Major concert prices reduced- a fan's reaction

I’m very pleased that major concerts will reportedly be reducing their prices. Not that I go to all that many of them, but the sheer greed is something that remains appalling.

You almost end up rooting against the success of these shows. For example, a parade of monotonous rappers and Pop mediocrities at a major radio station sponsored Jingle Bell Ball at Madison Square Garden was headlined by Katy Perry and went for $350 orchestra. And there were tons of Yuppie kids sitting right there in their finest designer clothes, as I watched it live and free on Fuse Network. One rapper actually had lyrics stating he “sang” better than Aretha Franklin. A reality check for this kid was probably in order. Anyway, this wasn’t a scene I’d want to support. Bruno Mars was good, though. Kid’s got potential and soul. But worth $350? Not in this lifetime.

Along these lines, I recently went through the ordeal of buying Prince tickets at Madison Square Garden for his upcoming 1/18/11 show.

At first there was an Internet pre-sale. That, of course, involved obscene ticket fees. On a $20 balcony seat you’d have paid about an $11 surcharge per ticket. Percentage wise that’s quite steep for somebody to stuff a couple of tickets in an envelope. As I needed 3 tix for 3 friends we were talking $33 in fees alone.

So my buddy goes down to MSG the next day to save some money and was told tickets still weren’t on sale at the box office.

We were therefore back to square one. With his other MSG shows selling out, and not desiring to travel out to NJ to see his Meadowlands gigs, I was taking a chance on getting shut out of  an event I really wanted to see. But it just burned me to pay those fees, particularly as said friend was standing right there at the box office and denied.

So I made a decision that Saturday morning. I’d be back In NYC that Monday and would take my chances.
Walking down to MSG I assumed the worst, but instead was met with a different scenario. The $20 seats were, in fact, sold out but the $49, $79, $99, and $179 tickets were still available.
$179 to see a concert. Ridiculous. And Maxwell was getting $250 for the very same seats there just a few months earlier. Now Maxwell’s great. But he’s not $250 great. No wonder several of his dates were cancelled and Prince had a quarter of his seats empty at the Meadowlands gig that was reviewed in the NY papers. I happen to love Prince, but greed ISN’T good.

I opted for the $49 ticket but it obviously wasn’t much, if at all, better than the $20 seats that were now gone.
The major concert goer just can’t win these days. One way or another you are going to pay through the nose.

Or sit in “the nosebleeds.”

But hey, it’s Prince.

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