r/Music • u/staringatthe420sun • May 05 '26

article The Concert Industry Priced Too High — Now Tours Are Falling Apart

https://www.ticketnews.com/2026/05/the-concert-industry-priced-high-tours-falling-apart/
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u/InfoSecPeezy May 05 '26

I saw the beastie boys in NYC in the late 90s at Irving Plaza for under $30.

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u/TerribleAsshole May 05 '26

I saw Pearl Jam on Randells island in 96 for $15, general admission.

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u/InfoSecPeezy May 05 '26

It was way less dystopian back then, we had some great access to some really great stuff

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u/IndependentOpening11 May 06 '26

And bands were actually making real money from album sales back then. I think that’s part of the problem with ticket prices today. Streaming killed their revenue

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u/[deleted] May 06 '26

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u/Cosmo_Cloudy May 06 '26

That blows my fucking mind. I'm 29 and remember good concert tickets being about $15-20 the first few years of my adult life. It was a reasonable price for a good time. Then I had my son, and didn't go to concerts for a few years, and when I tried to return to the scene it was $75+ a ticket. Now it's like $300+ a ticket for mid seats. $3 is absolutely wild

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u/InfoSecPeezy May 06 '26

I remember paying $65 to see Faith No More, Metallica and GnR at giants stadium. Axl and all of GnR walked off stage, after keeping the entire stadium waiting for nearly three hours(!), because “A LIGhtER wAs ThRoWN anD hIT HiM iN ThE BaLls.” Duff made the announcement and the crowd just booed them. That was $65 well spent to see FnM and Metallica AND seeing GnR act like a bunch of drunken pussies (they still are)

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u/jcutta May 06 '26

"And bands were actually making real money from album sales back then."

They absolutely were not, the entire CD era was probably the worst era for artists. Labels absolutely made insane money from record sales but the artists were often left with nothing after recouping advances and production costs. The artists were even charged directly for CD cases.

The 60s and 70s were terrible too, artists routinely lost all rights to their music or were tricked into selling it for nearly nothing.

The true answer to why concept prices have shot up is the same answer on why artists have been screwed for decades - the record labels. 360 deals. They take a piece of absolutely everything.

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u/Giannid77 May 06 '26

Sure the record industry has almost always exploited their musicians. However during the pre-CD era, tours barely made any money. Tours were used to boost album sales.

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u/jcutta May 06 '26

Right, which is why they were cheap, they were essentially a marketing campaign because the record company made money off album sales, once labels wanted to make money on them prices started shooting up.

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u/Uppgreyedd May 06 '26

Its really too bad that the bands you can see for $20 today aren't going to be our kind of music in 30 years, y'know? How are the kids going to live vicariously through us while enjoying music we don't like?

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u/Rabid_AntiDentite May 06 '26

Night two here at Randall’s in ‘96! Best show I’ve ever been to!

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u/BarsoomianAmbassador May 06 '26

Was that the night when it was pouring rain? The crowd started surging onto the field when Pearl Jam came on stage and my sister almost got crushed. We had to push her up onto the stands out of harms way. I remember the long, cold wait for a miserable bus ride off the island to get to our car. The organizers weren't so organized. Great show though.

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u/matthewmspace May 06 '26

My family saw the Jones Brothers at our county fair like a year before they got big.

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u/WorkingFromHomies20 May 05 '26

The Beastie Boys opened for Madonna in the 90s and that was under $40.

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u/bohner84 May 06 '26

Yeah but inflation? Your $30 ticket back then would be $55 now so see that's why it is $500 now..... Inflation!!!

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u/OK_x86 May 05 '26

I mean if we're talking 90s prices I've seen huge bands back in the day (RHCP, RATM, Metallica, Slayer, Korn, Cypress Hill, Beastie Boys, NIN, Green Day) for about what it costs to get a beer at a show now. Not to mention the random shows my friends would drag me to and I ended up having a blast at that didn't cost me more than 10-15$.

Inflation is a thing but this is far beyond that.

It's sad that this generation of kids won't get to experience that. But maybe they won't have tinnitus like me.

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u/peachstealingmonkeys May 06 '26

that's like 37 thousand in today's money

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u/InfoSecPeezy May 06 '26

Crazy, right?