Concert Ticket Prices Aren't Coming Down

At least not on at the primary / presale / day of sale level, regardless of any remedy the government imposes including completely obliterating Ticketmaster and Live Nation off the face of the earth. 

Even if concerts have never been cheaper for me, in part to all the N00Bz, sneaker kids and influencers who jumped into the resale marketplace in the wake of the Taylor Swift controversy and find out the hard way not all tickets immediately increase in value. Few do actually. 

The only real victims here, assuming there are any, are the independent venues and promoters. Hopefully they will have the same opportunity to offer the high guarantees and back end deals top level acts require. In other words, ticket prices aren't coming down.

Fees? The exact same 25-30% every other ticketing company imposes? You think you can lower those by fiat or maybe only force TM to lower them as a consequence of fan rage while AXS still charges the same with even higher base prices and an even worse interface? Yes, there are other ticketing companies and promoters believe it or not if not quite as pervasive or constantly referenced by frustrated fans. 

Another example of high fees. For a show I won't mention yet because it's irrelevant and this isn't a place to make requests for something you will hear anyway. Day of show for small ticketing provider mainly servicing clubs $74 and change in a 200 cap room. Door price? $60 cash. Or Lodge Room using it's own in house ticketing service. So if you pay at the door, you pay not only the slightly higher day of show price but also the fees. They take your credit card and basically buy it off the site. Again fees in 25-30% range. I didn't break it down but was a little taken aback when the King Buzzo / Trevor Dunn show cost me $48 when original base advance price was around $30.

If anyone has an argument that any remedy aside from forcing performance fee caps on acts will lower prices and are somewhat realistic and not steeped in delusion or fantasy I would love to hear it as you all know I love me some cheap tickets. But "Mick Jagger has enough money and can play for free" ain't it. We all have more money than most of the rest of the world. 

No, not only do I not have LiveNation stock, I mostly refuse to buy from Ticketmaster and also stopped buying day of sale when they switched from the drop down menu to the artificial cue system and interactive map that never quite updates real time with the constant "someone beat you to these seats." So I am not necessarily an invested party if it seems like I am defending them but the cost of touring, producing events and the compensation top acts require will only go up. 

Taylor Swift will never play enough shows to meet demand and perhaps Angine de Poitrine should be forced to upgrade to large theatres and arenas immediately.

But also not going to cry over TM being broken up or Michael Rapino being imprisoned for crimes against humanity for doing his duty on behalf of shareholders (though I do somewhat admire what he pulled off and when Suede plays only Live Nation venues then I can thank him for doing what no other promoter would do) but also you're just going to have to cry harder because you are not getting cheap Taylor Swift tickets or Coachella wristbands and Madison Square Garden will still almost always be an underplay. 

So TM may forced to give up their pound of flesh or disintegrate completely. Concerts tickets are only going to go higher. And people have always held the power if they refused to yield it except in rare cases like when a tour is canceled, downgraded or the not so rare discounts I always seem to be find.

Unfortunately back in the era of $20 tickets everyone is nostalgic about was when they were really their most expensive. Scrounging that together was a lot more of a challenge than laying out a hundred is now even if I can still usually get them for $20. 

And I agree with the Live Nation execs assessment of it's fans being "robbed blind" even if it's a bad look to say it out loud. Because the one entity I blame the most for the precipitous rise in ticket prices is the "fans" for always paying it.