Ticketmaster and Live Nation have destroyed the concert experience. But it didn’t use to be this way. Today, Oasis and Taylor Swift tickets might go for thousands of dollars, but back in 1955, you could see Elvis Presley in concert for less than the modern-day equivalent of $20.
Do you think if they’d charged ten times more that people would have still gone? Something has changed about there being enough people who’ll pay $200 (equivalent)
I suspect people now just go to see their, one, most favourite artist, maybe once every 5 years or something. As opposed to going to see one or two artists per year before. Or for people who want to be able to continue to go once or more a year, they just see newer artists who have reasonable prices.
I mean any real music fan these days, who doesn’t have a massive budget, should be going to festivals instead of individual gigs as these are massively better value for money.
Which came first though? Either people stopped going (and they charged more to compensate) or demand increased (so they found they’d still fill the room at a higher price)?
Why do you assume this has anything to do with a supply/demand curve? Because that’s the first thing you were taught in Econ 101 and it stuck?
In reality, most people aren’t that sensitive to small changes in price. And the demand drop is not instant. It might take months or years. Execs make the decision to raise the price, they don’t see the demand drop off immediately, and they instantly absolve themselves of any responsibility for the effects of their price increase. After all, there was hardly any demand drop in the quarter in which they made the change.
Look at say, Coca-Cola. You could easily double the price in five years and the price is negligible enough that most people won’t even notice. (Oh wait, they did this.)
Yes income and wealth inequality. Elites v peasants and boomers v everybody else.