it is no secret that most artists these days keep their lights on by touring, selling merch and playing over-the-top bar/bat mitzvahs. But when does greed and alienating your core, usually non-wealthy fans become a point of evil? And after paying $200 to Ticketmaster (plus ridiculous “convenience” charges), there is no guarantee you’ll have a perfect night out, between the world’s tallest person standing in front of you, everything smelling like Otto the bus driver’s jacket, people who love to throw their warm lite beer into the air, bladder-killing bathroom lines and dealing with parking issues which could be longer than the show.

Now, I do not mean to say that big-time concerts can not be a great night out seeing your musical heroes, but the gouging of a fan’s wallet seems to have reached a limit. Checking ticket prices, artists touring this summer behind very hot tickets such as Billy Joel, Radiohead, Michael Buble, and Robert Plant & Alison Krauss do not have any tickets priced above $100. Is that wisdom or simply a chance for the scalper market to proliferate, as scalpers are probably more likely to snap up sets of $65 tickets rather than risk having a collection of $230 tickets?

Also, does anyone think it’s sketchy that Ticketmaster has a side business of printing your own random ticket… ticketing.ticketmaster.ca/customtickets/ ?