The Reason Gigs Are So BLOODY Expensive 

This show is now an integral part of my week

As someone who goes to over 100 gigs a year I find the £2.50 e-ticket an unacceptable addition.

Ticketmaster charge weird fees from the band as well. ”why am I paying a ‘merch fee’ when I made the merch, stocked the stand and my sister is doing all the sales?!?” a band complained.

Everyone: Why are companies charging so much for tickets, its not fair, why are they doing it!?? Marina: i bought tickets from a touting site for 10x the ticket value!

Whenever i bought a ticket, it said "not for resale" on the back. It's a condition of purchase and has almost never been enforced. The solution is not hard. In 2003/4/5ish Glastonbury sold out in about five seconds and loads of tickets immediately appeared on eBay. Glastonbury cancelled them, refunded the money and resold them. The next year you had to register to be able to buy a ticket. Id and a maximum of 2 tickets per purchase. It was a pain, but it worked. The main problem was groups of 4 or 6 trying to get tickets and only getting 2 or 4 before they sold out

Bieber was caught scalping his own tickets a while back. Turned out after all the accounting for all the tickets reserved for clubs, VIP presale, etc, virtually none of his tickets were actually available to the general public.

God i love this Podcast. Hosted by two smart , charming and funny Presenters answering questions i didnt realise i desperately wanted to know the answers to. ps my partner just bought me the whole Thursday Murder Club book series for my 67th Birthday. What a great read. I cannot wait for the movie. pps does anybody out there know if Ron is being played by Pierce Brosnan or Jim Broadbent? Ive read conflicting reports ( either would be fabulous)

Poor 'Fred Olsen' not hurting anyone, selling tickets for his cruise ships, must be gutted to now be confused with 'Fred Ronsen' the evil CEO behind Ticketmaster😮

Hi Marina, professional animator and I wanted to mention something. As it stands and even with improvements and developments in the next five years, there is no way an entire feature length animated film realistically could be made by AI. Used to further help production? Absolutely But replacing an work force? Impossible. I think it shows people do not know what people who work on an animated film do because to be fair it's a totally insulated industry. We don't just design the characters and type it all into a computer and the computer 'makes it all happen'. People logically know that but don't know where the line ends with 'computer does the rest'. Safe to say, the computer is like Microsoft word, it doesn't type out the novel for you. You have to manually do it all yourself. (Sometimes you have to make an entire alphabet from scratch.) To compare it to a film set, AI could do lots of things but it currently does not have the ability to do it 'correctly'. It can describe how it wants a costume to look but it can't sew it can it? No, but if it could, the actual costume itself might be mixing several wrong periods of dress together. or the sleeves might be the wrong size causing the actor to not be able to raise their arms. This is what using AI in animation is like. It would take more work to fix its mess. Naive executives often think this and if AI is used yeah that's a bad thing for everyone, the audience, animators, and eventually the executives who'll have to scramble to get everyone back. It's not like they're short on people there's a lot of unemployment in the industry right now. Pixar the other week have fired employees who have been there for 15 years, companies are becoming more and more souless.

Exclusive venue deals are, by their very nature, anti-competitive. These vertically-integrated companies are an example of the corporate greedscam - they take what looks like reasonable margin at every step, ending in massive rip-offs of the consumer by the time all the mark-ups accumulate. Breaking them up would be a godsend.

Ticketmaster is the real world equivalent to EvilCorp. The cost of seeing my musical heroes in the 70’s and 80’s compared to now is insane. The time counter is so stressful to get the payment through, I’ve not been to a gig for about 5 years, getting old now…. But I assume it’s still there. And the concept of increasing prices prices based on demand is wrong. I saw Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band in the 80s for about 10 quid now it’s in the hundreds of pounds or more. Just ridiculous and wrong. Great podcast as always.

The last tickets I got via Ticketmaster had fees of an additional 20% of the final ticket price. They are screwing over fans left, right, and centre. I'm glad Labour has the policy, which some of us have been lobbying for for well over 10 years now.

Live pitch? Dragons Den for films. Movie makers pitch to five movie moguls…. I’d watch it.

I bloody love that jacket!

