Who here is going? I know I am! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I just got my tickets. The free ticket distribution they're doing this year SUCKS. I would much rather pay for the seat I want, like in previous years. Instead, they put me in the queue on the website for 40 minutes, and I got lawn seats! It's stupid! I filled out the order form within 30 seconds of the tickets going on "sale." I would have paid decent money for actual seats, because I want to see Static-X and Lordi up close. Even so, it should be loads of fun moshing and crowdsurfing and whatnot. A full day of heavy metal goodness. Is anyone here planning on going? If you are, which location? I'm going to the one in Mountain View, CA.
Despite the millionaire capitalist status of many rock stars from the hippie era (e.g. Ozzy himself), the rock scene still has an aura of hippie socialism about it. There are people out there who just can't grasp the concept of supply and demand, and they honestly believe that if they make the ticket-buying process stupid enough, they can make sure that everyone who enters the concert paid what they consider a "fair" price for their ticket. The fact that the Patriot Center near Washington only has about 15,000 seats and the Washington area has maybe 100,000 people who wanted to see the Killers in April doesn't sink into their pea-sized brains. Some of those people were willing to pay $500 to see the Killers from good seats, and for that kind of money somebody else was willing to sell them a ticket they bought for $75. So instead of the Killers getting the money, and the promoter, and the venue, and all the other people who actually were responsible for bringing us that show, the extra $425 went to a ticket agency who paid a teenager twenty-five bucks to log onto Ticketmaster and buy it.
The economics of it are pretty interesting actually (though quite retarded on their part). This was Sharon and Ozzy's way of "returning the music to the people" or something. but all it ended up doing is giving their profits to the people. The show sold out in 2 hours. The venue seats 25,000, and it sold out in 2 hours. The way they did the ticket distribution allows you to get 2 tickets at a time, so people with odd numbers in their party got extra tickets. These tickets are now being resold on ebay. So are the tickets that people got just because they could (with no intention of going to the show). Now the people who were unlucky enough not to get tickets have to pay a lot more than they otherwise would have, and the performers never see that money. It may save the concert-goers a few bucks on tickets, but it's a zero-sum system. The money came from the performers, and went into the pockets of a very few resellers. It's exactly as you were saying. The laws of supply and demand don't shut off during concerts. Somebody is going to get that money, and when they set their prices below the market price, that money will go to some random person who happened to get on the computer at the right time.
You know, this is the thing that pisses me off about the live music scene. I used to go see a lot of bands (mostly rock, because I am a hairy headbanger). Bands would tour. They would play night after night in decent sized venues where I could actually see the guitar players hands. But now, it's not personal anymore. Bands don't tour, they appear at a few places. This makes the event more exclusive, and touts push the prices up further. I despise touts. I'm glad the UK Glastonbury festival managed to beat the touts this year. If only all even organisers were so thoughtful towards their customers.
yeah, this whole free thingy was a stupid idea. They could have charged just LESS like 10-20$ for general tickets and decent prices for the top seats. They are just redistributing profits...
Ah, I see some people are trying to sell Glastonbury tickets on Ebay, and so far, no serious bids have been offered. Check out these two! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Glastonbury-T...10QQihZ006QQcategoryZ1306QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem and; http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Glastonbury-T...89QQihZ013QQcategoryZ1306QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem £8 million quid! Arf! Looks like no-one is taking the risk of spending the dough and not getting in. Eavis is a genius, and other promoters could learn a lot from him.
