A concert? In this economy?

What's the most you've ever paid for a live concert? I'll start. Floor seats at Beyoncé's Renaissance tour cost me $450, which seemed crazy at the time. But these days, that could be considered a steal. Oh my god, the most expensive tickets are $1,100? And I think we need to go ahead and see what it is. It's greed. It's gotten so bad. Kid Rock just went to the US Senate to complain that this industry is full of greedy snakes and scoundrels. Too many suits lining their pockets off talent they never had and fans they mislead. You got ticket master in this dynamic pricing, and then there's the whole secondary market, with resellers jumping the line and scooping up all the cheap seats. The result? Some artists ditching the tour bus completely and hire prices for everyone. So where does that leave us fans? That's coming up on today's playing from Box. Thank you. Rock 'em. Support for this show comes from the Working Forest Initiative. 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Okay, so you are the right person to talk to because it feels like live entertainment and touring has changed a lot in recent years. I recently read that Harry Styles was starting $1,000 for a concert ticket and no beef with Harry Styles but that seems like a shocking price. Can you just tell me what's going on here? A thousand dollars is a lot of money for a ticket. If Harry Styles thinks that his fans should pay that amount of money to go see him on stage for an hour and a half, hard past, I don't even know the price. Seven thousand. How many dollars is that? What do you mean? 100 dollars? I don't know all tickets. But if we're being completely honest, it's fairly typical for these big tours at this point to find tickets in the 1,000s, 2,000s, etc. Especially for those really valuable seats. It's been slowly going up over the years but it really became the normal, I would say, following the COVID-19 pandemic. Those were so in demand, still are so in demand and people really want to be there and they will pay good money to have a good seat at a good concert. You know, I love a good stadium tour but give me the experience kind of step by step. If you're a stand of Taylor Swift or someone who is playing these kind of big stadium tours and you're fighting with your fellow fans for tickets, what's that process like? Well, it can be really rough. You're going to try and get codes to be in the pre-sale. If you don't get pre-sale, then you're going to try to go to the general on sale, which should be a couple days later. And you should be signed in ready to go. As soon as you hit the queue, you're going to see a number that you do not want to see. $25,000 in the queue and as you can see, I'm going down to $82,000 now. This account has all of them between $162,000 to $180,000 in the queue. Okay? The demand is really high and the supply is limited. You know, I hear what you're saying but supply and demand was true before the pandemic, too. Is it just that more people want to go to the concerts now? What exactly has changed to make this process so much more sticky? Yeah, you're absolutely right. There's always been a supply and demand issue, but people have figured out that there's a way to get in that queue to jump that queue and make a bunch of money off of these tickets. It's own market place. So this is something that people do and make a ton of money because ticket resellers get in there by those tickets at a low price and then market up as much as they possibly can for the secondary market, resell that ticket. And that's their whole profit right there. It's not that difficult to make a bunch of money off of these concerts. So we know that people have been scalping tickets online for years, but now we're seeing huge ticket prices from the jump, from the original seller, places like ticket master. Who sets that initial price for a ticket and who should I be blaming here? That's going to be between the artists and the agent or the promoter. So they're the ones that are going to set the ticket price. To be honest, one of the big things that happened over the course of the pandemic is that we lost a lot of good staff. It's a lot of good crew because they couldn't make money when concerts were shut down and the price of everything has got up. So the price of touring so that could be a crew that could be the price of supplies. Literally everything travel has gone up. And so that makes the price of the ticket go up as well because these artists have to recoup costs at some point. And when you're telling a fan it's going to cost you this much to get into the door. They expect a show. Welcome to the Ares tour. So on top of that, that means more rehearsal time. That costs a lot of money. Cost a lot of money for these giant productions. I mean, loading in and out of a stadium show is incredibly expensive. And so is hauling all that stuff across country, across oceans, etc. So there's a lot of costs that have made it more expensive just to be a touring artist. Is it also that artists are seeing these high-resil prices and think, hey, if people