Instead of capping resale prices, why not just kill the market and ban resales? You should only be able to gift the tickets or sell them back to the venue for the price you paid (minus any admin fees). Those two options should suit everyone who genuinely doesn't want their tickets anymore, but will have no interest to those who are solely looking to make a profit out of reselling.

Some Americans are fine with limits on how much they can sell their tickets for. New York has scalping laws. In addition to restrictions on how close to the venue you can resell tickets, the maximum price is $5 or 10% above the face value of the ticket (whichever is higher).

Ticketmaster in and of itself isn't the problem the problem was the merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation. This should never have been allowed to happen and it is anti-consumer, because it it doesn't just control a portion of one sector of the market, it controls a large share of the vertical market Where the emerged company is adding cost at multiple levels which shows in the final ticket price

It's live nation who introduced inflated prices for golden circles, this used to be an award for getting to a venue early. I was at RHCP gig in Manchester in 2022, first time not in golden circle (though was at the barrier for the general access area), as won't pay inflated prices for the privilege and saw people in the golden circle who clearly for the prestige of being in that area and were more interested in their food and drink rather than the band. It needs to return to golden circles being for those passionate enough to get there early, as this shows and affects the interaction with the crowd for the better.

ok but can someone on this earth explain to me why like in 2016 i could buy a ticket really close to the stage for £35 but that same ticket now is "02 priority seats" or something at like over £200? they come up with a fee for wanting to breathe in the venue. lets not even get into accessibility and disability seats. then, why are these companies alllowing the bots to buy and resell for even more? the bots aren't going give these companies their 70% share.

Would love to hear your predictions for this summer box office

Vis-a-vis '3 Body Problem', is the continuation of its telling anything to do with retaining the audience satisfaction of the relatively large group of Netflix patrons that did watch it and want to see how it ends?

I have stopped going to concerts and just go to festivals instead. They are more affordable and the crowd is better. Taylor Swift, Springsteen, Coldplay, Beyonce, U2 … these are all artists that a lot of people can’t afford to go and see anymore. When did concerts become a luxury product?

Heard Kid Rock bought a venue outright himself, stocked the place with his food and alcohol then charged a discounted rate for tickets and still made a fortune! But he is sick of the venues and ticket master charging the fans ridiculous amounts to go to gigs

Good old fashioned ticket touts used to gough the seller before the buyer The only time I saw England play was a friendly against Brazil. I paid a tout face value and sat behind a good old fashioned wembley pillar so I saw next to nothing. Next time was a new order gig, again face value, without the booking fee, queuing insurance... I'm starting to see a way around this. I'm going to buy a raincoat and walk up and down queues saying "any tick-etza, any tick-etza"

The speed that films moves from cinemas to streaming is killing cinemas.

why do the audio versions of this get released before the video versions? I much prefer to watch the videos but usually I am too keen to know what is said

So, the relaunch of loaded has pushed the eBay price of my original first edition up to somewhere between £18.50 and £29.99. I presume that's the same as the cover price of the relaunched version?

People should not only be talking about TM/LN shady practices, but also about how artists fleece their fans thru various VIP packages. Pay 2x, and get early access. Pay 3x and get early access + merch box. Pay 4x and get whatever else. Looking there at Taylor Swift and Rolling Stones specifically.

I loved 3 body problem!

Worth noting that one piece is based on a manga that has outsold batman and is the second biggest selling comic of all time behind only superman selling over 500million copies... So algorithm or not, its not a surprise that it is so big. The real surprise was that it is good

The Cure managed to get Ticketmaster to issue refunds and lower the fees for their US tour in 2023. This is was after complaints from fans. The band had kept ticket prices down, and in some cases, Ticketmaster's were more than the price of the ticket.

The only thing I remember from my Economics GCSE is "price elasticity of demand" and I feel compelled to say it out loud whenever the opportunity arises; the same applies to seeing a Chinook helicopter.

If there happens to be a problem with the fence? How do you work out who is responsible?

Oh you've made the mistake of confusing Loaded with the likes of FHM etc. There were far less women objectified than you remember and it's content was far more wordy than you seem to think. It was their quickly pulled together competition that went for the tabloid type content to the extreme.

