Dear Mick and Keith, I’m a Stones fan. I’ve bought your records since I was at school and when you play live, I go to your concerts. But with tickets between £100-400, I’m not buying.
It gives me no satisfaction to say that I wasn’t hitting refresh, refresh, refresh when tickets for your O2 shows went on general sale at 9am this morning.
If I was lucky enough to get a seat at one of your gigs it would cost me between £106 and £406. And if the only ticket I was able to lay my hands on was an unreserved standing one, the privilege of standing at your concert will set me back £406 – that’s £375 for the ticket and a whopping £31 booking fee.
To put this in perspective, in 1995 I paid £30 to see you play at Wembley, in 1999 it was £30 again and then at Twickenham in 2003 I paid no more than £30.
It’s only rock’n’roll (and I don’t like it)
What on earth has happened to the price of concert tickets? Downloading music has changed the recording business and artists play live to plug the gap left by falling sales. That bit I understand and I like it – pretty much every band I’ve ever been into has reformed and toured again in the last ten years.
And I’m aware of supply and demand – the O2 isn’t Wembley or Twickenham – fewer seats and fewer gigs means that prices will rise. But £406 to stand and see the Stones? Wild horses couldn’t drag me to Ticketmaster this morning.
Are we allowing ourselves to be ripped off by artists who are old enough to know better?
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