are going to pay it, might as well. Like, I mean, could this just be a case of artists prioritizing bottom line over fan accessibility? Yes. But also, it's not necessarily that they are prioritizing the bottom line over the fan. It's that they know the fans going to pay that price either way. So that money might as well go to them, right? So if you're selling a ticket for $200, but you know it's going to go for $1,000 on a secondary market, if you raise that ticket price to $500, it's a lot less profitable for the ticket reseller. And that fan was going to pay that price anyway if not more. But I've also seen some artists pushing back, like Olivia Dean. She called on ticket master to cap what people can resell their tickets for on their own platform. To support Olivia Dean's commitment to fair ticket pricing, ticket master is capping all future ticket resell prices for the art of loving live tour on its platform and refunding fans for any markup they already paid to resellers on ticket master. So Olivia Dean was successful, but obviously a lot of ticket prices are still sky high and a lot of other resellers are out there. It seems like these artists using their public platform, their bully pulpit, haven't really moved the needle when it comes to these resell markets. Yeah, that's because these resell markets are entirely legal. Nobody's doing anything illegal. So what are you going to do? They're allowed to do this. But the more people who make their complaints heard, I think the better it is because people understand that it's that parts out of their control. There's nothing you can do about the secondary market. You know Taylor, you're kind of bumming me out because it sounds like there's really nothing we can do and that this kind of high ticket price extortion is just here to stay. Right. What is the recourse for fans who feel like maybe I don't know that $1,000 for a live concert might be too much? Sorry to bum you out, but there's absolutely no reason to be this dismayed. There are things that can change. So one of the things that's happening across the country right now is that a bunch of different states are trying to implement regulations on this because it has gotten really out of hand. And so you'll see recently in California, in New York, what they've introduced are resell caps. A new bill called the California Fans First Act is taking aim at ticket price gouging. My bill, the Affordable Concern Act, caps all resell concert tickets at face value, among many other much needed reforms. It's time for state government to step up and protect fans. So when somebody buys a face value ticket, if for whatever reason they can't go, they can resell that ticket for no more than 10% above face value. And what that does is take the wind completely out of the resell market. Because if I buy a ticket as a ticket reseller and think I'm going to make a bunch of money off of this, but all I can make is 10%, that makes it so much less lucrative to be in this job, to be doing this for a career. So it's very possible. It's very possible. But only one state so far has passed the ticket resell cap, which is main. So I guess my question is, do you think there will be a tipping point where our fans may say, hey, we had enough and this kind of road we're on for live music as luxury only reverses course or at least slows down? Yeah, I definitely think if we're not there yet, we're getting very close because I think people are really tired of it because it keeps happening. It's not slowing down. It's only getting worse. And so I do think that this legislation is really going to tell us where we're at because we've had almost 10 states introduced this, these resell caps. And I would say even just a couple of years ago, you couldn't even get those bills discussed because there's so much lobbying money against it. So I think if we see more states able to pass this, I think that should tell you right there that the tide is turning. I mean, you want to see your favorite artists succeed, right? You want to see them play bigger venues, have a bigger crowd. Everyone really appreciate them. But you know, with that obviously comes a more expensive ticket and a bigger room, but also like how exciting that you get to see that, that you've got to see them in that small room. And then you get to see them in a big arena or stadium and the energy you can get in the stadium when there's thousands of people excited with you, over one artist. That's also an amazing experience and it shouldn't be just for the select few. Taylor Mims is an editor at Billboard. Coming up, if you want to see one of those big stadium shows this summer, you'll probably have to travel to get there. Support for this show comes from I Am 8. If you're having a hard time finishing your day strong, then you might want to check out I Am 8's daily ultimate essentials. It's a daily all-in-one wellness drink that gives my body the support it needs without juggling a bunch of different supplements. I Am 8's daily ultimate essentials is a go-to, forgetting the benefits of 16 different supplements in one tasty drink. Co-founded by David Beckham and crafted with insight from experts at Mayo Clinic, Cedar Sinai, and a former NASA chief scientist, it can simplify your wellness routine and make it easier to support your health. 