I was lucky to acdc tickets at release for £145. The next day my mate went to get some they were £399 which is just obscene markup

Seems like a reasonable law regulation to limit resale prices to x% above face; break them up from venue operation and ticket promotion seems like a good idea too.

Dads-Mag. Kinda love it. Not gonna sell, but kinda love it.

They can cap ticket profits at 10%, but doing it with homes would probably have more of an impact. I miss paying £3 at the venue to get in

The speed at which Marina speaks turned me off this episode - like listening to a verbal machine gun; bordering on painful. Richard even seemed to speed up his speech at times, maybe trying to get a word in or maybe to try to prevent Marina from constantly interrupting. Sadly, I lost interest and tolerance with this podcast (that I really loved previously).

Re: Loaded. Their target audience is the people who read the original? I used to buy Loaded and FHM as a teenager in the late 90s… I wouldn’t even consider picking them up now.

Christmas movies start on cable in August.

3 Body Problem was one of Netflix's biggest shows of the year so far.

I can't help but think artists see the mark up secondry sites make and they think that if people are willing to pay that much more than the original price then the original price should be higher. Why should resellers get the profit instead of the artist.

Marina, by the end of the podcasts, do your arms ache? I have NEVER seen anyone gesture as much as you since Magnus Pike!!

I remember when Scalping was illegal

Lornyette is my favourite new word of the week, thanks Marina

absolutely love Mariana’s take on all things wether it be entertainment or politics… But for FS give the bashing of The Fall Guy a rest for a week or two! Puleeeeze

Loaded is coming back?! Well well... :)

Two shows a week is not enough

Kind of think that the artist is in control of the experience they give their fans. Small gig options on the tour run are a welcome addition. Seeing rolling stones at Brixton academy Vs Twickenham was like chalk and cheese.

The key point you didn't cover on ticket pricing is that the tickets for the really big shows (Taylor Swift in particular) are massively discounted from their fair market value. We know from the secondary market that people are willing to pay ten times face value for tickets. The artists could just add a zero to all their ticket prices, still sell out and make absolutely crazy money. They don't because they want real fans to be able to attend. It is ridiculous for people to be complaining about prices when they are getting a 90% discount from the fair market value. This, incidentally, is the proof that Ticketmaster is not setting the prices. They would obviously charge the full market value if it were up to them. The prices are being set by the artists.

Ya'll keep giving away these million-dollar ideas. First "Close Work" and now "Eggnog."

Streaming services sucked all the artist money out of music. So artists started to make money by live events. So digital touts sucked all the money out of live events, while allowing scalpers to run rampant. Technology making things "easier for the consumer"........

Be interested to know how Louis CK is going with his ticketing. As I understand it, he sells most of his concert tickets, as well as access to merch and streaming content, through his emailing list

Marina is a master-class in how incredible it is to have an ADHD brain. Every day I thank my lucky stars that I was blessed with ADHD and people don't understand. Then along comes this incredible woman that validates the heck out of me! ❤

Due to TM total control and questionable tactics to sell at higher prices I have given up on going to live concerts. Stick to local bands and local venues .

the only thing that matters in the Ticketmaster thing is that Ticketmaster is owned by liberty, liberty owns F1and f1 has illegally denied Andretti entry. if Ticketmaster loses, liberty is in trouble with f1

It's Friday. Where's my Q&A 😭

Point of order. Gary Oldman was the original cover girl of loaded.

Marina - stop interrupting!

Robbie Williams and Metallica have been complicit in inflated resale.

Perhaps I'm too impatient and you will mention it but Pearl Jam tried to go against Ticketmaster in the 90s but clearly didn't work out. Edit: yep too impatient

why do all these daughters have such bad taste in music? they need to be flown to Europe to see TS?

Are you ever going to do a crossover episode with the rest is politics?

45:07 .... Richard pretends he's not a millionaire.

If Furiosa is so good....what has Mad Max got to do with it?

Don’t knock them Richard, I first met my mother at a bikini range.

l had to pay 60p to see Led Zeppelin in 1971 and they only played for two and a half hours. Outrageous!

