Ed Power: Are concerts like Coldplay and Taylor Swift worth the high ticket price for fans?

Big stars are tentatively seeing how far they can raise prices without damaging their image. Ed Power questions how this will change the concert-going experience for fans

Nothing breaks the FOMO fever like realising a concert is just a concert and that missing Taylor Swift or Coldplay isn’t the end of the world. Picture: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images

Remember when going to concerts was fun? It’s been a while. Nowadays, seeing your favourite artist on stage feels like a mix of extreme sport and an exercise in pulverising your bank account – and that’s after navigating the digital purgatory that is Ticketmaster. By the time you get to the show, your wallet decimated, your nerves frayed, you may ask: is it worth it?

As we emerge from the pandemic, what’s increasingly clear is that the touring industry is determined to recoup what it lost during those two years away. Or at least that is true for that handful of top artists everyone wants to see – including Coldplay, whose quartet of 2024 Croke Park dates sold out in a heartbeat during presale, with more tickets to be released in the general sale on Friday morning. 

There has long been an (unspoken) feeling within live music that concert tickets are underpriced: if people are willing to pay €500 to see Taylor Swift blaze through her hits for three hours, then why charge €100 for the privilege?

Taylor Swift performs during The Eras Tour. Picture: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

The problem for artists until now is that much of their appeal rests on their image: how their audience perceives them. They don’t want to be seen as greedy, so tickets have stayed at a level that some within the business regard as artificially low. But now, post-pandemic, big stars are tentatively seeing how far they can raise prices without damaging their image.

So far, they have survived a potential backlash. In the US, where touring is even more tooth and claw than in Ireland, Bruce Springsteen gave the green light to touring behemoth Live Nation to introduce “dynamic” pricing for his latest dates. That meant tickets were priced according to demand – a bit like how airlines charge for tickets (although not wholly: concert tickets don’t automatically decline in price when uptake is low).

The results were striking. The best Springsteen tickets ended up going for $5,000 (€4.5k). Equally notable was the fact that Springsteen didn’t suffer much reputational damage. The Boss was still The Boss, even after he came out and said he was essentially looking for the best deal for himself.

“What I do is a very simple thing,” Springsteen said to Rolling Stone. “I tell my guys, ‘Go out and see what everybody else is doing. Let’s charge a little less.’ That’s generally the directions. They go out and set it up. For the past 49 years, or however long we’ve been playing, we’ve pretty much been out there under market value. I’ve enjoyed that. It’s been great for the fans.

Bruce Springsteen performing recently in Germany. Picture: Georg Wendt/dpa via AP

“This time I told them, ‘Hey, we’re 73 years old. The guys are there. I want to do what everybody else is doing, my peers,’” Springsteen added. “So that’s what happened. That’s what they did.” 

You can bet the touring industry took notice. Springsteen could charge eye-watering prices – and his fans stayed with him. Dynamic pricing has yet to be rolled out in Ireland. However, Live Nation and its ticketing wing Ticketmaster have been putting a premium on popular tours – such as Harry Styles’s Slane Castle gigs, for which some tickets were sold through the official site for double their face value of €195 instead of €97.

The BBC asked about this and was told the pricing represented: “an important shift necessary to maintaining the vibrancy and creativity of the live music industry” and that “promoters and artist representatives set pricing strategy and price range parameters on all tickets, including fixed and market price points”.

It continued: “Like sports teams, artist representatives and promoters recognise the benefit of pricing tickets closer to market value”.

Again, such pricing did not impact Harry Styles, who remained beloved by his Irish fans. The flak was absorbed 100 percent by Ticketmaster, notwithstanding that Live Nation fully owns it and that these pricing structures are only possible with the approval of the artists.

Ticketmaster, in other words, has become a pain-sponge soaking up all the criticism and hatred, while artists largely escape any fallout.

Coldplay performing at Croke Park, Dublin in 2017. Picture: Stephen Collins/Collins Photos

Still, there has been an impact on concert going. The more you pay, the more pressure you feel to have a good time. Next summer’s visit to Taylor Swift at the Aviva will be strange for those who stumped up €743.62 for the 'Karma is My Boyfriend' package. How can you shell out that sort of money without it impacting on your experience?

Pay fifty quid to see a band, and you won’t be upset if someone stands in front of you or spills their drink while pushing by. Fork out over ten times that amount and the dynamic changes – for me, that €743.62 'Karma' package has, for instance, ruined the Taylor Swift song, 'Karma'. When my daughter plays it, all I can think is the gimlet-eyed calculation behind charging so much to see an artist with a huge fanbase of children, where pester power increases the pressure to pay through the nose for tickets.

With artists demanding – and receiving – such sums, perhaps it is no surprise that how we conduct ourselves shows has changed. Audiences are more entitled. They’ve forked out eye-watering amounts. Why shouldn’t they behave as they see fit? Hence the increase in incidents of fans chucking objects at performers: a container containing a person’s ashes at Pink, a phone at Drake, and so on.

“It’s fair to say that at The O2 we’ve definitely seen, across multiple genres, a change in audience behaviour,” Emma Bownes, vice-president of venue programming at London’s O2 arena, told the International Live Music Conference last March. 

“I go to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival every year, and I noticed a massive trend in quite aggressive heckling. Heckling’s always been a thing in comedy, but it’s not as prevalent as it definitely is now.” 

Taylor Swift performs during The Eras Tour. Picture: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

You may have noticed that shift yourself: I was at a recent show where the guy in front of me merrily vaped throughout. His calculation seemed to be that he’d handed over €100. Why shouldn’t he puff at will?

The smoke was annoying - but I found it hard to disagree. At another gig, two women behind me spoke at such volume they drowned out the singer. I (very respectfully) asked them to tone it down – people three rows in front of me were turning around in frustration. They jumped to their feet, started dancing and one of them made sure to “accidentally” thunk me on the back of their head as she swung her arms.

Where is all this headed? Perhaps in a direction the industry may not welcome. After Taylor Swift’s European tour went on sale, social media was full of people reporting they had been offered tickets for multiples of €100 but had decided it wasn’t worth it. 

Nothing breaks the FOMO fever like realising a concert is just a concert and that missing Taylor Swift or Coldplay isn’t the end of the world. You can pay €10 to see Barbie instead and feel just as connected to something bigger than yourself. That’s the karma artists will pray isn’t coming down the tracks.