With paltry streaming royalties and a cost-of-touring crisis, it’s harder than ever to make money as a musician. Claudia Cockerell on the household names who are taking up side hustles, and what it says about the state of the music industry
It’s got to be the ticketing taking too much vig, right? I hear these stories about $300 tickets, I haven’t been to a concert in years but in the 2000’s touring was where the money came from. With $45+ticketmaster tickets.
They have to be sucking all the money out at point of sale
Just look at ticket prices on ticketmaster for a US show and compare it to the cost of an international venue.
When I was pricing David Gilmour it was literally cheaper to buy a plane ticket and fly from NY to Rome and go to the show there than get the worst seats in Madison Square Garden.
The ticketing company owns all the venues now and they own the secondhand scalper sites so they allocate a bunch of tickets to the secondhand site and mark them way up plus they can charge whatever they want for the venue and only pay the artist what they were contracted for
It’s also probably one of the few ways for artists to have an income that their lable/manager/publisher/whoever the fuck else doesn’t take a huge cut of. Add in ticket master and company and they’re fucked.
Those contracts they sign can be fucking brutal. I’m not familiar with either of those artists but it’s a common enough problem in that industry.
You can still make great money if you’re packing out big venues. I don’t know who either of these people are so I wouldn’t be surprised if they aren’t able to sell out big amphitheaters or stadiums. Small venue shows are great but they aren’t buying you multiple houses.
Those days are over sadly. Ticketing and venues are largely consolidated now.
It’s got to be the ticketing taking too much vig, right? I hear these stories about $300 tickets, I haven’t been to a concert in years but in the 2000’s touring was where the money came from. With $45+ticketmaster tickets.
They have to be sucking all the money out at point of sale
Just look at ticket prices on ticketmaster for a US show and compare it to the cost of an international venue.
When I was pricing David Gilmour it was literally cheaper to buy a plane ticket and fly from NY to Rome and go to the show there than get the worst seats in Madison Square Garden.
Because Ticketmaster and it’s venues are a monopoly. Pearl Jam tried to warn us 30 years ago.
The ticketing company owns all the venues now and they own the secondhand scalper sites so they allocate a bunch of tickets to the secondhand site and mark them way up plus they can charge whatever they want for the venue and only pay the artist what they were contracted for
It’s also probably one of the few ways for artists to have an income that their lable/manager/publisher/whoever the fuck else doesn’t take a huge cut of. Add in ticket master and company and they’re fucked.
Those contracts they sign can be fucking brutal. I’m not familiar with either of those artists but it’s a common enough problem in that industry.
Was ever thus, init.
The options are 1) Charge less and sell more, or 2) Charge much more and sell less, but make up more than the difference in how much more they charge.
They always, always take option 2 because they’re shitheads who feel like they have a legal duty to put the shareholders above the customers.
You can still make great money if you’re packing out big venues. I don’t know who either of these people are so I wouldn’t be surprised if they aren’t able to sell out big amphitheaters or stadiums. Small venue shows are great but they aren’t buying you multiple houses.