Paul McCartney among stars suffering from dip in live music sales as experts say prohibitive prices threaten stadium rock

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• Alexandra Topping
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 25 June 2010 23.29 BST
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Tickets for Paul McCartney's latest appearance are on sale for less than face value. Photograph: Bill Bernstein

He can call on the finest pop songbook of the 20th century and has drawn glowing reviews for recent performances. But on the eve of his latest festival appearance, tickets to see Paul McCartney are on sale for less than face value.

Some of those in the crowd when McCartney plays Hard Rock Calling in Hyde Park, London, on Sunday will have paid as much as £269, but today standard tickets were still available, on sale for just £29.99.

McCartney is not the only star struggling to fill gigs. Hundreds of tickets are available for Bon Jovi's nights at the 02 this weekend starting at £25 — half the cheapest original price. Even Lady Gaga is not immune; tickets for her recent Manchester gig were also being sold for half their face value, at £37.50, hours before the show.

In recent years the boom in live music has compensated in part for declining album sales, but experts warn that by charging prohibitive prices performers are risking the very existence of stadium rock.

Adam Elfin, from the First Contact Agency, said stars, managers and promoters were overestimating artists' pulling power and overpricing their tickets. "That might be because their fan base is not as strong as they thought it was, the economy, or the fact that they have played recently and people are asking themselves why they should pay that type of price again. If the tickets were a tenner they would sell in a heartbeat — there has to be some dynamism on the price."

Prices are up to five times higher than they were in the early 90s, according to some experts.

Music Industry blogger Bob Lefsetz said that pre-sale deals for concerts, with companies like American Express which reserve batches as perks for customers, meant there were often only a small number of decent tickets at a reasonable price for the general public. Fans who do pay full price for a ticket, meanwhile, often see the same ticket sold at a discounted price.The trend reflects a wider problem for the music industry. While radio once drove exposure, the shift of music onto the internet means it is harder both to break acts and for them to become ubiquitous.

"In the future at best I think we are going to have arena acts playing in theatres, theatre acts playing in clubs — and as a result there is just going to be a lot less money involved," said Lefsetz.

http://www.guardian.co.uk...-mccartney

Dreamer2 said:

"That might be because their fan base is not as strong as they thought it was,

Prices are up to five times higher than they were in the early 90s,

companies like American Express which reserve batches as perks for customers, meant there were often only a small number of decent tickets at a reasonable price for the general public. Fans who do pay full price for a ticket, meanwhile, often see the same ticket sold at a discounted price.The trend reflects a wider problem for the music industry.

and they wonder why. do they not get it by now??

another example was Shakira: tickets $9 (US) for people who had or signed up for a certain credit card. Same tickets (area) $69 - $ 149 (US) for non members. makes you wonder how many artists are even aware of it. not to mention the parking prices, snacks, merchandise, etc...

they are really screwing over the fans that have given them their successes. a lot of times, the wealthier casual to non-fans are getting the best seats while the fans who've been saving up for the show gets the crap seat. not to begrudge anyone who can afford a $1000.00 for front row. good for them.

IMO there are very few artists that give you a full show worth those higher prices.

so fuck 'em

It's funny that the big crisis is not that tix aren't selling, but that they aren't selling for the face price of over a hundred bucks. Ironically this doesn't hurt the artists at all, because the "loss" is not being absorbed by them, but by the people bought those tickets at full price hoping they could get more for them. It's hard to feel too sorry for scalpers taking a loss but let's think about where the artists stand - what's their responsibility for this?

The concert business turned completely around fifteen years ago when the Eagles decided to charge over $100. No one thought people would pay it, but they did. Hmmm, well if they'd pay THAT, maybe they'd pay even more. Next time out top tickets are $250. THEY sell out. Jesus, where's the ROOF on this thing? Let's ask for $750! OK, those didn't sell out. Maybe we need to edge it back a little.

So that's what's happening now. Roger Waters' current tour is an exercise in this kind of "how high can we push it" methodology. Here's the history of ticket sales for The Wall Live:

- Announcement that fans can join Roger Waters' web site for free and get presale tickets. People signing up for the initial offer are told there will be a lottery for presale codes and not everyone will get one. This immediately rachets up the tension - wow this is going to be one high demand gig! I'll be lucky to get ANYTHING!

- Presale winners are announced - a small percentage of those that signed up. The "lucky winners" are given the option to buy a pair of floor seats for $500, or a pair of rear/ center loge seats for $125. Those seats could be anywhere from the front row to the back row, you won't know until after you've paid.

- After the first round of presales fail to sell out, people that signed up are notified of a "second chance lottery" where they will receive the same offer.

- At the general sale, buyers are given VIP options for "prime floor seats" with packages priced at $500, $750 and even $2000 per ticket. For these you know the seat and row number you are bidding on. Naturally all the best seats are held back for these special packages. People willing to spend $250 get tickets in the rear floor sections, so they they sell out the back of the floor at full price while there are still tons of empty seats in front of them.

- After several weeks on sale, there are still great seats available via the VIP packages and mediocre $250 floor seats. The cheaper ones are all sold out.

- As the promoters begin to lose hope that anyone will pay $2000 for a ticket in the fifth row, those seats are moved into the $750 VIP bucket...maybe now someone will bite. If not, they'll drop to $500 and then down to $250 as the show gets closer.

- American Express offers a special "member upgrade" to cardholders. Oddly the tickets offerred on Ticketmaster for Amex members are the exact same ones offerred to everyone else, at the same price, but I guess they're hoping people will think "this is a big sold out show, I'd better take what I can get! Thanks Amex!"

- Despite the fact that excellent seats for all of the announced shows are still available, a third LA date is added a month later. The entire process begins again.