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Get 20% off your "Delete me" plan when you go to joindelete me.com/chidday and use the promo code "Today at Checkout." The way to get 20% off is to go to joindelete me.com/chidday and enter code "Today at Checkout." Join Delete me.com/chidday code "Today." I don't know what that is, so I couldn't possibly end it all. I've never had "Today" explained in your life. I can't say that I have. Robert Levine is based in Berlin, and he writes a column for Billboard. It's called "Follow the Money." It's basically about the music business and often the economics of the music business. All the dull stuff that doesn't involve celebrities. Well, not all it all, because I just learned so much about just how concert ticket prices are changing, and it helped really explain to me the sticker shock I've been experiencing as someone who loves and enjoys concerts. Now I'm based in New York, so the news of Harry Styles' upcoming tour really perked my interest. He'll be here for a 39-residency, and he has no other US shows on his tour. I found that kind of interesting. It felt to me like a signal of something changing in the music industry largely. Can you explain to me the business of Harry's staying put like this? Why has this become a thing for artists? What do we think this tour represents? Sure, what's interesting is all the writing, all the talk about the concert business focuses on the money that's going in. Hardly anyone thinks about the money going out. Just as always, they have crew, they have musicians, they have expenses. The most expensive part is getting it all around. So imagine if you could minimize that expense and make the same amount of money. So is that why we're seeing someone like Harry Styles sit for 39th at MSG? Is it lower travel costs? Well, look, I haven't talked to Harry Styles, so I'm just making an educated guess, but yes, I think so. And there's the capital R residency that he's doing. He's declaring this a residency and he's making an event of it. But if you look at the concert business in general, you're seeing a trend, and sometimes people don't notice it, so we're playing more shows at fewer venues. The same kinds of economic forces are changing the nature of what we might call regular tours. Now you're seeing more two-night stands, more three-night stands, more four-night stands, and this is an economics, but there's also lifestyle considerations. All those classic rock songs about the romance of being on the road, they could turn the page by Bob Seeger, where he's talking about how burnt out he is. There used to be a romance to being miserable, and now there's not. Rock stars on tour, the crazy bus, all of that stuff. We're coming to your town, we'll help you party down. Now you have to come to them and help them party down. And it's just like, I think people realize, I mean, a lot of the performers are getting older, they might not want to move around so much. But also remember, when Elvis was in Vegas, you know, this is not Elvis, the teen sensation who wouldn't be filmed below the waist. This is Elvis the middle-class performer. And in Vegas, he could stay in a really nice hotel. I want to ask about the New York piece, though, when we think about Harry Styles specifically, as you know, I think back to the fame, and I don't have to go all the way back to Elvis for kind of famous residencies in Vegas, think about Celine Dion. So in here, it's quality sound, quality time, and the custom. Every seat is the best seat in the house. More recently, folks like Adele or even Usher. Well being able to be here in Las Vegas has given me that opportunity to find more balance because I got kids at a school, babies learning how to swim, and I want to spend that time. So Vegas had an advantage in that a lot of people were there with expense accounts always. That's probably less the case today, but it's still a convention in conference town. If you're charging people out of amount of money, it doesn't just need to be a great show. It needs to be part of a great weekend. It has to be a city with a lot to do. It has to have great air connections and a lot of hotel rooms. New York scores on all those. Two summers ago, Adele did a series of shows in Munich. They actually custom built a 70,000 seat venue for her. They built a little fairgrounds around it, Adele Spritzes instead of Apparel Spritzes. Like a souvenir shop that was as big as a starter home. They had this display of Adele's most iconic looks, which was so cool to see in real life. We headed to Adele Road and went to the Audrey 110 Chin Chin. A Ferris wheel, all thing. And why Munich? Second biggest airport in Germany. But it's also close to a lot of places in Europe where people have a lot of money. Munich's probably the richest city in Germany. It's close to northern Italy and it's close to Switzerland. I