Music is meant to be shared and appreciated by all groups of people. Whether you’re young or old, rich or poor, it’s supposed to bring people together.
How can it do that when live music has become so inaccessible?
High-priced tickets make it hard for anyone, except the select few who can afford to drop thousands on a concert, to actually be able to afford concerts.
As a musician and a concert lover myself, I can’t tell you how many times high-priced tickets have kept me from seeing an artist I love live, and I’m not the only one.
Ticket prices are only one branch of the inaccessible concert scene. You have resellers and bots snagging tickets, selling them for ten times their worth, and making it practically impossible for the real fans to be able to see these artists.
Artists can control, at least in part, certain aspects of ticket pricing.
Take Noah Kahan, for example.
He and his team put a statement on social media saying that during the ticket presale signup, there will be identity verification to ensure the tickets will go to real people and not bots. In addition, tickets will be non-transferable and can only be sold for face value to prevent resellers from making his concerts unaffordable for the everyday person.
This is a stark contrast to Harry Styles’ ticket sales the previous week.
Harry Styles announced his tour, and 30 of the U.S. dates are in New York. That alone is inaccessible for the majority.
And then you have the pricing.
Tickets originally started at around $50-$100, but those prices quickly rose, hitting around the $800-$1,000 mark for standard seats. Some of the resellers have priced standard tickets at over $3,000 per ticket.
Now, how is the average person supposed to be able to afford that?
The simple answer is they can’t. Once again, many fans and people will have to miss out on witnessing live music because they can’t afford it.
Why can’t we go back to the times when concert tickets were $20-$50? When live music was actually affordable and not just another symbol of social status and wealth.
When it was an experience appreciated by many people from all backgrounds, and not just the rich.
Concerts are an experience meant to bring people together. They are a way to connect and build memories.
This can’t happen if concerts are too expensive to see.
We can’t excuse artists anymore. Not when Noah Kahan has proven that artists do have some control over pricing and fees and can limit bots and resellers.
We need concerts to be made affordable again so they can be the universal shared experience that they were meant to be.
