Why are Irish gig tickets so expensive?

Analysis: the price of a ticket to see your favourite act has increased dramatically for a plethora of reasons

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It's not in your head, the price of concert tickets since the mid 1980s really has been steadily moving upwards. "This is nothing new, but it's become very, very noticeable because it's increased so significantly in the last few years," says Dr Michael Murphy, lecturer in IADT and music industry expert.

"You can do a breakdown of every element that goes into the cost of a ticket — what does it cost Beyoncé to go on tour — you can do the maths on that, but that's not how ticket prices are arrived at in the music industry."

The change in the music industry has happened so fast "that we can see the concert ticket prices rising in in front of our eyes," says Murphy. "Part of that comes from the music industry logic: ticket prices are not expensive it's just that they were too cheap before this. The classic argument is, they were undervalued and underpriced."

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From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland, IADT lecturer Dr Michael Murphy on the rush for Coldplay tickets and why tickets are now so expensive

A BBC study from 2018 found that average ticket prices for big arena gigs had doubled since the late 1990s. Taking inflation into account, prices had risen by 27% in the same period. In 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported that the average ticket price for the top 100 North American tours had increased 55% in the last decade.

"Transparency is not a thing in the gig pricing world", points out Kara O'Brien, from the Irish World Academy at the University of Limerick. "It's very, very hard to get a good breakdown of what actually goes into ticket pricing."

O'Brien explains that the price of a ticket will generally include venue rental, staff, production costs, marketing and promotion, insurance, as well as other fees you might not think of, like an IMRO fee, or fees related to the venue, like a bar licence.

From RTÉ Radio 1's Liveline, a warning from a listener about buying concert tickets as a gift from Ticketmaster

On top of that you'll have the artist’s fee. Sometimes that's a per-ticket fee and sometimes, the artist gets a guarantee upfront. After that, there’s some profit left over for the promoter. For the fan buying the ticket, there’s also the ticketing fees you hand over to whatever platform is managing the sales (Ticketmaster, Eventbrite etc).

In the short term, the productions costs of live events are impacted by the same things society has been hit by, namely disruption from Covid-19 and the cost-of-living and energy crisises. "What we're seeing is probably a reflection of everything being chaotic right now," says O'Brien. "There’s huge amounts of staff, all the people actually working in the venue, lights and sound technicians, plus touring costs are going to be going up for artists."

Glastonbury co-organiser Emily Eavis said "incredibly challenging times" are behind the almost 20% price hike for next year's event, where tickets for the festival are on sale for £335 plus a £5 booking fee for standard tickets. The last time tickets went on general sale was in 2019, they cost £265 plus a £5 booking fee.

From RTÉ Radio 1's Arena in 2019, RTÉ Brainstorm editor Jim Carroll on concert tickets selling out fast

"In the long term, there's a couple of things that are particularly hitting Ireland", says O'Brien. "This is happening all over the world. Big companies — Ticketmaster being the main one —are taking over more and more venues and requiring more venues to use their services. Anytime you have a decrease in competition you're gonna see prices going up."

Anyone who goes out in Ireland looking for something to do culturally to in the nighttime economy will have noticed the lack of venues in Ireland, especially medium-sized ones. "This means that there are fewer places for artists to go", she says. "It also means that there's fewer tickets available in general because a lot of artists are having to go for smaller venues."

We know by now that streaming through music services like Apple Music, Tidal and Spotify doesn't bring in a lot of money for artists, and album sales aren't what they once were. But artists rarely have a "particularly big" say in where the ticket price gets set for a tour unless we’re talking about superstars, says O’Brien. "Very frequently the promoter who is putting on the show is going to set the ticket prices. The up-and-coming and mid-level artists, they may not have that kind of freedom."

"Transparency is not a thing in the gig pricing world" Photo: Getty Images

"The music industry is in an absolute crisis of its own making," says Murphy. "In the old days, people bought records, even before that people bought sheet music. There was a predictable stream of income associated with a hit record boom. Now the emphasis and the revenue is coming from the live situation."

When it comes to making money off gigs, there's a new kid on the block changing the game: dynamic pricing. It’s "revolutionised ticket pricing," Murphy says. Think of hotels and plane tickets, where the price can change depending on when you book. "That's coming to the music industry and has had traumatic consequences for the person who likes music."

We haven’t seen it in use in Ireland (yet), but it’s used widely in the UK and US, where fans have been devastated by skyrocketing prices. "With dynamic pricing the computer knows how many people want to buy the ticket and it pushes the price up.

From RTÉ Radio 1's Ray D'Arcy Show, interview with promoter Peter Aiken about promoting Ed Sheeran and Garth Brooks

"Artists and managers, booking agents and promoters, have seen the economic value of the concert ticket. To me, a concert ticket is like treasure. Very few things in life compare to the awe, the sense of collective joy of going to see an artist that you love."

The difference is, that "in the old days, only two people knew the value of the ticket price; that was the person who was willing to pay it and the scalper who was outside. Scalping went under the umbrella of ticket sales people with the secondary markets, so suddenly people knew how much a fan was willing to pay." In Ireland, ticket touting, the practice of reselling tickets above the face value price, was banned by law in July 2021.

But the problem with dynamic pricing in the context of gig tickets is that the shows often sell out fast, unlike hotels and plane seats. Waiting for a good time to buy usually isn't an option with gigs, regardless of the type of pricing. As a consumer, you don’t have the freedom or the flexibility needed because concerts are often for one night only when it comes to big names or sometimes two or three nights. You only get five in row if you’re Garth Brooks and it's in Ireland.

From RTÉ 2fm's Dave Fanning Show, Gary Donohoe from the University of Galway on the psychology of collective experiences, such as 400,000 Irish people buying Garth Brooks' tickets

"I'm a hostage to fortune if I want to see Beyoncé or Coldplay or whoever", points out Murphy, "because they might only be doing one show in Ireland that year, or in five years. Something could happen, they could retire. So every time you're going to a concert you're facing the possibility you might never get to see that artist in those circumstances again.

"Ultimately, this is Ticketmaster and Live Nation who are the most experienced sellers of concert tickets in the world. Ticketing is now a global process. Traditionally, the Irish have been very great supporters of live music. We've generally paid more for concerts than people in England for the same act, on the same tour. We are such a gift to the global music industry, because we spend a lot of money on international artists and we don't spend that much, relative to other countries, on our own artists.

Murphy believes the artist is "integral" to the conversation around pricing, but the people who are advising them work on commission. "The more money the concert generates, the better for the manager. You've got to balance that with the long term building of the fanbase, of encouraging people to feel that you're reachable. The concert is the ultimate 'I’m breathing the same air as my favourite pop star’."

From RTÉ Radio 1's Liveline, listeners discuss buying ticket insurance for events

Murphy namechecks Ed Sheeran as someone who has battled to keep prices down, like Pearl Jam and Fugazi in the past. Artists and promoters need to be careful not to alienate fans when they're deciding how to ticket their events.

"No-one’s forced to buy a concert ticket. It’s their decision, but it's an emotional decision. It's a really important decision. It’s a lifetime event. The music industry historically just leaps into crisis of its own making. So the music industry deserves no sympathy. But there will come a stage, if people don't want to pay ticket prices that are too high, that you know, literally there are other things you can do."

Or they might start organising their own gigs like the DIY teens of the 70s 80s in Ireland. "Ultimately people have a choice and if the live industry makes concert tickets into a complete luxury for the elite, then there's a bunch of 15 or 16-year-olds in Claremorris who will think, 'we’ll do it ourselves’. That’s my only hope."

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ

Why are Irish gig tickets so expensive?

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