- About a month before the show there will be a new wave of ad campaigns stating "Great seats just released!" These will all be the unsold VIP tickets now reduced to a more reasonable price point, and possibly, a few of those front-row ones marked back up to $2000 for the big spenders who "missed out" months earlier.

- As the date gets closer there will be a lot of scalpers who bought those "good" seats at VIP prices but are now finding that no one will pay $500 for a ticket in the fifteenth row, and the price starts dropping. By the day of the show you can probably get an excellent floor seat for around the original $250 face price (half-off if it was bought as a VIP package) and a mediocre one for under $100.

And you know the great thing about this shell game? Live Nation the promoter and Ticketmaster the ticket agent, are now the same company! You don't even need to get two companies cooperating (conspiring?) to make it happen, you just go to your friend down the hall and drop a memo on his desk.

It pains me to say it but NPG MUsic Club was the BEST fan club experience I ever had when it came to tickets, and I only used my membership to buy tix ONCE. I miss it. I wish more bands would adopt that model.

If they now realize the problem, lower the damn prices then!

First of all artists have no control on this, this all comes from sponsors (who must make money), the bottom line is that its all controlled by sponsors, labels and venues, lets not forget that the label is basically renting the place to an artist and has to make some cash like any other business to pay for all the people that work at a venue. Everything has gone up, its easy to say lower the prices, but each tour has to be thought out, i agree some artists are nuts charging 100+ for anything at this point. Alot of artists now have membership deals with their websites so they can make some $$, because lets face it, everything really comes out of their pockets case in point.

The Current tour "Ending on A High Note" by a-ha

Now this tour is going to be one of the most attended world tours of the year, it has 80 dates and is basically playing every country and has been very lucrative because its been thought out. When a-ha came to the states recently they played small venues of 2000-2500 capacity, and sold them all out, now some in America were pissed that they didnt come to other places outside NYC and LA and Chicago, but what they dont realize is that a-ha paid for everything out of pocket, and the american concerts all operated at a loss for them despite sell outs, and that all had to do with tickets being only $40 a show, at 2000 seats thats only a 80,000 gross per show at best, now that is gone in a second on plane fairs, rentals,visas, and your crew that gets you over to this country, thats not paid by someone but the band. SO when a Paul McCartney or Billy Joel gets a sponsor, they know they can charge 100 dollars at least because, one they will get it for the most part, you see, sponsors dont care about anything but them making $$, if half the venue is empty they dont care as long as they profit.

Now the a-ha example is one that people may not get, but its the difference between a domestic tour and a world tour, the price of busing around the states is alot different then having to fly all around the world with crews and gear and then pay for hotels and all that, so it will be a big gross for them and is lucrative because it was properly planned, and most tours are ILL adivised.

First of all artists have no control on this, this all comes from sponsors

Negative.

If anything, corporate sponsorship can help make ticket prices LOWER because you have a revenue stream that's not tied to the admission price. You can still make a million dollars even though your tickets sales only added up to $900,000.

There are certain costs involved with doing a big tour that are uncontrollable - you can't do a big with a $15 ticket price any more. And yes Live Nation is now the promoter, venue owner and ticket agent for almost every big tour that happens, and they're greedy as shit.

And yet there is still a reason why Pearl Jam can do a Live Nation tour in sports arenas and charge around $60 for the top ticket, while Paul McCartney playing the same room with a similar size production & crew charges $2000 for the top ticket. And that reason has to do with how much Paul insists on getting paid at the end of the day, and his willingness to put a $2000 price tag on his own show. He's willing to take it, and he thinks he can get it. And so, it happens.

I mean I've paid a few hundred bucks for a can't miss show... I'm not moralistic about it. But I do think if the artists are gonna be that greedy they should be ready to get called out on it. You think Paul McCartney needs more money??

bobzilla77 said:

First of all artists have no control on this, this all comes from sponsors

Negative.

If anything, corporate sponsorship can help make ticket prices LOWER because you have a revenue stream that's not tied to the admission price. You can still make a million dollars even though your tickets sales only added up to $900,000.

There are certain costs involved with doing a big tour that are uncontrollable - you can't do a big with a $15 ticket price any more. And yes Live Nation is now the promoter, venue owner and ticket agent for almost every big tour that happens, and they're greedy as shit.

And yet there is still a reason why Pearl Jam can do a Live Nation tour in sports arenas and charge around $60 for the top ticket, while Paul McCartney playing the same room with a similar size production & crew charges $2000 for the top ticket. And that reason has to do with how much Paul insists on getting paid at the end of the day, and his willingness to put a $2000 price tag on his own show. He's willing to take it, and he thinks he can get it. And so, it happens.

I mean I've paid a few hundred bucks for a can't miss show... I'm not moralistic about it. But I do think if the artists are gonna be that greedy they should be ready to get called out on it. You think Paul McCartney needs more money??

But again its not in an artists control, unless you are selling from your site, there is still massive overhead that alot of artists, especially ones that do stadiums, have. When an artist like a Madonna or u2 has these massive stage shows, with screens and light shows and explosions etc..this is why ticket prices are up, and the rents at venues are huge, especially in the big cities like NYC, it has to be remembered that when an artist books a large venue its gotta pay every single person associated with that venue, not directly, but in the end joe schmo who is working security and the other 1000 employees in a venue that work at these events are all part of the package. So Prince or U2 can say i wanna charge so and so for tickets, but all these other factors come into play in their thinking, and an even bigger factor is that the artist is already losing money on the music, touring is the only check at this point, i mean im sure that artists and venues when they start actually losing money, will drop tickets, but expect cuts in other areas, like the amount of shows done, the availabilty of tickets, stripped down shows and WAY WAY shorter tours by artists, to a point where i dont think they should be labeled "tours" anymore