What happened to ticket prices?

[Cedar redaC]

When I saw Dream Theater last summer, tickets were $45 for seats that weren't nosebleeds, but they weren't awful either. The show was so good that it was worth the epic drive and ticket prices.

[Jaq]

When I saw Dream Theater last summer, tickets were $45 for seats that weren't nosebleeds, but they weren't awful either. The show was so good that it was worth the epic drive and ticket prices.

That's about what I paid when I saw them in October 2011. I just sometimes remember seeing bills with three bands on them back in the day for 10 dollars and kind of wince sometimes. 

[Chino]

There is a venue in CT called the Oakdale. It is a 4000ish seat venue, with a lobby that holds 1000. It cost 40 dollars to see Steel Panther in the lobby! DT was 45 in the main hall 4 years ago.

In 2006 I saw Tom Petty in the lawn for $23. In 2010 in was $40.

I don't go to concerts anymore because of how much they cost. Once you pay the ticket fee... you get fucked up the ass by about 4 different "convenience fees". Those piss me off more than anything. I'm paying you more because you implemented a process to eliminate jobs which is already saving you money. Why don't you cut off one of my testicles while your at it.

[El Barto]

I've been thinking about how the venue effects the cost.  Our shed seats 18.5 and AAC (where the Stars and Mavericks play) is a fancy-ass arena with 21k seats. Shows at the AAC are always the top tier acts, Madonna, Metallica, U2, etc., and always sell well. A lot of the bands I'll see play Starplex. That's where Maiden and Rush (before this tour) always play, along with all of your package type shows. Since the lawn almost never sells out, it's pretty common to see them selling those seats for $20 the week of the show. Since there are often dirt cheap lawn seats for sale, that lowers the cost of everything else accordingly.

I suppose the moral of the story is that if you know for a fact you're going to sell 21000 seats, then why wouldn't you sell them for as much as you can get? Those are the shows that play the nicest, newest venues. If you know you've got more seats than fans in a market, you play cheaper digs and make your tickets more affordable to the masses.

As an aside, Roger Waters was the most expensive show I've seen. Lowers for the Dallas show were $125+TTL. We paid $200 for 10th row center in Tulsa. My thought at the time was that while I'd prefer to not have to spend that much money, the fact is that if anybody deserves it more than Roger, I'm not sure who it would be. Given the insane amount of enjoyment and pleasure the man's brought to me over the years, I consider the $350 he's gotten out of me this decade to be fine price to pay.

[nicmos]

Cheap DT seats usually run $40-$50 here. They always play the same 5k seat theater and sell about 1500.

I imagine taking their production to Singapore is pretty costly. Wonder if they take the whole show, or do a scaled down gig.

Reminds me, there were technical problems at the show.  Their earpieces or monitor speakers (I don't remember which) weren't working-- they couldn't hear themselves, so they stopped the show, and rearranged it so they did the acoustic set of Silent Man and BTS while they fixed the problem.  I was worried they were going to have to shorten the whole set, but in the end we got every song.  I think the setlist was just as long as on the US tour.  We got all the animations that I think I saw on youtube and the boards from the US tour.  So if they scaled anything back, it wasn't apparent.

So anyway, we almost got a short show for those expensive prices.  I had to sit in the upper balcony because I just wasn't going to pay almost $200, as much as I love them.

[philmcson]

It's worrying. When I first saw DT about 7 years ago it was around £25, when I saw them last year after ticket handling fees it was £50. I keep going to shows of bands I love (and put them on my credit card if I don't have the cash) as those are experiences I might never be able to have again, and for me it's well worth it in terms of how much I enjoy it, how much it makes me feel. I'd rather spend money on that than anything else... but I don't go to small shows of bands I'm not into really, and I wouldn't pay more than a fiver to go and see a band I didn't know.

This. In my country ticket prices have started to rise from some 35 € for the biggest acts like Iron Maiden, Metallica and Rammstein to well over 50 € now but still the venues are visited. Whoever wants to attend a concert, saves money they'd be spending on cigarettes and drinks and enjoys Rammstein's infernal pyro show (which almost burnt my eyebrows). The ones who don't go to gigs have spent all their money on getting drunk every Friday and Saturday in parks on benches with their friends.
I don't smoke and don't spend a shitload of money on drinks when I go out so I usually have money for concerts.....

Not saying that the rest of you is spending concert money on booze, just adding my experience