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The cost of concerts
Tucked in Robert Sandall's Sunday Times piece on CDs and the music industry was this observation:
Now that live music rules, nobody bothers to complain about what it costs any more. Euphoria at the news earlier this year that the Police had reformed obliterated all concerns that it cost between £70 and £90 to see them play at Twickenham in September. I spoke to many fans at one of those gigs; not one complained about the ticket price.
Well, probably not - after all, if they had thought that seventy quid was too much to see Sting, they wouldn't have been at the gig for Sandall to talk to, would they?
But is this price inflation really happening without demur? Just because you can fill out a room with people willing to pay £100 doesn't mean it's actually the right thing to do; and for younger bands especially, making the audience select itself from amongst the rich could help kill the atmosphere. The rising price of ticket prices isn't a victimless crime.
1 comment:
Well, he is a Murdoch hack, so he would say that, wouldn't he?
Sandall has been one of my hate figures for years - his late 80s / early 90s S Times writing gives the lie to the myth that newspapers' cultural coverage doesn't reflect their political agenda (as Michael Henderson's sportswriting for several right-wing papers has done to the idea that sports coverage is apolitical). Sandall used his status as token popcrit to promote the full Murdoch agenda: bigotry against his fellow Europeans, free-market-as-God, petty-minded anti-art and anti-intellectual prejudice, ignorant (and hypocritical) nationalism (see his Britpop paeans), and beyond. No surprise that he's still doing it.
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