Try making a really good Christmas movie and see what happens. People watch what they can get.

Prices get to high boycott your artist to put pressure on Ticket Master. No talent is worth those high prices. SAD for parents

I kever liked touts.... but at least they were getting wet if it was raining and lost money if the show didn't sell out...ebay started fucking everything up and it's gone downhill since then

Ticketmaster….aaargh their customer help is atrocious!! Trying to get a straight answer for a simple question is beyond me.

Sort of related, £10 on top if you want your ticket it in paper format. EF That. Historic music scrapbox's are going exstinct.

Could you please, please, please squeeze in some more adverts please? Cheers

10 minutes of Ticketmaster/Live Nation monopoly discussion, but you guys talk about as if Taylor Swift is the only musical act on the planet. - missing the entire focus of the FTC’s case. I like this podcast normally, but it’s also a real let down when these two let their neoliberal ultra capitalist ideology seep out. You should occasionally talk to people outside of your economic class.

Politics is everything, and everything is politics; the rest is entertainment.

Since "Country house" was mentioned, wanted to ask what Richard and Marina think of Damien Hirst? That a douchey bloke like him is so widely celebrated seems to be just another example of the many injustices in the world.

Sadly, this is the second consecutive episode that I’ve found boring. The Ticketmaster topic didn’t interest me and I’m not really interested in listening to Marina go on and on.

Honest Feedback: These ‘Premieres’ are so incredibly annoying. Most people I subscribe to have stopped using it tbh!

Sorry did Marina have too much caffeine before this podcast? I'm having a hard time following any of her lines of thought. 😅 But then I am American and haven't had enough caffeine yet 😂

The first gig Ticketmaster handled was ELO, eh? That was some blue-sky thinking.

Event tickets are a very straightforward supply-demand problem. There are simply way more willing punters then there are seats and dates available. If one decides to set the prices low and somehow manages to largely eliminate scalping, then either the tickets are going to all go almost immediately, or one has to have a kind of lottery system. The alternative is to raise the price to lower demand (and also potentially incentivize the artist to tour more and increase supply). There's just no way some people aren't going to be disappointed. The real hopeful good outcome of pushing on Ticketmaster is that they also have the effect of suppressing which artists play at venues. It would be better to let the venues have more flexibility.

Before you ask about exorbitant tickets, discuss home energy prices, which are not optional. You can miss a concert but winter heating is compulsory.

If ticket prices were correct, there would be no room for scalpers. Gervais has figured it out, and raised prices on popular seats and made them expensive enough that there is no room for scalpers to make money.

very interesting,! one note, people definitely say Ariana is an arsehole....

Loaded magazine was ace, for a couple of years anyway. eg. Crisp World Cup. Once the tits overwhelmed the humour it lost its way.

Monopoly+extortion=Ticketbastard

It’s little wonder Mad Max Furiosa did so poorly in opening weekend. The film doesn’t contain mad max!

It's easy to say "if it weren't for the scalpers, I'd be paying a lot less for these tickets", but more often it's actually "if it weren't for the scalpers, I wouldn't have a ticket at all". The thing scalpers do is move tickets from enthusiastic fans to rich fans, and take a big cut in the process.

welcome to another edition of The Rest Is Capitalism

Constructive feedback. Less coffee beforehand perhaps

Just don't go to concerts. New music sucks anyway.

Check your description folks, it's 'its', not 'it's'.

I disagree about the bloodline theory, narrative is wrong and especially when it is so couched, may as well support trump if that is all you have to offer

It's called Anime Richard.

Trump supporters! You really went there ??? 🤔

Oh my god! Listening to Marina talk is maddening. All the asides, stream of consciousness side stories and attempts at snide humor makes it incredibly hard to follow her points. Does she ever watch her performances back? Her crazy rant starting at 10:04 is particularly manic. Like listening to a coke head discuss ticket prices.

See you on Thursday? This *is* Thursday. Your release schedule has gone to pieces this last couple of weeks.

I'm British, and even I don't say 'Gen Zed'... EDIT: She didn't even say 'Gen Zed', it was 'Gen Zed-ers'. Just say 'Zoomers' like a normal person.