Gig tickets
I have many gripes about the way in which gig tickets are sold these days. Top of the list though is the notice given to sale date. Gig tickets are expensive. Not everyone has a spare £50-£100 kicking about to spend at 2 days notice. Even if they do the chances of convincing, coordinating and transferring money from your friends in time is nigh on impossible. Also (and this is my main gripe) why is it so difficult to find out the prices!? Some gigs at the same venues for similar popularity bands are £30 and for others it's £80. (U2 vs Eminem there). The price is important and it is rude to expect fans to pay whatever price is revealed seconds before the mad scrum to secure before they are sold out. I frequent gigs of all flavours enough to know that anything over £30 requires further thought than 'fuck it let's do it' yet most events give us 2-5 days notice to spend £50+. I shall be forking out for 2 tickets to Eminem on Friday to be paid back on one later. At £82 plus postage on the cheapest that is not an inconsiderable investment. Coldplay will be releasing their Albert Hall tickets soon as well which will be slightly cheaper but not much. The only time I have spent this much on a gig ticket was for The Wall last year and even then I took 6 months to decide. This is do or don't on Friday morning. I didn't bother with Jay Z because his gigs took the piss - despite riding the tube to get there!. I want to do the same for this but it's his first proper tour UK show since 2001 (when I first became a fan) and I can't risk holding out hope for him to play Glasto and then actually getting tickets that year he does. Another way in which labels/management take advantage of fans. I refuse to believe it is greedy artists. It does also tend to be Americans that over price their gigs. Seems it's dollars for pounds and not the good way round.