think once you start having to justify the price, the best thing to do seems to be to get people to spend more money. Which is weird, but people love it. Can you hear me? It seems as if from what you're saying, it makes sense for the artist in terms of reducing travel costs. It makes sense because maybe resell markets have made it clear to entertainment industry that the demand for higher prices is there. But it does, as you mentioned, also raise expectations of what fans expect to experience at the concert. I wonder in your opinion, are fans getting more for their money at the shows since they're more expensive now? I think that's so much in the eyes of the beholder, right? Like I thought Adele, I think for Munich, they built the biggest video screen in the world. Bigger than a football field. I'm just gigantic. To me, I'm not that much interested in a big screen. I don't care if it's the biggest screen. I'm not counting. She performed the fantastic musicians and the staging was really creative. I thought it was an incredible show. I took the train four or five hours to go from Berlin. I thought it was fantastic and well worth it. Now, was I excited about the Ferris wheel? Honestly, not really. I guess I wanted to know, does this model work for a smaller artist? What limits artists outside of the adels or hairy styles from adopting this residency model? I think it's less about the size of the artist and more about the implied specialness of it. It's about FOMO. These are the biggest concerts, but there's a lot of great concerts. How do you sell this is a special thing? Well, you play your marquee album. You promise two shows, two nights, no repeats. Metallica did that. We do at every show and it's never the same. That's so cool. Because it's a no-repeat weekend. The band will play two nights in each city with different set lists and different opening acts each night all performed in the round. You really have to create a sense of event. You have to have a claim on people's souls. In the modern concert business, you have to say, it's not so much why do you want to see them, but why now and not next year or the year after? One question I have is how do you see these residencies having an influence on the way the live event industry operates as a whole? Part of what we've been looking at are the changes that have occurred in the industry post pandemic. What do you see this piece as fitting in? I have to admit that a lot of people in the business and who write about the business have been very cautious about the boom in the industry. Look at the price spike post COVID, but what happens when that ends. Then will that bubble burst? Look at how high prices get. Well, people still have the money to go to other concerts. The truth is, and I sort of hate to admit it because I've been one of these people, the demand to see shows has proven all of this wrong. There's always this idea that it's a winner-take-all business. You're going to go to a big festival. The rest of your concert money gets taken away. You're going to travel to see Harry Styles. You're not going to see other shows. That money ought to be logically, that money ought to be not spent on other concerts. But you don't see that. This is at a time when the economy is very, very good for some people and pretty lousy for most people. That might be another reason why people are so interested in playing New York and LA because you get more people with disposable income. Other people can fly there. At some point, I don't know what the limit is. We don't seem to get there. People who might buy a cheaper paragens or a cheaper television don't seem to look at concerts are not a competitive good. Who's your second, if you can't go see Harry Styles, who's the artist most like Harry Styles who's also playing a concert? Who's most like Beyonce? Who's not Beyonce? The answer is nobody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not if Kelly Rowland was doing concerts, I would be moving to the same way, right? Like it's specific to that artist and I can kind of see your point being that, you know, that has what has made of this shift be more permanent than folks expect. No, by the way, I bet some of those artists that you would say don't compare to Beyonce put on great shows. For sure. If you went, you might go to three of those shows and say, wow, I actually like those better, but you're, let me not say yours, our brains are not wired like that. We can't miss this thing. And the regular spending logic that we all have seems to not apply. How long will that last? I'm very worried for protecting it because everybody's been wrong. The most important thing is the fact that we're going to be doing a lot of work. And that's what we're going to do. And I'm going to be doing a lot of work. I'm going to be doing a lot of work. To youtube.com/box to watch and subscribe today. Today explain is distributed by WNYC and the show is a part of Vox Media Podcast Network. For more or winning podcasts visit podcast.voxmedia.com. You can listen ad free by signing up to Vox.com/members. [end of transcript]