For the last 6 years, I have been going to concerts. Concerts are hands down one of the best experiences for any music lover. Although many people my age have never been to a concert, I believe one of the biggest reasons for this is because of the price of concert tickets.
Concert tickets have a price tag that varies greatly based on a number of things. The first thing I’ve noticed is the artist. Artists who are new and just starting out with smaller venues generally have cheaper tickets. Artists who are famous worldwide have very expensive tickets. The second factor that plays into the price is the size of the venue. A standing room only concert is going to be hundreds of dollars cheaper than going to a football stadium for a concert. Then again, we only put the big artists in the football stadiums and not the standing room only venues. Lastly, ticket prices are never accurate because of fees. Popular websites such as Ticketmaster, who recently made news because of a lawsuit about fees, charge services fees to every concert ticket purchased adding onto the price you originally thought you were paying.
Let’s say you have some money and you are interested in going to a show. Every venue ticket pricing system has the most expensive tickets closest to the stage while the least expensive tickets the farthest away from the stage. This system does make sense because you will be paying top dollar to be closer to your favorite artist. What about the people who don’t have the money, though? This makes the system seem unfair. Someone has less money than another person, therefore they have to sit farther away even though these two people have an equal interest in the artist.
There has only been one artist I have ever heard of that does not follow the “norms” of concert ticket prices. This artist is Halsey. While she still makes the tickets closer to the stage more expensive, she makes the prices extremely reasonable. For an upcoming concert, this summer at Madison Square Garden in New York City, her lowest priced ticket (without fees) is $34.50 and her highest priced ticket (without fees) is $54.50. To only have a twenty-dollar difference between getting the worst seat and the best seat in the venue is practically unheard of. Originally when Halsey played smaller venues, such as a standing room only venue, every ticket was the same exact price but I can imagine it’s bad for business to do something like that in a venue as large as Madison Square Garden.
While ticket prices are easy to complain about, something I love as a college student is how colleges know how much we want to go to concerts. They are able to bring artists to colleges for a concert, most are known to do this in the spring. If you go to the school, the tickets are discounted or sometimes free which is a huge benefit to everyone in the college. They give you the experience for a single price and cover the rest because at least colleges understand that we want to go to concerts but are poor.
Those with more money will continue sitting in the front row at a concert while those with not as much will sit in the back or not get the opportunity to attend. All in all, ticket prices are something that cannot be fixed.
